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Title: The Foundations of Japan
       Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As
       A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People
       

Author: J.W. Robertson Scott

Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14613]

Language: English

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[Illustration: BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL]

[Illustration: JUJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL. p. 50]

YOUNG JAPAN

[_Frontispiece_




THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FAR EASTERN

THE PEOPLE OF CHINA
JAPAN, GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD.
  (Nippon Eikoku oyobi Sekai.)
THE IGNOBLE WARRIOR. (Koredemo Bushika.)
THE NEW EAST. (Tokyo.) Vols. I, II & III.
  (Edited.)

AGRICULTURAL

A FREE FARMER IN A FREE STATE. (Holland.)
WAR TIME AND PEACE IN HOLLAND. (With
  an Introduction by the late LORD REAY.)
THE LAND PROBLEM: AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY
SUGAR BEET: SOME FACTS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS.
  A Study in Rural Therapeutics.
THE TOWNSMAN'S FARM
THE SMALL FARM
POULTRY FARMING: SOME FACTS AND SOME
  ILLUSIONS
THE CASE FOR THE GOAT. (With Introductions
  by the DUCHESS OF HAMILTON and SIR H.
  RIDER HAGGARD.)
COUNTRY COTTAGES
THE STORY OF THE DUNMOW FLITCH
IN SEARCH OF AN £150 COTTAGE. (Edited.)
THE JOURNAL OF A JOURNEYMAN FARMER.
  (Edited.)


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



THE FOUNDATIONS
OF JAPAN

NOTES MADE DURING JOURNEYS OF
6,000 MILES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS AS
A BASIS FOR A SOUNDER KNOWLEDGE
OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

BY J.W. ROBERTSON SCOTT

("HOME COUNTIES")

WITH 85 ILLUSTRATIONS


"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door, yet it is a little window"


LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1922




TO

SCOTT SAN NO OKUSAN

FOR WHOLESOME CRITICISM




A concern arose to spend some time with them that I might feel and
understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might
receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree
helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them when
the troubles of War were increasing and when travelling was more
difficult than usual. I looked upon it as a more favourable
opportunity to season my mind and to bring me into a nearer sympathy
with them.--_Journal of John Woolman_, 1762.

I determined to commence my researches at some distance from the
capital, being well aware of the erroneous ideas I must form should I
judge from what I heard in a city so much subjected to foreign
intercourse.--BORROW.




INTRODUCTION


The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may
be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of
the West with Asia which the historian of the future will
unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time.

I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of
many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was
told chiefly during rural journeys--more than half the population is
rural--extending to twice the distance across the United States or
nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John
o' Groats.

These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other
volume has explored. Because they fall short of what was planned, and
in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may
be pardoned on the beginnings of the book--one of the many literary
victims of the War.

The first book I ever bought was about the Far East. The first leading
article of my journalistic apprenticeship in London was about Korea.
When I left daily journalism, at the time of the siege of the Peking
Legations, the first thing I published was a book pleading for a
better understanding of the Chinese.

After that, as a cottager in Essex, I wrote--above a _nom de guerre_
which is better known than I am--a dozen volumes on rural subjects.
During a visit to the late David Lubin in Rome I noticed in the big
library of his International Institute of Agriculture that there was
no took in English dealing with the agriculture of Japan.[1] Just
before the War the thoughts of forward-looking students of our home
affairs ran strongly on the relation of intelligently managed small
holdings to skilled capitalist farming.[2] During the early "business
as usual" period of the War, when no tasks had been found for men over
military age--Mr. Wells's protest will be remembered--it occurred to
me that it might be serviceable if I could have ready, for the period
of rural reconstruction and readjustment of our international ideas
when the War was over, two books of a new sort. One should be a
stimulating volume on Japan, based on a study, more sociological than
technically agricultural, of its remarkable small-farming system and
rural life, and the other a complementary American volume based on a
study of the enterprising large farming of the Middle West. I proposed
to write the second book in co-operation with a veteran rural reformer
who had often invited me to visit him in Iowa, the father of the
present American Minister of Agriculture. Early in 1915 I set out for
Japan to enter upon the first part of my task. Mr. Wallace died while
I was still in Japan, and the Middle West book remains to be
undertaken by someone else.

The Land of the Rising Sun has been fortunate in the quality of the
books which many foreigners have written.[3] But for every work at the
standard of what might be called the seven "M's"--Mitford, Murdoch,
Munro, Morse, Maclaren, "Murray" and McGovern--there are many volumes
of fervid "pro-Japanese" or determined "anti-Japanese" romanticism.
The pictures of Japan which such easily perused books present are
incredible to readers of ordinary insight or historical imagination,
but they have had their part in forming public opinion.

The basic fact about Japan is that it is an agricultural country.
Japanese æstheticism, the victorious Japanese army and navy, the
smoking chimneys of Osaka, the pushing mercantile marine, the
Parliamentary and administrative developments of Tokyo and a costly
worldwide diplomacy are all borne on the bent backs of _Ohyakusho no
Fufu_,[4] the Japanese peasant farmer and his wife. The depositories
of the authentic _Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit) are to be found
knee deep in the sludge of their paddy fields.

One book about Japan may well be written in the perspective of the
village and the hamlet. There it is possible to find the way beneath
that surface of things visible to the tourist. There it is possible to
discover the _foundations_ of the Japan which is intent on cutting
such a figure in the East and in the West. There it is possible to
learn not only what Japan is but what she may have it in her to
become.

A rural sociologist is not primarily interested in the technique of
agriculture. He conceives agriculture and country life as Arthur Young
and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone
of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close
acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently
small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to
be precious in the rural life of my own land.

An interest in rural problems cannot be simulated. As I journeyed
about the country the sincerity of my purpose--there are few words in
commoner use in the Far East than sincerity--was recognised and
appreciated. I enjoyed conversations in which customary barriers had
been broken down and those who spoke said what they felt. We
inevitably discussed not only agricultural economy but life, religion
and morality, and the way Japan was taking.

I spoke and slept in Buddhist temples. I was received at Shinto
shrines. I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings
of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more
persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so
many _gaku_[5] for school walls and for my kind hosts that my memory
was drained of maxims. I attended guileless horse-races. I was present
at agricultural shows, fairs, wrestling matches, _Bon_ dances, village
and county councils and the strangest of public meetings. I talked not
only with farmers and their families but with all kinds of landlords,
with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, policemen, shopkeepers,
priests, co-operative society enthusiasts, village officials, county
officials, prefectural officials, a score of Governors and an Ainu
chief. I sought wisdom from Ministers of State and nobles of every
rank, from the Prince who is the heir of the last of the Shoguns down
to democratic Barons who prefer to be called "Mr.", I chatted with
farmers' wives and daughters, I interrogated landladies and mill
girls, and I paid a memorable visit to a Buddhist nunnery. I walked,
talked, rode, ate and bathed with common folk and with dignitaries. I
discussed the situation of Japan with the new countryman in college
agricultural laboratories and classrooms, and, in a remote region,
beheld what is rare nowadays, the old countryman kneeling before his
cottage with his head to the ground as the stranger rode past.

I made notes as I traversed paddy-field paths, by mountain ways, in
colleges, schools, houses and inns. It can only have been when
crossing water on men's backs that I did not make notes. I jotted
things down as I walked, as I sat, as I knelt, as I lay on my _futon_,
as I journeyed in _kuruma_, on horseback, in jolting _basha_, in
automobiles, in shaking cross-country trains and in boats; in
brilliant sunshine and sweltering heat, in the shade and in dust; in
the early morning with chilled fingers or more or less furtively as I
crouched at protracted private or official repasts, or late at night
endeavoured to gather crumbs from the wearing conversation of polite
callers who, though set on helping me, did not always find it easy to
understand the kind of information of which I was in search. One of
these asked my travelling companion _sotto voce_, "Is he after metal
mines?"

I went on my own trips and on routes planned out for me by
agricultural and social zealots, and from time to time I returned
physically and mentally fatigued to my little Japanese house near
Tokyo to rest and to write out from my memoranda, to seek data for new
districts from the obliging Department of Agriculture and the
Agricultural College people at the Imperial University, and to eat and
drink with rural authorities who chanced to be visiting the capital
from distant prefectures. I had many setbacks. I was misinformed, now
and then intentionally and often unintentionally. There were many days
which were not only harassing but seemingly wasted. I often despaired
of achieving results worth all the exertion I was making and the money
I was spending. I must have worn to shreds the patience of some
English-speaking Japanese friends, but they never owned defeat. In the
end I found that I made progress.

But so did the War, which when I set out from London few believed
would last long. I was troubled by continually meeting with incredible
ignorance about the War, the issues at stake and the certain end. The
Japanese who talked with me were 10,000 miles away from the fighting.
Japan had nothing to lose, everything indeed to gain from the
abatement of Europe's activities in Asia. Not only Japanese soldiers
but many administrative, educational, agricultural and commercial
experts had been to school in Germany. There was much in common in the
German and Japanese mentalities, much alike in Central European and
Farthest East regard for the army and for order, devotion to
regulations, habit of subordination and deification of the State.
Eventually the well-known anti-Ally campaign broke out in Tokyo, a
thing which has never been sufficiently explained. Soon I was pressed
to turn aside from my studies and attempt the more immediately useful
task: to explain why Western nations, whose manifest interests were
peace, were resolutely squandering their blood and wealth in War.

If what I published had some measure of success,[6] it was because by
this time, unlike some of the critics who sharply upbraided Japan and
made impossible proposals in impossible terms, I had learnt something
at first hand about the Japanese, because I wrote of the difficulties
as well as the faults of Japan, and because I was now a little known
as her well-wisher. One of the two books I published was translated as
a labour of love, as I shall never forget, by a Japanese public man
whose leisure was so scant that he sat up two nights to get his
manuscript finished. Before long I had involved myself in the arduous
task of founding and of editing for two years a monthly review, _The
New East (Shin Toyo)_,[7] with for motto a sentence of my own which
expresses what wisdom I have gained about the Orient, _The real
barrier between East and West is a distrust of each other's morality
and the illusion that the distrust is on one side only._

The excuse for so personal a digression is that, when this period of
literary and journalistic stress began, my rural notebooks and MSS.,
memoranda of conversations on social problems and a heterogeneous
collection of reports and documents had to be stowed into boxes. There
they stayed until a year ago. The entries in a dozen of my little
hurriedly filled notebooks have lost their flavour or are
unintelligible: I have put them all aside. Neither is it possible to
utilise notes which were submarined or lost in over-worked post
offices. This book--I have had to leave out Kyushu entirely--is not
the work I planned, a complete account of rural life and industry in
every part of Japan, with an excursus on Korea and Formosa, and
certain general conclusions: a standard work, no doubt, in, I am
afraid, two volumes, and forgetful at times of the warning that "to
spend too much Time in Studies is Sloth."

What I had transcribed before leaving Japan I have now been able in
the course of a leisured year in England to overhaul and to supplement
by up-to-date statistics in an extensive Appendix. In the changed
circumstances in which the book is completed I have also ruthlessly
transferred to this Appendix all the technical matter in the text, so
that nothing shall obstruct the way of the general reader. At some
future date there may be by another hand a book about Japan in terms
of soils, manures and crops. That is the book the War saved me from
writing. In the present work I have the opportunity which so few
authors have enjoyed of jettisoning all technics into an Appendix.

[Illustration: _Shin Koron_
"BYGONE DAYS IN JAPAN" IS THE TITLE OF THIS CARTOON]

"It is necessary," says a wise modern author, "to meditate over one's
impressions at leisure, to start afresh again and again with a clearer
vision of the essential facts." And a Japanese companion of my
journeys writes, "Never can you be sorry that this book is coming
late. This time of delay has been the best time; we have had enough
of first impressions." The justification for this volume is that, in
spite of the difficulties attending the composition of it, it may be
held to offer a picture of some aspects of modern Japan to be found
nowhere else. Politics is not for these pages, nor, because there are
so many charming books on æsthetic and scenic Japan, do I write on Art
or about Fuji, Kyoto, Nara, Miyanoshita and Nikko. I went to Japan to
see the countryman. The Japanese whom most of the world knows are
townified, sometimes Americanised or Europeanised, and, as often as
not, elaborately educated. They are frequently remarkable men. They
stand for a great deal in modern Japan. But their untownified
fellow-countrymen, with the training of tradition and experience, of
rural schoolmasters and village elders, and, as frequently, of the
carefully shielded army, are more than half of the nation.

What is their health of mind and body? By what social and moral
principles and prejudices are they swayed? To what extent are they
adequate to the demand that is made and is likely to be made upon
them? In what respects are they the masters of their lives or are
mastered? In what ways are they still open to Western influences? And
in what directions are they now inclined to trust to "themselves
alone"?

If the masters of the rural journal were sometimes mistaken in the
observations they made from horseback, I cannot have escaped
blundering in passing through more dimly lit scenes than they visited.
"If there appears here and there any uncorrectness, I do not hold
myself obliged to answer for what I could not perfectly govern."[8]
But I have laboriously taken all the precautions I could and I have
obeyed as far as possible a recent request that "visitors to the Far
East should confine themselves to what they have seen with their own
eyes." As Huxley wrote, "all that I have proposed to myself is to say,
This and this have I learned."

I take pleasure in recalling that some years ago I was approached with
a view to undertaking for the United States Government a
socio-agricultural investigation in a foreign country. Reared as I
have been in the whole faith of a citizen of the English-speaking
world, I am glad to think that the present volume may be of some
service to American readers. The United States is within ten
days--Canada is within nine--of Japan against Great Britain's month by
the Atlantic-C.P.R.-Pacific route and eight weeks by Suez. There are
more American visitors than British to Japan. It was America that
first opened Japan to the West, and the debt of Japan to American
training and stimulus is immense. But British services to Japan have
also been substantial. Great Britain was the first to welcome her
within the circle of the Great Powers, and the Anglo-Japanese Alliance
did more for Japan than some Japanese have been willing to admit. The
problem of Japan is the problem of the whole English-speaking world.
Rightly conceived, the interests of the British Empire and the United
States in the Far East are one and indivisible.

The Japanese version of the title of this book (kindly suggested by
Mr. Seichi Narusé) is _Nihon no Shinzui_, literally, "The Marrow" or
"The Core of Japan." His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, the
beauty of whose calligraphy is well known, was so very kind as to
allow me to requisition his clever brush for the script for the
engraver; but it must be understood that Baron Hayashi has seen
nothing of the volume but the cover.

I greatly regret that the present conditions of book production make
it impossible to reproduce more than one in thirty of my photographs.

It is in no spirit of ingratitude to my hosts and many other kind
people in Japan that I have taken the decision resolutely to strike
out of the text all those names of places and persons which give such
a forbidding air to a traveller's page. I have pleasure in
acknowledging here the particular obligations I am under to Kunio
Yanaghita, formerly Secretary of the Japanese House of Peers and a
distinguished and disinterested student of rural conditions, Dr.
Nitobe, assistant secretary of the League of Nations, and his wife,
Professor Nasu, Imperial University, Mr. Yamasaki, Mr. M. Yanagi, Mr.
Kanzo Uchimura, Mr. Bernard Leach, Mr. M. Tajima, Mr. Ono and two
young officials in Hokkaido, who each in turn found time to join me on
my journeys and showed me innumerable kindnesses. It was a piece of
good fortune that while these pages were in preparation Mr. Yanaghita,
Professor Nasu and other fellow-travellers were in Europe and
available for consultation. Professor Nasu unweariedly furnished
painstaking answers to many questions, and was kind enough to read all
of the book in proof; but he has no responsibility, of course, for the
views which I express. I am also specially indebted to Dr. Kozai,
President of the Imperial University, to Mr. Ito and other officials
of the Ministry of Agriculture, to Mr. Tsurimi, one of the most
understanding of travelled Japanese, to Mr. Iwanaga, formerly of the
Imperial Railway Board, to Dr. Sato, President of Hokkaido University,
and his obliging colleagues, to the Imperial Agricultural Society, to
Professors Yahagi and Yokoi, and to Viscount Kano, Dr. Kuwada, Mr. I.
Yoshida, Mr. K. Ohta, Mr. H. Saito, Mr. S. Hoshijima, and many
provincial agricultural and sociological experts.

Portions of drafts for this book have appeared in the _Daily
Telegraph, World's Work, Manchester Guardian, New East, Asia, Japan
Chronicle_ and _Christian World_. I am indebted to the _World's Work_
and _Asia_ for some additional illustrations from blocks made from my
photographs, and to the _New East_ for some sketches by Miss Elizabeth
Keith.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] There is a small book by an able American soil specialist, the
late Professor King, which describes through rose-tinted glasses the
farming of Japan, and of China and Korea as well, on the basis of a
flying trip to countries the population of which is thrice that of
Great Britain and the United States together. The author of another
book, published last year, delivers himself of this astonishing
opinion: "The Japanese is no better fitted to direct his own
agriculture than I am to steer a rudderless ship across the Atlantic."

[2] _Vide_ Sir Daniel Hall's _Pilgrimage of English Farming_ and
articles of mine in the _Nineteenth Century_ and _Times_, and my _Land
Problem_.

[3] The Japanese have only lately, however, made some acknowledgment
of their debt to Hearn, and in an eight-page bibliography of the best
books about Japan in the _Japan Year Book_ Murdoch's as yet unrivalled
_History_ is not even mentioned.

[4] _Ohyakusho_ must not be confused with _Oo-hyakusho_ or
_Oo-byakusho_, which means a large farmer. _O_ is a polite prefix;
_Oo_ or _O_ means large.

[5] Horizontal wall writings.

[6] About 35,000 copies of my two bilingual books were circulated.

[7] With the backing of a London Committee composed of Lord Burnham,
Sir G.W. Prothero, Mr. J. St. Loe Strachey and Mr. C.V. Sale.

[8] Tenison, 1684.




CONTENTS


STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE (AICHI)


CHAPTER

      I. THE MERCY OF BUDDHA

     II. "GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"

    III. EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS ACTIVITIES

     IV. "THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"

      V. COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE

     VI. BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-KAMI

    VII. OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI


THE MOST EXACTING CROP IN THE WORLD

   VIII. THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD

     IX. THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION



BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE APOSTLE AND THE ARTIST

      X. A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL

     XI. THE IDEA OF A GAP


ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND BACK)

   XII. TO THE HILLS (TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)

  XIII. THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS (FUKUSHIMA)

   XIV. SHRINES AND POETRY (NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)

   XV. THE NUN'S CELL (NAGANO)


IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE

   XVI. PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE
        (SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

  XVII. THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE
        SILK-WORM (NAGANO)

 XVIII. "GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES
        (NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

   XIX. "FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE


FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE WEST COAST

     XX. "THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE
         CULTIVATED" (FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)

    XXI. THE "TANOMOSHI" (YAMAGATA)


BACK AGAIN BY THE EAST COAST

   XXII. "BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST
         (YAMAGATA, AKITA, AOMORI, IWATE,
         MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA AND IBARAKI)

  XXIII. A MIDNIGHT TALK


THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU

  XXIV. LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA"
        (TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)

   XXV. "SPECIAL TRIBES" (EHIME)

  XXVI. THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN (EHIME)


THE SOUTH-WEST OF JAPAN

  XXVII. UP-COUNTRY ORATORY (YAMAGUCHI)

 XXVIII. MEN, DOGS AND SWEET POTATOES (SHIMANE)

   XXIX. FRIENDS OF LAFCADIO HEARN (SHIMANE, TOTTORI AND HYOGO)


TWO MONTHS IN TEMPLE (NAGANO)

    XXX. THE LIFE OF THE PEASANTS AND THEIR PRIESTS

   XXXI. "BON" SEASON SCENES


IN AND OUT OF THE TEA PREFECTURE

  XXXII. PROGRESS OF SORTS (SHIDZUOKA AND KANAGAWA)

 XXXIII. GREEN TEA AND BLACK (SHIDZUOKA)


EXCURSIONS FROM TOKYO

  XXXIV. A COUNTRY DOCTOR AND HIS NEIGHBOURS (CHIBA)

   XXXV. THE HUSBANDMAN, THE WRESTLER AND
         THE CARPENTER (SAITAMA, GUMMA AND TOKYO)

  XXXVI. "THEY FEEL THE MERCY OF THE SUN"
         (GUMMA, KANAGAWA AND CHIBA)


REFLECTIONS IN HOKKAIDO

 XXXVII. COLONIAL JAPAN AND ITS UN-JAPANESE WAYS

XXXVIII. SHALL THE JAPANESE EAT BREAD AND MEAT?

  XXXIX. MUST THE JAPANESE MAKE THEIR OWN "YOFUKU"?

     XL. THE PROBLEMS OF JAPAN


APPENDICES

INDEX




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL _facing title-page_

JUJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL

BYGONE DAYS IN JAPAN

THE ROOM IN WHICH THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN

THE MERCY OF BUDDHA

"TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST"

PLAN OF THE FARMER'S SYMBOLIC TREES

ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS

LIBRARY AND WORKSHED OF A Y.M.A.

LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER

SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE

MR. YAMASAKI, DR. NITOBE, AUTHOR AND PROF. NASU

THE HOUSE IN WHICH THE TEA CEREMONY TOOK PLACE

AUTHOR QUESTIONING OFFICIALS

AUTHOR PLANTING COMMEMORATIVE TREES

RICE POLISHING BY FOOT POWER

"HIBACHI," A FLOWER ARRANGEMENT AND "KAKEMONO"

SCHOOL SHRINE CONTAINING EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT

FENCING AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

WAR MEMENTOES--ALL SCHOOLS HAVE SOME

A 200-YEARS-OLD DRAWING OF THE RICE PLANT

SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED
PADDIES

PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS

PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP PRICE OF RICE DOWN

MUZZLED EDITORS

"THE JAPANESE CARLYLE"

MR. AND MRS. YANAGI

CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS

MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME CHILDREN

CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS

IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES, AND A BALE OF RICE

MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL

FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED

TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES

AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"

SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"

IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY

JAPANESE GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A SCYTHE

CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS

NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL"

STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL

GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE

SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS

SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA

VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM

ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE

RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" AND POT OF TEA

A SCARECROW

THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG

MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES

PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER

VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER

SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT

AUTHOR ADDRESSING LAFCADIO HEARN MEETING

A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE

GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT

TEMPLE IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN

FIRE ENGINE AND PRIMITIVE FIGURES

YOUNG MEN'S CLUB-ROOM

MEMORIAL STONES

ROOF PROTECTED AGAINST STORMS BY STONES

OFF TO THE UPLAND FIELDS

FARMER'S WIFE

MOTHER AND CHILD

A CRADLE

FIRE ALARM AND OBSERVATION POST

RACK FOR DRYING RICE

VILLAGE CREMATORIUM

DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA

AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS

"TORII" AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX GOD

TABLETS RECORDING GIFTS TO A TEMPLE

INSIDE THE "SHOJI"

AUTOMATIC RICE POLISHER

AUTHOR IN A CRATER

A TYPE OF WAYSIDE MONUMENTS

GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON"

CUTTING GRASS




CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
AND OFFICIAL TERMS


The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were
recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a
severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of
1921:

"You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless
to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of
rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your
research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to
maintain the price of 25 yen. Taking at 100 the figures for the years
1915 or 1916--fortunately there is not much difference between these
two years--the prices of six leading commodities reached in 1919 an
average of about 250. After 1919 the prices of some commodities went
still higher, but mostly they did not change very much; on the other
hand, recently the prices of many commodities--among them rice and raw
silk especially--have been coming down and this downward movement is
gradually extending to all other commodities. From these
considerations I deduce that the index number of general commodities
may be safely taken as 200 when your book appears. _The reader of your
book has simply to double the figures given by you--that is the
figures of_ 1915 _and_ 1916--_in order to get a rough estimate of
present prices._"

Where exact statements of area and yield are necessary, as in the
study of the intense agriculture of Japan, local measures are
preferable to our equivalents in awkward fractions. Further, the
measures used in this book are easily remembered, and no serious study
of Japanese agriculture on the spot is possible without remembering
them. While, however, Japanese currency, weights and measures have
been uniformly used, equivalents have been supplied at every place in
the book where their omission might be reasonably considered to
interfere with easy reading. The following tables are restricted to
currency, weights and measures mentioned in the book.


MONEY[9]

_Yen_ = roughly (at the time notes for the book were made) a florin or half
a dollar = 100 sen.

_Sen_ = a farthing or half cent = 10 rin.


LONG

_Ri_ = roughly 2-1/2 miles.

_Shaku_ (roughly 1 ft.) = 11.93 in.

Ri are converted into miles by being multiplied by 2.44.


SQUARE

_Ri_ (roughly 6 sq. miles) = 5.955 sq. miles.

_Cho_ (sometimes written, _Chobu_) (roughly 2-1/2 acres) = 2.450 acres =
10 tan = 3,000 tsubo.

_Tan_ or _Tambu_ (roughly 1/4 acre) = 0.245 acres = 10 se = 300 bu.

_Bu_ or _Tsubo_ (roughly 4 sq. yds.) = 3.953 sq. yds.

An acre is about 4 tan 10 bu or 1,200 bu or tsubo (an urban measure).
The size of rooms is reckoned by the number of mats, which are ordinarily
6 shaku in length and 3 shaku in breadth.


CAPACITY

_Koku_ (roughly 40 gals, or 5 bush.) = 39.703 gals, or 4.960 bush. =
10 to. According to American measurements, there are 47.653 gals,
(liquid) and 5.119 bush, (dry) in a koku. A koku of rice is 313-1/2 lbs.
(British).

A koku of imported rice is, however, 330-1/2 lbs. The following koku must
also be noted: ordinary barley, 231 lbs.; naked barley 301.1 lbs.; wheat
288.7 lbs.; proso millet, 247.9 lbs.; foxtail millet, 280.9 lbs.; barnyard
millet, 165.2 lbs.; brickaheat, 247.9 lbs.; maize, 289.2 lbs.; soya beans,
286.5 lbs.; azuki (red) beans, 319.9 lbs.; horse beans, 266.6 lbs.; peas,
306.5 lbs.

_Hyo_ (roughly 2 bush.) = 1.985 bush. = 4 to = bale of rice.

_To_ (roughly 4 gals, or 1/2 bush.) = 3.970 gals, or .496 bush, or
1.985 pecks = 10 sho.

_Sho_ (roughly 1-1/2 qts.) = 1.588 qts. or 0.198 pecks or 108-1/2
cub. in. = 10 go.

_Go_ (roughly 1/3 pint) =.3176 pints or 0.019 pecks.

Rice is not bagged but baled, and a bale is 4 to or 1 hyo.


WEIGHT

_Kwan_ or _kwamme_ (roughly 8-1/4 lbs.) = 8.267 lbs. av. or 10.047 lbs.
troy = 1,000 momme.

_Kin_ (catty) = 1.322 lbs. av. or 1.607 troy = 160 momme.

_Momme_ = 2.116 drams or 2.411 dwts. According to American measurements
a momme is 0.132 oz. av. and 0.120 oz. troy.

_Hyakkin_ (_picul_) = 100 kin = 132.277 lbs.

A stone is 1.693, a cwt. is 13.547, and a ton 270.950 kwamme.


LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE TERMS

_Ken_.--Prefecture. There are forty-three ken and Hokkaido. Ken
and fu are made up of the former sixty-six provinces. Sometimes the name
of the ken and the name of the capital of the ken are the same: example,
Shidzuoka-ken, capital Shidzuoka.

_Fu_.--Three prefectures are municipal prefectures and are called not
ken but fu. They are Tokyo-fu, Kyoto-fu and Osaka-fu.

_Gun_ (_kori_).--Division of a prefecture, a county or rural district.
There are 636 gun. Gun are now being done away with.

_Shi_.--City. There are seventy-nine cities.

_Cho_.--A town or rather a district preponderatingly urban. There are
1,333 cho.

_Machi_.--Japanese name for the Chinese character cho.

_Son_.--A village or rather a district preponderatingly rural. There are
10,839 son.

_Mura_.--Japanese name for a Chinese character son.

A true idea of the Japanese village is obtained as soon as one mentally
defines it as a commune. There may be a rural community called son
or a municipal community called cho. The cho or son consists of a number of
oaza, that is, big aza, which in turn consists of a number of ko-aza or
small aza. A ko-aza may consist of twenty or thirty dwellings, that is,
a hamlet, or it may be only one dwelling. It may be ten acres in extent
or fifty. I found that the population of a particular municipality was
10,000 in seven big oaza comprising twenty-two ko-aza.

[Illustration: THE ROOM, OVERLOOKING THE PACIFIC, IN WHICH MUCH OF
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
The feet of the chair and table are fitted with wooden slats so as not
to injure the _tatami_. Electricity as a matter of course!]

[Illustration: THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
The worshippers in the front row lost relatives by a flood.
This is not the priest referred to in Chapter I.]




THE
FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE
(AICHI)[10]

CHAPTER I

THE MERCY OF BUDDHA

The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the
facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably
more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in
memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard
facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of
Feelings.--HAVELOCK ELLIS.


One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a
remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He
was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He
had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass
and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into
conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a
festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to
come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and
I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty
in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he
answered, "I am."

We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too
aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he
said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But
with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become
aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing,
Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard
of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at
Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[11] "Contrary to the principles
of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the
temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the
way of improvement.

The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived
luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on
education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the
newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept
their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of
curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the
curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (_Bimbogami_). He said that the
Spirit visited a man when he became rich--in order to bring curios to
him; and again when he became poor--in order to take them away from
him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him
again.

Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition.
People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they
would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad
influences of civilisation.

Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the
village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there
was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young
people--formerly young men used to visit the factory girls--but it was
rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who
made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.

There was in the neighbourhood, this Buddhist pastor went on, a temple
belonging to the same sect as his own, and he was on friendly terms
with its priest. It was good discipline, he said, for two priests to
be working near one another if they were of the same sect, for their
work was compared. In answer to my enquiry, the old man said that he
preached four days a month. Each service consisted of reading for an
hour and then preaching for two hours. About 150 or 200 persons would
attend. He had also a service every morning from five to six. In
addition to these gatherings in the temple he conducted services in
farmers' houses. "I feel rather ashamed sometimes," he said, "when I
listen to the good sermons of Christians."

As the priest was taking leave he told me that he was going to a
farmer's house in order to conduct a service. I asked to be allowed to
accompany him. He kindly agreed, and invited me to stay the night in
his temple.

When I reached the farmhouse there were there about two dozen kneeling
people, including members of the family. On the coming of the priest,
who had gone to the temple to put on his robes, the farmer threw open
the doors of the family shrine and lighted the candles in it. The
priest knelt down by the shrine and invited me to kneel near him. In a
few words he told the people why I was in the district. Whereupon the
farmer's aged mother piped, "We heard that a tall man had come, but to
think that we should see him and be in the same room with him!"

When he had prayed, the priest read from a roll of the Shinshu
scripture which he had taken reverently from a box and a succession of
wrappings. Afterwards he preached from a "text," continuing, of
course, to kneel as we did. A flickering light fell upon us from a
lamp hanging from a beam. The room was pervaded with incense from an
iron censer which the farmer gently swung. The worshippers told their
beads, and in intervals between the priest's sentences I heard the
murmur of fervent prayer. The priest preached his sermon with his eyes
shut, and I could watch him narrowly. It is not so often that one sees
an old man with a sweet face. But there was sweetness in both the face
and voice of this priest. He spoke slowly and clearly, sometimes
pausing for a little between his sentences as if for better
inspiration, as a Quaker will sometimes do in speaking at meeting. His
tones were no higher than could be heard clearly in the room. There
was nothing of the exhorter in this man. His talk did not sound like
preaching at all. It was like kind, friendly talk at the fireside at a
solemn time. "Faith, prayer, morality: these alone are necessary," was
the burden of the simple address. "We have faith by divine providence;
out of our thanksgiving comes prayer, and we cannot but be good." It
was plain that the old women loved their priest. In the front of the
congregation were three crones gnarled in hands and face. When the
sermon of an hour or so came to an end they spoke quaveringly of the
mercy of Buddha to them, and of their own feebleness to do well. The
old priest gently offered them comfort and counsel.

After the service, in the light of the priest's paper lantern, I made
my way along the road to the temple. At length I found myself mounting
the lichened stone steps to the great closed gates. The priest drew
the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a
paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light
glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's
house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined in detail.

About half-past four in the morning I was awakened by the booming of
the temple bell. It is the sound which of all delights in the Far East
is most memorable. I got up, and, following the example of my host,
had a bath in the open, and dressed.

Then I was lighted along passages into the public part of the temple.
The priest with an acolyte began service at the middle altar.
Afterwards he proceeded to a side altar. At one stage of the service
he chanted a hymn which ran something like this:

From the virtues and the mercies of divine providence we
    get faith, the worth of which is boundless.
The ice of petty care and trouble which froze our hearts
    is melted.
It has become the water of divine illumination, bearing
    us on to peace.
The more care and trouble, the greater the illumination
    and the reward.

I knelt on the outside of the congregational group. It was cold as
the great doors were slid open from time to time and the kneeling
figures grew in number to about forty. Day broke and a few sparrows
twittered by the time the first part of the service was over.

The priest then took up his lamp and low table, and, coming without
the altar rail, knelt down in the midst of the congregation. In this
familiar relation with his people he delivered a homily in a
conversational tone. Buddha was to mankind as a father to his
children, he said. If a man did bad things but repented, his father
would be more delighted than if he got rich. The way of serving Buddha
was to feel his love. To ask of the rich or of a master was
supplication, but we did not need to supplicate Buddha. Our love of
Buddha and his love for us would become one thing. Carelessness, an
evil spirit, doubt: these were the enemies. Gold was beautiful to look
at, but if the gold stuck in one's eyes so that one could not see, how
then? The true essence of belief was the abandonment of ourselves to
divine providence.

So the speaker went on, pressing home his thoughts with anecdote or
legend. There was the tale of a woman whose character benefited when
her husband became a leper. Another story was of an injured lizard
which was fed for many days by its mate. We were also told of a
mischievous fellow who tried to anger a believer. The ne'er-do-weel
went to the man's house and called him a liar. The believer thanked
him for his faithful dealing, and said that it might be true that he
was a liar. He would be glad, he said, to be given further advice
after his wife had warmed water in order that his visitor might wash
his feet. "The mind of the vagabond was thereupon changed."

The rays of light from the lamp illumined the large Buddha-like shaven
head and mild countenance of the priest and the labour-worn faces of
his flock around him. Two weatherbeaten men curiously resembled
Highland elders. I saw that they, an old woman and a young mother with
a child tied on her back kept their eyes fixed on the preacher. It was
plain that in the service they found strength for the day.

I was in a reverie when the priest ended his talk. To my
embarrassment he begged me to come with him within the altar rail and
speak to the people. I had been quickened to such a degree by the
experience of the previous night and by this service at dawn that I
stood up at once. But there seemed to be not one word at my call, and
my knees knocked because of cold and shyness. I grasped the chilly
brass altar rail, and, as I met the gaze of friendly, sun-tanned,
care-rutted alien faces, which yet had the look of "kent folk," I
marvellously found sentence following sentence. What I said matters
nothing. What I felt was the unity of all religion, my veneration for
this rare priest, a sense of kinship with these worshippers of another
race and faith, and a realisation of the elemental things which lie at
the basis of international understanding. Several old men and women
came up to me and bowed and made little speeches of kindness and
cordiality. Six was striking on a clock in the priest's house as the
doors of the temple were slid open, the great cryptomeria[12] which
guard the village fane stood forth augustly in the morning light, and
the congregation went out to its labour.

As I knelt at breakfast and ate my rice and pickles and drank my
_miso_ soup,[13] the priest, after the manner of a Japanese with an
honoured guest, did not take food but waited upon me. He asked if the
English clergy wore a costume which marked them off from the people.
He liked the way of some of our preachers who wore ordinary clothes
and eschewed the title of "reverend." He was also taken by the idea of
the Quaker meeting at which there is silence until someone feels he
has a message to utter. As to the future of Buddhism, he deeply
regretted to say that many priests were a generation behind the age.
If the priests were "more democratic, better educated and more truly
religious," then they might be able to keep hold of young men. He knew
of one priest in Tokyo who had a dormitory for university students.

The priest presented his wife, a kindly woman full of character. "This
is my wife," he said; "please teach her." I spoke of a kind of
kindergarten which I had learnt had been conducted at the temple for
five years. "We merely play with the children," she said. "I had the
plan of it from the kindergarten of a missionary," her husband added.
The priest and his wife were kneeling side by side in the still
temple-room looking out on their restful garden. Behind them was a
screen the inscription on which might be translated, "We are to be
thankful for our environment; we are to become content quite naturally
by the gracious influence of the universe and by the strength of our
own will."

I could learn nothing from the priest concerning several helpful
organisations which I had heard that the villagers owed to his
influence and exertions. But the manager of the village agricultural
association told me that for a quarter of a century Otera San (Mr.
Temple) had superintended the education of the young people, that
under his guidance the village had a seven years' old co-operative
credit and selling society, 294 families belonged to a poultry
society, 320 men and women gathered to study the doctrines of Ninomiya
(whom we in the West know from a little book by a late Japanese
Ambassador in London, called _For His People_), and the young men's
association performed its discipline at half-past five in the morning
in the winter and at four o'clock in the summer.

[Illustration: "TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST"
(Autograph of Otera San)]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Exchange in 1916; in 1921 the yen is worth 2s. 8d.

[10] The chapters in this section are based on notes of several visits
paid to Aichi, which is in the middle of Japan, and agriculturally and
socially one of the most interesting of the prefectures. It is three
prefectures distant from Tokyo.

[11] Throughout this book an attempt has been made to preserve in
translation something of the character of the Japanese phraseology.

[12] _Cryptomeria japonica_, or in Japanese, _sugi_, allied to the
sequoia, yew and cypress.

[13] _Miso_, bean paste.




CHAPTER II

"GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"

Je ne propose rien, je n'impose rien, j'expose.--_De la liberté du travail_


He had been through Tokyo University, but his hands were rough with
the work of the rice fields. "I resent the fact that a farmer is
considered to be socially inferior to a townsman," he said. "I am
going to show that the income of a farmer who is diligent and skilful
may equal that of a Minister of State. I also propose to build a fine
house, not out of vanity, but in order to show that an honest farmer
can do as well for himself as a townsman."

When I asked the speaker to tell me something about himself he went
on: "My father was a follower of a pupil of the great Ninomiya.
Schools of frugal living and high ideals were common in the Tokugawa
period.[14] The object sought was the education of heart and spirit.
At night when I was in bed my father used to kneel by me,[15] his
eldest son, and say, 'When you grow big you must become a great man
and distinguish our family name.' This instruction was given to me
repeatedly and it went deeply into my heart."

"When I became a young man," he continued, "I had two friends. We made
promises to each other. One said, 'I will become the greatest scholar
in Japan.' The second said, 'I will become the greatest statesman.'
The third, myself, said, 'I will be the greatest rice grower in this
country.' If we all succeeded we were to build beautiful houses and
invite each other to them.

"I did not graduate at the University because, by the entreaty of my
father, when I reached twenty-one, I left Tokyo in order to become a
practical farmer. It is twenty-one years since I began farming. I
consulted with skilful agriculturists and then I saw my way to make a
plan. Rice in my native place is inferior. I improved it for three or
four years. I gained the first gold prize at the prefectural show.
Some years later I obtained the first prize at the exhibition which
was held by five prefectures together. Later still I received the
first prize at the exhibition for eighteen prefectures, also the first
prize at the exhibition of the National Agricultural Association.
Further, I was appointed a judge of rice and travelled about.

"I consumed a great deal of time in doing this public work. One day I
was made to think. A collector for a charity said in my hearing that
he expected larger subscriptions from practical men because though
public men were esteemed by society their economic power was small. I
at once resolved that before doing any more public work I should put
myself in a sound financial position.

"As I thought over the matter it seemed to me that it was not to be
expected that a public man should be able to do his really best work
if his financial position were not sound. Again, could he have lasting
influence with people in practical affairs if his own practical
affairs were not in good order?[16] At any rate I determined not to go
out to any more exhibitions or lectures except those which were
remunerative, and I resolved to devote myself as my first duty to my
farming.

"I set to work and managed my land, 3 _cho_ (a _cho_ is 2-1/2 acres),
so as to obtain the gross income of an M.P. [The reader could scarcely
have a more striking illustration of the intensity with which Japanese
land is cultivated--the average area is under 3 acres per family.] I
am now working about 4 _cho_ (10 acres). Later on I am going to farm 7
_cho_ (15-1/2 acres) and from that I am expecting the income of a
Minister.[17] I have already collected the materials for my villa, for
I am approaching my goal. One of my two friends, who is also forty
years of age, is a distinguished chemist in the Imperial Agricultural
College. My other friend, who is forty-four, is Secretary of the
Korean Government."

The indomitable experimenter swallowed another cupful of tea and
declared that "in order to be prosperous, all the members of the
family must work." All the members of his family did work. His wife
was strong and there were five healthy children. He used the ordinary
farm implements and his livestock consisted of only a horse and a few
hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying
farms were scattered in five villages--"there are always spendthrift
lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the
speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the
most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the most
profitable calling."

"Very often," he went on, "good people are not sufficiently
precautious"--I give the excellent word coined by my interpreter.
"They spend for the public good, and in the end they are left poor.
Renowned, rich families have come to a miserable condition by such
action. What they have done may have been good. But they are reduced
to pauperism and they are laughed at by many persons. People jeer that
they pretended to do good, yet they could not do good to themselves.
If all people who work for the public benefit are laughed at at
last--and many are--it will come to be thought that to work for the
public benefit is not good. Therefore I think that the man who would
work for the public good must be careful in his own affairs. He must
not be a poor man if he is to help public business. However
philanthropic he may be, if his financial position is not strong he
cannot go on long. He will be stopped on his good way. He cannot help
other people. Therefore I am now gathering wealth for strengthening
my financial position as a means to attain the higher end."

As the speaker awaited my judgment on his career, I ventured to
suggest that gifts, qualities and inspiration which made a man a
public man did not necessarily equip him for being a great success in
business life. The question was, perhaps, whether the type of man who
was pre-eminently successful in promoting his own pecuniary interests
was necessarily the best type of public man. Was the average character
equal to the strain of many years of concentration on money-making to
the exclusion of public interests? When men emerged from the sphere of
concentrated money-making, were they worth so very much as public men?
Might not the values of things have altered a little for them? Might
it not have a shrivelling effect on the heart to resist applications
which must be refused when the strengthening of one's financial
position was regarded as the chief object in life?

At this point our host, Mr. Yamasaki, the respected principal of the
big agricultural school of the prefecture and a well-known rural
author and speaker, broke in with the ejaculation, "He has got a
needle in your head"--the Japanese equivalent for "touching the
spot"--and continued: "Surely he is right who through his life offers
freely what he may have as to members of his own family. I give away
many pamphlets and I have guests. I could save in these directions.
But I am not doing it. I am content if I can support my family. I gave
a savings book to each of my five children. When the boy becomes
twenty-one he will have enough to finish at the university or start as
a small merchant so as not to be a parasite. My girls will be provided
with enough to furnish the costs of modest marriage. If I did more I
might perhaps become greedy."

I cannot say that the farmer who had so kindly outlined his life's
programme was impressed either by our host's views or by mine, but he
told us that he now spent 5 per cent. of his income on public
purposes, and that 150 yen received for giving lectures was spent on
books and recreation "for enlarging mind and heart." He happened to
mention that, though his family was of the Zen sect of Buddhism, he
was a Shintoist. It is difficult to believe that a genuine Buddhist
could have evolved such a life scheme. There is certainly a Shinto
symbolism in his plan of tree planting before his house. He has set
there, in the order shown, eleven pines which he named as marked:

[Illustration: PLAN OF THE ELEVEN SYMBOLIC TREES WHICH THE FARMER PLANTED
OUTSIDE HIS HOUSE AND THE EVILS (REPRESENTED BY ARROWS)
FROM WHICH THEY ARE SHIELDING HIM]

The virtues inscribed on this plan are the guardians of the farmer and
his family, which is represented in the middle of it. The words behind
the arrows represent the character of the attacks to which the farmer
conceives himself and his family to be exposed. Courage is imagined as
going before and Wisdom as protecting the rear.

The talk turned to some advice which had been given to farmers to lay
out "economic gardens." They were to plant no trees but fruit trees.
To this an old farmer of our company replied: "If you are too
economical your children will become mercenary. Some families were too
economical and cut down beautiful trees, planting instead economical
ones. Those families I have seen come to an evil end. The man who
exercises rigid economy may be a good man, but his children can know
little of his real motives and must be wrongly influenced by his
conduct." We all agreed that there was nowadays too much talk about
money-making in rural Japan. "Even I," laughed the owner of the
symbolic trees, "planted not persimmons but pines."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] That is, before the Revolution of half a century ago, when the
Tokugawa Shogun resigned his powers to the Emperor.

[15] The Japanese bed, _futon_, consists of a soft mattress of cotton
wool, two or three inches thick. It is spread on the floor, which
itself consists of mats of almost the same thickness, 6 ft. long by 3
ft. wide.

[16] Most of the really big men of Australia have left political life
in comparatively impoverished circumstances. Not only did Sir Henry
Parkes die poor. Sir George Reid took the High Commissionership in
London; Sir Graham Berry was provided with a small annuity; Sir George
Dibbs was made the manager of a State savings bank; Sir Edmund Barton
was lifted to the High Court Bench.--_Times_, January 11, 1921.

To the last day of his life, executions were levied in his
house.--Rosebery on Pitt.

[17] For his figures see Appendix I.




CHAPTER III

EARLY-RISING SOCIETIES AND OTHER INGENUOUS
ACTIVITIES

I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the
other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious
assentation.--MORLEY


"The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and
five in the winter"--it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising
Society who was speaking to me--are placed at the houses of the
secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a
secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the
houses of all the members allotted to him and to shout for the young
men until they answer. Each member on rising walks to the house of the
secretary of his division and writes his name on the record of
attendances. Then the member goes to the shrine, where we fence and
wrestle for a time. At first we thought that if we fenced and wrestled
early in the morning we should be tired for our work, but we found
that it was not so.

"Sometimes a clock gets damaged and does not ring, so a few of us may
be getting up later that morning. Or a man becomes afraid of sleeping
too late, fears his clock is wrong, and gets up at 3 o'clock and then
goes off to waken members. Hence complaints. Some cunning fellows ask
their friends or brothers to write down for them their names on the
list of attendances. But we find out their deceit by their
handwriting. It is very difficult to form the habit of early rising,
because members are not expected to report at the secretaries' houses
on a rainy day. As there is no control over them that day, they are
easy in their minds and sleep on. Thus they break the habit of early
rising that they are forming. Getting up early is necessary not only
because it is good to begin work early but because early rising
overcomes the habit of gadding about at night which is customary in
many villages.

"You may say that all this is a great deal to ask of young men," the
chairman continued. "But if you ask from them comfortable practices
only, how can you expect from them a remarkable result? Young men
should ponder this and be willing to exert themselves." Later on it
was explained to me that it had been found that it took a great deal
of time for the secretaries to call up all the members in the morning
by shouting to them, "so the secretary obtained bugles; but even the
bugles were not heard everywhere, so they were changed to drums, and
now five drums go round our village every morning."

In every village of Japan there is a young men's association, which is
by no means to be confounded with the world-encircling Y.M.C.A.[18]
The village Y.M.A. of Japan is an institution of some antiquity and it
has nothing whatever to do with religious effort. One day, when I was
staying in a rural district, I was invited to a remoter part in order
to see something of the discipline that the members of a group of
young men's associations were imposing on themselves. The members of
this group of Y.M.A. belonged to the branches established in a village
of nineteen _aza_, that is hamlets. This fact, with the further fact
that the village containing the nineteen _aza_ had four elementary
schools and one higher school, will show that a Japanese village may
be much larger than a Western one.

Nearly six hundred young men were in the parade. They were dressed
exactly alike in the tight blue calico trousers and kimono of jacket
length which the Japanese farmer ordinarily wears. Each man had the
usual _obi_ (waist scarf) tied round his kimono, and in the _obi_ was
thrust the small cotton towel which Japanese carry with them
everywhere. The young men wore puttees, _waraji_ (straw sandals) and
caps. It is only of late that the Japanese worker has taken to wearing
head-gear, or at any rate head-gear other than he could contrive with
his towel. The physical condition of the young fellows was good and
their evolutions with dummy "rifles" were smart and skilful. The
paraders seemed lost in their desire to do their best for their
credit's sake and their own good. After the first movements, the
"troops" with "rifles" held as if there were bayonets at the end, made
rushes with loud cries. The secret of this somewhat surprising display
far away in the heart of Japan was that the work of the young men had
been done under the direction of two fit, be-medalled army surgeons,
reserve officers, who were present in order to answer my questions.

Every morning half an hour before sunrise these Y.M.A. members
assemble in the grounds of their Shinto shrine or of their school,
where they exercise until the sun shows itself. In the evenings after
work they also fence, wrestle, lift weights and develop their wrists.
This wrist development is done by two youths grasping a pole, one at
either end, and then trying to rotate it one against the other.

The members endeavour to cultivate their minds as well as their
bodies, and they also observe in their dress a self-denying ordinance.
On ceremonial occasions they permit themselves to wear a full-length
kimono and the _hakama_ or divided skirt, but they deny themselves the
third article of a Japanese man's full dress, the _haori_ or silk
overcoat. An effort is also made to dispense with the use of
"luxurious" _geta_ (the national wooden pattens).[19]

The object of all this varied discipline is to develop physique,
self-control, self-respect and what the Japanese call the spirit of
association, or, as we might say, good fellowship. The spirit of
association is needed in order to promote greater administrative,
educational and social efficiency. The modern Japanese village is no
longer an historical but a political unit which covers a considerable
district. It is, as I have explained, a combination of clusters of
_aza_ (hamlets). Each of these _aza_ has its local sentiment, and this
local sentiment when untouched by outside influences tends to become
selfish, narrow and prejudiced. If, however, anything is to be done in
the development of rural life there must be co-operation between
_aza_ for all sorts of objects.

I was assured that in addition to the development of physique, _moral_
and the spirit of association, there was to be seen, under the
influence of the Y.M.A., a development of good manners and mental
nimbleness. A special result of early rising and discipline in one
area had been that "the habit of spending evening hours idly has died
away, immorality has diminished, singing loudly and foolishly and
boasting oneself have disappeared, while punctuality and respect for
old age have increased." I was even assured that parents--whom no true
Japanese would ever dream of attempting to reform at first
hand--parents, I say, moved by the physical and mental advance in
their sons, have "begun to practise greater punctuality."

After the drilling was over I was taken to a large elementary school
and was called upon to address the young men, who were kneeling in
perfect files. Mr. Yamasaki followed me and told the youths that
Japanese were not so tall as they might be, and that therefore their
physique "must be continuously developed." Nor were rural conditions
all they should be from a moral point of view. Therefore, "every
desire which interferes with the development of your health or
morality must be overcome."

Let me speak of another village. It numbers a thousand families and it
rises in the morning and goes to bed at night by the sound of the
bugle. It has five public baths and a notice-board of news "to enlarge
people's ideas." The shopkeepers are said to "work very diligently, so
things are cheaper." The education of such of the young men as are
exempted from military service is continued on Saturday evenings for
four years. The Y.M.A., in addition to the military discipline,
fencing, wrestling, weight-lifting and pole-twisting of which I have
spoken, exercises itself in handwriting--which many Japanese practise
as an art during their whole lifetime--and in composing the
conventional short poem. I was gravely informed that "the custom of
spending money on sweet-stuff is decreasing." What this really means
is that the young men were not frequenting the sweet-stuff shops,
which are staffed by girls who are in many cases a greater temptation
than the sweets. The worthy members of this association had "burnt
their _geta_."

In some places Y.M.A. members give their labour when a school teacher
or a fellow member is building his house, or they do repairs at the
school. Bicycle excursions are made to neighbouring villages in order
to participate in inter-Y.M.A. debates, or to study vegetable raising,
fruit culture or poultry keeping. The Japanese are much given to
"taking trips," and the special training which they receive at school
in making notes and plans results in everybody having a notebook and
being able to sketch a rough route-plan for personal use, or for a
stranger who may ask his way.

Not a few associations favour members cutting each other's hair once a
fortnight, thus at one and the same time saving money and curbing
vanity. Several Y.M.A.s publish cyclostyled monthlies. Others minutely
investigate the economic condition of their villages. Some Y.M.A.s
provide public "complaint boxes," and have boards up asking for
friendly help for soldiers billeted in the district. One association
has issued instructions to its members that they are not to ride when
in charge of ox-drawn carts. The reason is that the ox is only
partially under control and may injure a pedestrian--unwittingly, I am
sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness
arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating
improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the
land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in
remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of _saké_.

I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in
a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain
addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The
diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined
and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are
Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and
music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to
the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family
which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s
"old people are respected and comforted." More than one association
has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at
the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and
at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according
to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have
been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto
shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more
efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good,
to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with
more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of
ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder
brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."

One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation
with a geisha shall be fined 20 yen. There is even a village in which
the young men's association and the young women's association have
united to issue a regulation providing that at night time members, in
order that their doings shall be public, shall carry lanterns painted
with the ideographs of their societies.[20]

With regard to the young women's associations, I found that one of
them studied domestic matters and good manners, "asking questions and
receiving answers." The motto of the organisation was "Good Wives and
Good Mothers." A member, this Society believes, should be "polite,
gentle and warm-hearted, but with a strong will inside and able to
meet difficulties." Her hairdressing and clothes "should not be
luxurious," and she "must not run after fashions." She must "respect
Buddha and abandon sweet-eating," for "taking food between meals is
bad for your health, for economy and for your posterity."

Let us now hear something of Societies for the Cultivation of Rice by
Schoolboys. The lads become responsible for the cultivation of a _tan_
of their family land, or of a small paddy, and they work it themselves
with the help of such advice as the schoolmaster may give them. (The
cultivation of a _tan_ of a paddy, a quarter of an acre, is supposed
to need in a year about twenty-one days' labour of a man working from
sunrise to sunset.) The report of one boy to which I turned in a
collection of reports by members of a rice-cultivation society showed
that he was between fourteen and fifteen. His diary of work and
observations was as follows:

  _June_ 5.--4 _to_ of herring applied.

  _June_ 7.--Locusts and other insects arrive.[21]

  _June_ 20.--153 clumps of rice transplanted from the seed bed.[22]

  _July_ 11.--Rice cultivated and 4 _to_ of herring applied.

  _July_ 27.--First weeding.

  _Aug_. 6.--Second weeding.

  _Aug_. 8.--Locusts again.

  _Aug_. 11.--Third weeding.

  _Sept_. 10.--All ears shot.

  _Oct_. 10.--Some plants suffering from bacillus.

It was further noted that the soil was sandy, that cold spring water
was percolating through the bottom of the paddy field, that the
aeration of the soil was bad and that some plants were laid by wind.
The young farmer appended to his report an excellent plan. He received
marks as follows: Method of planting, 15; levelling, 20; provision
against insects, 5; general attention, 25; total, 65. Some boys got as
many as 99 marks.

A word concerning a Village Association for Promoting Morality. One of
the things it does is to assemble yearly the whole population, old and
young, "in order to get friendly." The police meanwhile keep an eye
open for strangers who might take it into their heads to visit the
village on that day and help themselves from the houses. I may quote
three poems in rough translations from a speech made by a priest at
the annual meeting:

The legs of a horse, the rudder of a boat, the pin of a fan,
    and the sincerity of a man.
Let your heart be pure and true and you need not pray
    for the protection of the gods.
The bride brings many things with her to her new home,
    but one thing more, the spirit of sincerity, will not
    encumber her.

After these varied accounts of rural merit, I could not but listen
with attention to a tale of village gamblers, the offence of gambling
having been "introduced by the excavators on the new railway." First
the headman fined a dozen young men. Then he made a raid and found
among the village sinners several members of his own council. "The
salaried officials were at a loss to know what to do, and proposed to
resign. But the headman brought the prisoners together before the
whole body of officials. He spoke of the sufferings of the troops in
Manchuria and the heroic deaths among them. (It was the time of the
Russian war.) 'Lest your offences should come to be known by our
soldiers and discourage them,' said the headman, 'I cannot but
overlook your conduct.' It is thought that gambling practically ceased
from that time."

Local officials have a way of making the most of historic events in
order to touch the imagination of their villagers. Many original
undertakings were begun, for example, under the inspiration of the
Coronation. One village set about raising a fund by a system of
taxation under which inhabitants contribute according to the following
tariff:

  Birth of a child, 10 sen (that is, 2-1/2 d. or 5 cents).
  Wedding, 15 sen.
  Adoption, 15 sen.
  Graduation from the primary school, 10 sen; advanced
      school, 20 sen.
  Teacher or official on appointment, 2 per cent. of salary;
      when salary is increased, 10 per cent. of increase.
  When an official receives a prize of money from his
      superior, 5 per cent.
  Every villager to pay every quarter, 1 sen.

On the basis of this assessment it is expected that fifty-seven years
after the Coronation such a sum will have been accumulated as will
enable the villagers to live rate free. Some villages have
thanksgiving associations in connection with Shinto shrines. Aged
villagers are "respected by being blessed before the shrine and by
being given a present." Worthy villagers who are not aged "receive
prizes and honour."

More than once when I went to a village I was welcomed first by a
parade of the Y.M.A., then by the school children in rows, and finally
in the school grounds by two lines of venerable members of an
Ex-Public Servants' Association. The object of an E.P.S.A. is to
strengthen the hands of the present officials and to give honour to
their predecessors. A headman explained to me: "If ex-officials fell
into poverty or lacked public respect, people would not be inclined to
work for the public good. A former clerk in the village office whom
everybody had forgotten was working as a labourer. But as a member of
the association he was seen to be treated with honour, so the children
were impressed. The funeral of such a man is apt to be lonely, but
when this man died all the members of the association attended his
funeral in ceremonial dress and offered some money to his memory.[23]
His honour is great and the villagers say, 'We may well work for the
public benefit.'"

Every village in Japan has a Village Agricultural Association. One
V.A.A., which belongs to a village of less than 6,000 people, sees the
fruit of its labours in the existence of "322 good manure houses." The
gift of a plan and the grant of a yen had prompted the building of
most of them. Then the organisation incites its members to cement the
ground below their dwellings. This is not so much for the benefit of
the farmer and his family as for the welfare of their silkworms. A fly
harmful to silkworms winters in the soil, but it cannot find a
resting-place in concrete.

[Illustration: A WIDE EXPANSE OF ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS. p. 71]

A word may also be said about the way in which silkworm rearers have
been induced by the V.A.A. to keep the same breed of caterpillar, so
facilitating bulking of cocoons at the association's co-operative
sales. A small library of silkworm-culture books has been started in
the village, and there is a special pamphlet for young men which
they are urged to keep in "their pockets and to study ten minutes each
day." A general library has 2,400 volumes divided into eight
circulating libraries. The cost of the building which provides the
library in chief, a meeting hall and also a storehouse for cocoons has
been defrayed by the commissions charged for the co-operative sale of
cocoons.

[Illustration: LIBRARY AND WORKSHED OF A YOUNG MEN'S ASSOCIATION. p. 15]

Again, there used to be no cattle in the village, but now, thanks to
the purchase of young animals by the association, and thanks to
village shows, there are 103.

There is a competition to get the biggest yield of rice, and there is
also "an exhibition of crops." This exhibition incidentally aims at
ending trouble between landlord and tenants due to complaints of the
inferiority of the rice brought in as rent. (Paddy-field rent is
invariably paid in rice.) These complaints are more directly dealt
with by the V.A.A. arbitrating between landlords and tenants who are
at issue. In addition to rice crop and cattle shows in the village,
there is a yearly exhibition of the prod ucts of secondary industries,
such as mats, sandals and hats.

The V.A.A. is also working to secure the planting of hill-side waste.
Some 300,000 tree seedlings have been distributed to members of the
Y.M.A., who "grow them on," and, after examination and criticism,
plant them out. I must not omit to speak of the V.A.A.s' distribution
of moral and economic diaries of the type already referred to. The
villagers, in the spirit of boy-scoutism, are "advised to do one good
thing in a day." I saw several of these diaries, well thumbed by their
authors after having been laboured at for a year. One young farmer
noted down on the space for January 2 that he said his prayers and
then went _daikon_[24] pulling, and that _daikon_ pulling (like our
mangold pulling) is a cold job.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] There are, however, 11,000 members of Y.M.C.A. in Japan. There is
also a Y.W.C.A. with a considerable membership.

[19] See Appendix II.

[20] For official action in regard to the Y.M.A.s, see later.

[21] The damage done by insects is estimated at 10 million yen a year.
In some parts locusts are roasted and eaten.

[22] For an account of the processes of rice cultivation, see Chapter
IX.

[23] It is the practical Japanese custom to make a gift of money to a
family on the occasion of a death. The Emperor makes a present to the
family of a deceased statesman.

[24] The giant white radish which reaches 2 or 3 ft. in length and 3
in. or more in diameter. There is also a correspondingly large
turnip-shaped sort.




CHAPTER IV

"THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"

It has been said that we should emulate rather than imitate them.
All I say is, Let us study them.--MATTHEW ARNOLD


For seven years in succession the men, old, middle-aged and young, who
had done the most remarkable things in the agriculture of the
prefecture had been invited to gather in conference. I went to this
annual "meeting of skilful farmers." Among the speakers were the local
governor and chiefs of departments who had been sent down by the
Ministry of Agriculture and the Home Office. According to our ideas,
everybody but the unpractised speakers--the expert farmers who were
called from time to time to the platform--spoke too long. But the
kneeling audience found no fault. Indeed, a third of it was taking
notes. It was an audience of seeking souls.

One of the impromptu speakers, a white-haired, toil-marked farmer,
told how forty years before he had gone to the next prefecture and
opened new land. "With his spectacles and moustache," explained the
chairman--if the man who takes the initiative from time to time at a
Japanese meeting may be properly called a chairman--"he looks like a
gentleman; but he works hard." And the man showed his hands as a
testimony to the severity of his labours.

"It was in the winter," he said, "that I went away from my home and
obtained a certain tract of waste. I had no acquaintance near. I
brought some food, but when I fell short I had no more. I had gone
with my third boy. We lived in a small hut and were in a miserable
condition. Then a fierce wind took off the roof. It was at four in the
morning when the roof blew off. In February I began to open a rice
field. Gradually we got a _cho_. At length I opened another _cho_,
but there was much gravel. Some of my newly opened fields are very
high up the hill. If you chance to pass my house please come to see
me. The maple leaves are very beautiful and you can enjoy the sight of
many birds."

The early meetings of the expert farmers used to last not one day but
two, for the men delighted in narrating their experiences to one
another. Some of the audience used to weep as the older men told their
tales. The farmers would sit up late round a farmer or a professor who
was talking about some subject that interested them. The originator of
these gatherings, Mr. Yamasaki, told me that he was "more than once
moved to tears by the merits and pure hearts of the farmer speakers."

Of the regard and respect which the farmers had for this man I had
many indications. Like not a few agricultural authorities, he is a
samurai.[25] He is exceptionally tall for a Japanese, looks indeed
rather like a Highland gillie, and when one evening I prevailed on him
to put on armour, thrust two swords in his _obi_ and take a long bow
in his hand, he was an imposing figure. He carries the ideals of
_bushido_ into his rural work. He does not sleep more than five hours,
and he is up every morning at five.

But I am getting away from the meeting. There was a priest who spoke,
a man curiously like Tolstoy. (He had, no doubt, Ainu blood in him.)
He wore the stiff buttoned-up jacket of the primary school teacher and
spoke modestly. "Formerly the rice fields of my village suffered very
much from bad irrigation," he said, "but when that was put right the
soil became excellent. In the days when the soil was bad the people
were good and no man suspected another of stealing his seal.[26] But
when the soil became good the disposition of the people was influenced
in a bad way, and they brought their seals to the temple to be kept
safe.

"At that time the organiser of this meeting came and made a speech in
my village. On hearing his speech I thought it an easy task to make my
village good. At once I began to do good things. I formed several
men's and women's associations, all at once, as if I were Buddha. But
the real condition of the people was not much improved. There came
many troubles upon me, and our friend wrote a letter. I was very
thankful, and I have been keeping that letter in the temple and bowing
there morning and evening.

"I began to ask many distinguished persons to help me. They influenced
the farmers. The sight of a good man is enough. Speech is unnecessary.
The villagers were not educated enough to understand moralisings or
thinking, but the kind face of a good man has efficacy. There was a
man in the village who was demoralised, and when I told of him to a
distinguished man who lives near our village he sympathised very much.
That distinguished man is eighty-four years old, but he accompanied
that demoralised man for three days, giving no instruction but simply
living the same life, and the demoralised man was an entirely changed
man and ever thankful.

"I am a sinful man. Sometimes it happens that after I have been
working for the public benefit I am glad that I am offered thanks. I
know it is not a good thing when people express gratitude to me, for I
ought not to accept it. When I know I am doing a good thing and
expecting thanks, I am not doing a good thing. My thanks must not come
from men but from Buddha. I am trying to cast out my sinful feelings.
It must not be supposed that I am leading these people. You skilful
farmers kindly come to my village if you pass. You need not give any
speech. Your good faces will do."

But the two speeches I have reported are hardly a fair sample of the
discourses which were delivered. The addresses of the earnest Tokyo
officials and the Governor were directed towards urging on the farmers
increased production and increased labour, and the duty was pressed
upon them, as I understood, in the name of the highest patriotism and
of devotion to their ancestors. This talk was excellent in its way,
but when I got up I hazarded a few words on different lines. If I
venture to summarise my somewhat elementary address it is because it
furnishes a key to some of the enquiries I was to make during my
journeys. I was told the next day that the local daily had declared
that my "tongue was tipped with fire," which was a compliment to my
kind and clever interpreter, who, when he let himself go, seemed to be
able to make two or three sentences out of every one of mine:

I said that my Japanese friends kept asking me my impressions, and one
thing I had to say to them was that I had got an impression in many
quarters of spiritual dryness. I dared to think that some
responsibility for a materialistic outlook must be shared by the
admirable officials and experts who moved about among the farmers.
They were always talking about crop yields and the amount of money
made, and they unconsciously pressed home the idea that rural progress
was a material thing.

But the rural problem was not only a problem of better crops and of
greater production. Man did not live by food alone. Tolstoy wrote a
book called _What Men Live By_, and there was nothing in it about
food. Men lived not by the number of bales of rice they raised, but by
the development of their minds and hearts. It might be asked if it was
not the business of rural experts to teach agriculture. But a poet of
my country had said that it took a soul to move a pig into a cleaner
sty. It was necessary for a man who was to teach agriculture well to
know something higher than agriculture. The teacher must be more
advanced than his pupils. There must be a source from which the energy
of the rural teacher must be again and again renewed. There must be a
well from which he must be continually refreshed and stimulated. Some
called that well by the name of religion, unity with God. Some called
it faith in mankind, faith in the destiny of the world, that faith in
man which is faith in God. But it must be a real belief, not a
half-hearted, shivering faith.

Agriculture was not only the oldest and the most serviceable calling,
it was the foundation of everything. But the fact must not be lost
sight of that agriculture, important and vital though it was, was only
a means to an end. The object in view was to have in the rural
districts better men, women and children. The highest aim of rural
progress was to develop the minds and hearts of the rural population,
and in all discussion of the rural problems it was necessary not to
lose in technology a clear view of the final object.

But when account is taken of all the drab materialism in the rural
districts there remains a leaven of unworldliness. It takes various
forms. Here is the story of a landlord at whose beautiful house I
stayed. "When a tenant brings his rent rice to this landlord's
storehouse," a fellow-guest told me, "it is never examined. The door
of the storehouse is left unpadlocked, and the rent rice is brought by
the tenant when he is minded to do so. No one takes note of his
coming. If he meets his landlord on the road he may say, 'I brought
you the rent,' and the landlord says, 'It is very kind of you.' It is
an old custom not to supervise the tenants' bringing of the rent.

"Nowadays, however, some tenants are sly. They say, 'Our landlord
never looks into our payments. Therefore we can bring him inferior
rice or less than the quantity.' The landlord loses somewhat by this,
but it is not in accordance with the honour of his family to change
the method of collecting his rent. He is now chairman of the village
co-operative society as well as of the young men's society, and he
aims to improve his village fundamentally."

I also heard this narrative. The tenants in a certain place wished to
cultivate rice land rather than to farm dry land. But when silkworm
cultivation became prosperous they began to prefer dry land again in
order that they might extend the area of mulberries. Therefore the
landlords raised the rents of the dry farms. But there was one
landlord who said, "If this dry farm land had been improved by me I
should be justified in raising the rent. But I did not improve it.
Therefore it would be base to take advantage of economic conditions to
raise the rent."

So he did not raise the rent. Then he was excluded from social
intercourse by the other landlords because their tenants grumbled.
These landlords said to him, "You can afford not to raise your rents,
but we cannot." Therefore the landlord who had not raised his rents
called his tenants together. He said to them, "It is a hard thing for
me to have no social intercourse with my equals. Therefore I will now
raise the rents. But I cannot accept that raised portion, and I will
take care of it for you, and in ten years I think it will amount to
enough for you to start a cooperative society."

That was eight years ago and the formation of the society was now
proceeding. In order that the reader may not forget on what a very
different scale landlordism exists in Japan, I may mention that the
area owned by this landlord was only 10 _cho_.

I was told the story of a landlord's solution of the rent reduction
problem. "Tenants," the narrator said, "sometimes pretend that their
crops are poorer than they are. Landlords may reduce the payment due,
but sometimes with a certain resentment. One landowner was asked for a
reduction for several years in succession on account of poor crops,
and gave it. But he was trying to think of a plan to defeat the
pretences of his tenants. At last he hit on one. While the tenants'
rice was young he often visited the fields, and when any insects were
to be seen he sent his labourers secretly to destroy them. In the same
way, when crops seemed to be under-manured, he secretly cast
artificial manure on them. At last his tenants found out what he was
doing, and they said, 'As our landlord is so kind to us, we must not
pretend that we need a reduction.' And they did not, and things are
going on very well there. This is an illustration of the fact that our
people are moved more by feeling than by logic."

This was capped by another story. "A landlord, a samurai, has for his
tenants his former subjects, so something of the relation of master
and servant still remains. He wished to raise his tenants to the
position of peasant proprietors, so when land was for sale in the
village he advised them to buy. They said they had no money, but he
answered, 'Means may perhaps be found.' He secretly subscribed a sum
to the Shinto shrine and then advised the formation of a co-operative
society, which could borrow from the shrine for a tenant, so that the
tenant need not go to the landlord to thank him and feel patronised by
him. He need only to go to the shrine and give thanks there." "The
landlord," added the speaker in his imperfect English, "has entirely
hided himself from the business." A third of the tenants had become
peasant proprietors.

In order to better the feeling between the farmers and landowners this
landlord and several others had begun to ask their tenants to their
gardens, where they were given tea and fruit. "In Japan," said one man
to me, "we see feudal ideas broken down by the upper, not the lower
class."

I visited the romantic coast of a peninsula a dozen miles from the
railway. Some 10,000 pilgrims come in a year to the eighty-eight
temples on the peninsula, and in some parts the people are such strict
Buddhists that in one village the county authorities find great
difficulty in overcoming an objection to destroying the insect life
which preys on the rice crops. When rice land does not yield well, one
landlord causes an investigation to be made and gives advice based
upon it to the tenant, saying, "Do this, and if you lose I will
compensate you. If you gain, the advantage will be yours." Money is
also contributed by the landlord to enable tenants to make journeys in
order to study farming methods.

A landlord here--I had the pleasure of being his guest--had started an
agricultural association. It had developed the idea of a secondary
school for practical instruction, "rich men to give their money and
poor men their labour." In order to obtain a fund to enable tenants to
get money with which to set up as peasant proprietors, this landlord
had thought of the plan of setting aside each harvest 250 _sho_[27] of
rice to each tenant's 3 _sho_.

Good work was done in teaching farmers' wives. "When no instruction is
given," I was informed, "a wife may say, when her husband is testing
his rice seed with salt water, 'Salt is very dear, nowadays, why not
fresh water?' If a husband is kind he will explain. If not, some
unpleasantness may arise, so wives are taught about the necessity of
selecting by salt water."

[Illustration: LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER OFF TO THE VILLAGE
SCHOOL. p. 38]

[Illustration: BUDDHIST SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE. p. 33]

Tenants are advised to save a farthing a day. In order to keep them
steadfast in their thriftiness they are asked to bring their savings
to their landlord every ten days. It is troublesome to be
constantly receiving so many small sums, but the landlord and his
brother think that they should not grudge the trouble. In two years
nearly 1,000 yen have been saved. Said one tenant to his landlord, "I
know how to save now, therefore I save."

[Illustration: MR. YAMASAKI, DR. NITOBE, THE AUTHOR AND PROFESSOR
NASU. p. xv]

[Illustration: THE HOME IN WHICH THE TEA CEREMONY TOOK PLACE. p. 31]

One of my hosts, who was thirty-two, hoped to see all his tenants
peasant proprietors before he was fifty. The relation of this landlord
and his tenants was illustrated by the fact that on my arrival several
farmers brought produce to the kitchen "because we heard that the
landlord had guests." The village was very kind in its reception of
the foreign visitor. A meeting was called in the temple. I told the
story of Wren's _Si monumentum requiris circumspice_ and pointed a
rural moral. Some months afterwards I received a request from my host
to write a word or two of preface to go with a report of my address
which he was giving to each of his tenants as a New Year gift.

This landlord's family had lived in the same house for eleven
generations. The courtesy of my host and his relatives and the beauty
of their old house and its contents are an ineffaceable memory. From
the time my party arrived until the time we left no servant was
allowed to do anything for us. The ladies of the house cooked our food
and the landlord and his younger brother brought it to us. The younger
brother waited upon us throughout our meals, even peeling our pears.
At night he spread our silk-covered _futon_ (mattresses). In the
morning he folded them up, arranged my clothes, swept the room and
stood at hand with towels, all of which were new, while I washed.

When on our arrival in the house we sat and talked in the first
reception-room we entered, I noticed that outside the lattice a
company of villagers was listening with no consciousness of intrusion,
in full view of our host, to the sound of foreign speech. It was a
Shakespearean scene.

Out of its setting, as it is often witnessed to-day, the tea ceremony
seems meaningless and wearisome, an affected simplicity of the idle.
But as a guest of this old house of fine timbers weathered to
silver-grey I found the secret of _Cha-no-yu_. This flower of Far
Eastern civilisation is an æsthetic expression of true
good-fellowship, and a gentle simplicity and sincerity are of its
essence. The admission of a foreigner to a family _Cha-no-yu_ was a
gesture of confidence.

Five of us gathered late in the afternoon of an August day in the cool
matted rest-room in the garden. We looked on the beauty that
generations of gardeners of a single vision had created. Our minds
rested in the quiet as in the quaint phrase, we "tasted the sound of
the kettle and listened to the incense." At length at a signal we
rose. Led by the priestess of the ceremony, our host's aunt, a slight
figure in grey with snow-white _tabi_ and new straw sandals, we passed
by the dripping rocky fountain, with its lilies, and the azure
hydrangea of the hills which, some say, suggests distance. The
hut-like tea-room, traditionally rude in the material of which it was
built but perfect in every detail of its workmanship, we entered one
by one. According to old custom we humbly crept through the small
opening which serves as entrance, the idea being that all worldly rank
must bow at the sanctuary of beauty. The tiny chamber held, besides
the wonderful vessels of the ceremony, a flower arrangement of blue
Michaelmas daisies, and an exquisite scroll of wild duck in flight in
the miniature _tokonoma_,[28] the tea mistress, our host and four
guests. We drank from a black daimyo bowl which had been made four
hundred years before. We passed an hour together and in the twilight
we came out from the little room as from a sacrament of friendship. A
year afterwards my host wrote to me, "Yesterday we had _Cha-no-yu_
again and you were in our thoughts. During the ceremony we placed your
photograph in the _tokonoma_."

After dinner we had _kyogen_[29] by distinguished amateurs, one of
whom, a neighbouring landowner, had lately appeared before the
Emperor. After the plays he painted _kyogen_ scenes for us on
_kakemono_ and fans. He painted the _kakemono_ as he knelt with his
paper lying on a square of soft material on the floor.

The plays were performed in ancient costumes or copies of old ones
and of course without scenery. The players were lighted by oily
candles two inches in diameter, which flamed and guttered in
candlesticks not of this century nor of the last. A player may make
his exit merely by sitting down. The players are men; masks are used
in playing women's parts. The stories are of the simplest. There was
the well-known tale of the sly servant who was sent to town by a
stupid daimyo in order to buy a fan, and, though he brought back an
umbrella, succeeded in imposing it on his master. There was also the
play of the fox who comes to a farmer to advise him not to kill foxes,
but is himself caught in a trap. I also recall a story of two good
tenants who had been rewarded by their landlord with an order that
they should receive hats. Owing to an oversight they received one hat
only between the two. Problem, how to meet the difficulty. It was
solved by the rustics fastening two pieces of wood together T-shape,
raising the hat of honour upon the structure and walking home in
triumph under either side of the T.

The next morning I was greeted by the aged father and mother of our
host. The household was an interesting one, for the landlord and his
brother were married to two sisters. Before taking our departure we
knelt with our landlord and his father before the Buddhist shrine on
which rested the memorial tablets of former heads of the house. I
expressed my sense of the privilege extended to strangers. The reply
was, "Our ancestors will feel pleasure in your being among us."

FOOTNOTES:

[25] Samurai or _shizoku_ comprise about a twentieth of the
population.

[26] Every Japanese signs by means of a stone or hard-wood seal which
he keeps in a case and ordinarily carries with him.

[27] A _sho_ is about a quart and a half.

[28] The raised recess in which is usually displayed the flower
arrangement, a piece of pottery and a _kakemono_. (See Note, page 35.)

[29] Farcical interludes of the _No_ stage.




CHAPTER V

COUNTRY-HOUSE LIFE

The sense of a common humanity is a real political force.--J.R. GREEN


The stranger in Japan sees so little of the intimacies of country life
that I shall say something of further visits to what we should call
county families. My hosts, who seemed to be active to a greater or
less degree in promoting the welfare of their tenants, lived in purely
Japanese style. Yet now and then in a beautiful house there was a
showy gilt timepiece or some other thing of a deplorable Western
fashion. At all the houses without exception we were waited upon by
the host and his son, son-in-law or brother, and for some time after
our arrival our host and the members of his family would kneel, not in
the apartment in which our _zabuton_ (kneeling cushions) were
arranged, but in the adjoining apartment with its screens pushed back.
Even when the time of sweets and tea had passed and a regular meal was
served, all the little tables of food were brought in not by servants
but by the master of the house and such male relatives as were at
home.

When the duration of a Japanese meal is borne in mind, some idea may
be gained of the fatigue endured by the head of a house in serving
many guests. The host sometimes honours his guests still further by
eating apart from them or by partaking of a portion only of the meal.
The name of a feast in Japanese is significant, "a running about." The
ladies of the house are usually seen for only a few minutes, when they
come with the children to welcome the guests on their arrival; but on
the second day of the visit the ladies may bring in food or tea or
play the _koto_.

The foreigner, though on his knees, feels a little at a loss to know
how to acknowledge politely the repeated bows of so many kneeling men
and women. He watches with appreciation the perfect response of his
Japanese travelling companions. It is difficult to convey a sense of
the charm and dignity of old courtesies exchanged with sincerity
between well-bred people in a fine old house. Although all the
_shoji_[30] are open, the trees of the beautiful garden cast a pensive
shade. The ancient ceremonial of welcome and introduction would seem
ludicrous in the full light of a Western drawing-room, but in the
perfectly subdued light of these romantically beautiful apartments,
charged with some strange and melancholy emotion, the visitor from the
West feels himself entering upon the rare experience of a new world.

Everyone knows how few are the treasures that a Japanese displays in
his house. His heirlooms and works of art are stored in a fireproof
annexe. For the feasting of the eye of every guest or party of
visitors the appropriate choice of _kakemono_,[31] carving or pottery
is made. I had the delight of seeing during my country-house visiting
many ancient pictures of country life and of animals and birds. It was
also a precious opportunity to inspect armour and wonderful swords and
stands of arrows in the houses in which the men who had worn the
armour and used the weapons had lived. The way of stringing the
seven-feet-high bow was shown to me by a kimono-clad samurai, as has
been recorded in the previous chapter. When he threw himself into a
warlike attitude and with an ancient cry whirled a gleaming two-handed
sword in the dim light thrown by lanterns which had lighted the house
in the time of the Shoguns, the figures on old-time Japanese prints
had a new vividness.

What also helped in illuminating for me the old prints of warlike
scenes was a display of a remarkable kind of fencing with naked
weapons which one of my hosts kindly provided in his garden one
evening. The tournament was conducted by the village young men's
association. The exercises, which, as I saw them, are peculiar to the
district, are called _ki-ai_, which means literally "spirit meeting."
They call not only for long training but for courage and ardour. The
combats took place on a small patch of grass which was fenced by four
bamboo branches. These were connected by a rope of paper streamers
such as are used to distinguish a consecrated place. Before the first
bout the bamboos and rope were taken away and a handful of salt was
thrown on the grass. Salt was similarly thrown on the grass before
every contest. The idea is that salt is a purifier. It signifies, like
the handshake of our boxers, that the feelings of the combatants are
cleansed from malice.

Most of the events were single combats, but there were two meetings in
which a man confronted a couple of assailants. The contests I recall
were spear _v_. spear, spear _v_. sword, sword _v_. long billhook,
spear _v_. the short Japanese sickle and a chain, spear _v_. paper
umbrella and sword, pole _v_. wooden sword, pole _v_. pole, and long
billhook _v_. fan and sword. The weapons were sharp enough to inflict
serious wounds if a false move should be made or there should be a
momentary lack of self-control. The flashing steel gave an impression
of imminent danger. There was also the feeling aroused in the
spectators by the way in which the combatants sought to gain advantage
over one another by fierce snarls, stamping on the ground and
appalling gestures. The neck veins of the fighters swelled and their
faces flamed with mock defiance. Their agility in escaping descending
blades was amazing. But the _ki-ai_ player's dexterity is famous. It
is his boast that with his sword he could cut a straw on a friend's
head. I noticed that no women were present at the "spirit meeting."

More than once I found that my landlord host was accustomed to make a
circuit of his village once or twice a week in order to see how things
were going with his tenants. Public-spirited landlords were working
for their people by means of co-operation, lectures and prizes, the
distribution of leaflets and the giving of from 2-1/2 to 7-1/2 per
cent. discount in rent when good rice was produced. The rural
philanthropist in Japan sees himself as the father of his village.[32]
The Japanese word for landlord is "land master" and for tenant "son
tiller." The old idea was patronage on the one side and respect on the
other. This idea is disappearing. "We wish," said one landlord to me,
"to pass through the transition stage gradually. We do not feel the
same responsibility to our people, perhaps, now that they do not show
the same reverence for us, but we do not say to them that they may go
to the factory and we will invest our money for our children. We check
ourselves. We know well, however, that things will change in our
grandsons' time. We therefore try to mix our grandfathers' ideas and
modern ideas. We are believers in co-operation and we try to be
counsellors and to work behind the curtain."

From time to time there are such things as tenants' strikes. Mr.
Yamasaki assured me that the problem of the rural districts can be
solved only by appealing to the feelings of the people in the right
way. He said that "the Japanese are largely moved by feelings, not by
convictions." In some coastwise counties, someone told me, a hurricane
destroyed the crops to such an extent that the tenants could not pay
rent, and the landlords who depended on their rents were impoverished.
Things reached such a pass that a hundred thousand peasants signed a
paper swearing fidelity to an anti-landlord propaganda. Officials and
lawyers achieved nothing. Then Mr. Yamasaki went, and, sitting in the
local temple, talked things over with both sides for days. He got the
landlords to say that they were sorry for their tenants and the
tenants to say that they were sorry for the landlords, and eventually
he was allowed to burn the oath-attested document in the temple.[33]

Many landlords are "endeavouring to cultivate a moral relation"
between themselves and their tenants. They have often the advantage
that their ancestors were the landlords of the same peasant families
for many generations. But there are still plenty of absentee landlords
and landlords who are usurers. There are also the landlords who have
let their lands to middlemen. The cultivator therefore pays out of all
proportion to what the landlord receives. Of landlords generally, an
ex-daimyo's son said to me: "Many landlords treat their tenants
cruelly. The rent enforced is too high. In place of the intimate
relations of former days the relations are now that of cat and dog.
The ignorance of the landlords is the cause of this state of things.
It is very important that the landlord's son shall go to the
agricultural school, where there is plenty of practical work which
will bring the perspiration from him." The object of most good
landlords is to increase the income of their tenants. It is felt that
unless the farmers have more money in their hands, progress is
impossible. There is one direction in which the landlords are not
tried. The franchise is so narrow that farmers cannot vote against
their landlords.

In the house of one old landowning family in which I was a guest I saw
a _gaku_ inscribed, "Happiness comes to the house whose ancestors were
virtuous." I was admitted to the family shrine. Round the walls of the
small apartment in which the shrine stood were the autographs or
portraits of distinguished members of the house going back four or
five hundred years. It was easy to see that the inspiring force of
this family was its untarnished name. It was a crime against the
ancestors to reduce the prestige or merit of the family. No stronger
influence could be exerted upon an erring member of such a family than
to be brought by his father or elder brother before the family shrine
and there reprimanded in the presence of the ancestral spirits. The
head of this house is at present a schoolboy of twelve and the
government of the family is in the hands of a "regent," the lad's
uncle. I saw the boy and his younger sister trot off in the morning
with their satchels on their backs to the village school in democratic
Japanese fashion. Japan is a much more democratic country than the
tourist imagines. Distinctions of class are accompanied by easy
relations in many important matters.

I went for a second time to the restful city of Nagoya. It is out of
the sphere of influence of Tokyo and is conservative of old ideas.
People live with less display than in the capital and perhaps pride
themselves on doing so. But if the houses of even the well-to-do are
small and inconspicuous, the interiors are of satisfying quality in
materials and workmanship, and the family godowns bring forth
surprises. Here as elsewhere the guest is served in treasured lacquer
and porcelain. (While we are not accustomed in the West to look at the
marks on our host's table silver, it is perfect Japanese manners to
admire a food bowl by examining the potter's marks.) My host hung a
rural _kakemono_ in my room, one day a fine old study of poultry,
another an equally beautiful painting of hollyhocks.

As we left the town my attention was attracted by a commemorative
stone overlooking rice fields. The inscription proclaimed the fact
that at that spot the late Emperor Meiji,[34] as a lad of fifteen, on
his historic first journey to Tokyo, "beheld the farmers reaping."

The matron of a farmhouse two centuries old showed me a tub containing
tiny carp which she had hatched for her carp pond, the inmates of
which, as is common, came to be fed when she clapped her hands. In the
garden there was an old clay butt still used for archery. In the
farmhouse I was taken into a room in which in the old days the daimyo
overlord had rested, into another room which had a secret door and
into a third room where--an electric fan was buzzing.

At a school I had to face the usual ordeal of having to "write" as
best I could a motto for use as a wall picture. Our lettering, when
done with a brush, falls pitifully behind Chinese characters in
decorative value, and our mottoes will not readily translate into
Japanese. I was often grateful to Henley for "I am the master of my
fate, I am the captain of my soul," because with the substitution of
"commander" for captain, the lines translate literally.

We left the village through arches which had been erected by the young
men's association. At an old country house four interesting things
were shown to me. There was, first, a phial of rice seed 230 years
old. The agricultural professor who was my fellow-guest told me that
he had germinated some of the grains, but they did not produce rice
plants. The second thing was a fine family shrine before which a
religious ceremony had been performed twice a day by succeeding
generations of the same family for 350 years. The third object of
interest was a little, narrow, flat steel dagger about eight inches
long, sheathed in the scabbard of a sword. The dagger was used for
"fastening an enemy's head on." After the owner of the sword had
beheaded his foe, he drew the smaller weapon, and, thrusting one end
into the headless trunk and the other end into the base of the head,
politely united head and body once more, thus making it possible "to
show due respect and sympathy towards the dead." Finally, I had the
privilege of handling a wonderful suit of armour which was fitted
slowly together for me out of many pieces. Although it had been made
several centuries ago, this rich suit of lacquered leather had been a
Japanese general's wear on the field of battle within living memory.

One of the landowners I met was a poet who had been successful in the
Imperial poem competition which is held every New Year. A subject is
set by His Majesty and the thousands of pieces sent in are submitted
to a committee. The dozen best productions are read before the
sovereign himself, and this is the honour sought by the competitors.
The subject for competition in the year in which the landowner had
been successful was, "The cryptomeria in a temple court." His poem was
as follows:

        In transplanting
        The young cryptomeria trees
        Within the sacred fence
        There is a symbol
        Of the beginning of the reign.

The New Year poems come from every class of the community and there
is seldom a year in which landowners or farmers are not among the
fortunate twelve.

As we rode along a companion spoke of the force of public opinion in
keeping things straight in the countryside, also of the far-reaching
control exercised by fathers and elder brothers. But the good
behaviour of some people was due, he said, to a dread of being
ridiculed in the newspapers, which allow themselves extraordinary
freedom in dealing with reputations.

I met a man who had had a monument erected to him. He was a member of
a little company which received me in a farmer's house. He was
formerly the richest man in the village, that is to say, he owned 20
_cho_ and was worth about 100,000 yen. Moved by the poverty of his
neighbours, he devoted his substance to improving their condition. Now
many of them are well off, the village has been "praised and rewarded"
by the prefecture for its "good farming and good morals," and the
philanthropist is worth only 50,000 yen. Impressed by his
unselfishness, the village has raised a great slab of stone in his
honour.

I made enquiries continually about the influence exerted by priests. I
was told of many "careless" priests, but also of others who delivered
sermons of a practical sort. A few of the younger priests were
described as "philosophical" and some preached "the kingdom of God is
within you." Many people laid stress on the necessity for a better
education of the priesthood and for combating superstition among the
peasantry, though the schools had already had a powerful influence in
shaking the faith of thousands of the common people in charms and
suchlike. Many folk put up charms because it was the custom or to
please their old parents or because it could do no harm.

I was told that the Government does not encourage the erection of new
temples. Its notion is that it is better to maintain the existing
temples adequately. When I went to see a gorgeous new temple, I found
that official permission for its erection had been obtained because
the figures, vessels and some of the fittings of an old and
dilapidated temple were to be used in the new edifice. This temple
was on a large tract of land which had recently been recovered from
the sea. The building had cost between 80,000 and 90,000 yen. It stood
on piles on rising ground and had a secondary purpose in that it
offered a place of refuge to the settlers on the new land if the sea
dike should break.

The founder of the temple was the man who had drained the land and
established the colony. He had given an endowment of 500 yen a year,
three-quarters of which was for the priest. This functionary had also
an income of 150 yen from a _cho_ of land attached to the temple.
Further he received gifts of rice and vegetables. I noticed that the
gifts of rice--acknowledged on a list hung up in his house--varied in
quantity from four pecks to half a cupful. Probably the priest bought
very little of anything. If he needed matting for his house, which was
attached to the temple, or if he had to make a journey, the villagers
saw that his requirements were met. And he was always getting presents
of one kind or another. "A man says to the priest," I was told, "'This
is too good for me; please accept it.'" The villagers on their side
sat and smoked in one of the temple rooms and drank his reverence's
tea for hours before and after service.[35]

The building of the temple was not only an act of piety but a work of
commercial necessity. The colonists on the reclaimed land would never
have settled there if there had not been a temple to hold them to the
place and to provide burial rites for their old parents. Not all the
people were of the same sect of Buddhism, but "they gradually came
together." A third of what a tenant produced went for rent and another
third for fertilisers, the remaining third being his own. The
population was 1,800 in 300 families. The average area per family was
2 _cho_ and colonists were expected to start with about 200 yen of
capital. Some unpromising tenants had been sent away and "some had
left secretly." Half of the people were in debt to the landlord--the
total indebtedness was about 15,000 yen--for the erection of houses
and the purchase of implements and stock. The rate was 8 per cent. In
the district 10 per cent. was quite usual and 12 per cent. by no means
rare. The co-operative society lent at the daily rate of 2-1/2 sen per
100 yen.

The landlord told me that the sea dikes took two years to build and
that most of the earth was carried by women, 5,000 of them. Their
labour was cheap and the small quantities of earth which each woman
brought at a time permitted of a better consolidation of an embankment
that was 240 feet wide at the base. More than a million yen were laid
out on the work. The reclaimed land was free of State taxes for half a
century, but the landlord made a voluntary gift to the village of
2,000 yen a year. The yearly rent coming in was already nearly 56,000
yen. The cost of the management of the drained land and of repairs to
the embankment, 20,000 yen a year, was just met by the profits of a
fishpond. A valuable edible seaweed industry was carried on outside
the sea dikes. The landlord mentioned that he had had great difficulty
in overcoming the objections of his grandfather to the investment, but
that eventually the old man got so much interested that at
ninety-three he used to march about giving orders.

One day in the course of my journeying I was near a railway station
where country people had assembled to watch the passing of a train by
which the Emperor was travelling. No one was permitted along the line
except at specified points which were carefully watched. A young
constable who wore a Russian war medal was opposite the spot where I
stood. He politely asked me to keep one _shaku_ (foot) or so away from
the paling. When someone's child pushed itself half-way through the
paling the police instruction was, "Please keep back the little one
for, if it should pass through, other children will no doubt wish to
follow." A later request by the constable was to take off our hats and
keep silence when he raised his hand on the approach of the Imperial
train. We were further asked not to point at the Emperor and on no
account to cry Banzai. (The Japanese shout _Banzai_ for the Emperor in
his absence and cry _Banzai_ to victorious generals and admirals, but
perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the
Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot
engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed
down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of
seeing the Emperor, who was facing us. All the school children of the
district had been marshalled where they could get a good view. The
Japanese bow of greatest respect--it has been introduced since the
Restoration, I was told--is an inclination of the head so slight that
it does not prevent the person who bows seeing his superior. This bow
when made by rows of people is impressive. Undoubtedly the crowd was
moved by the sight of its sovereign. Not a few people held their hands
together in front of them in an attitude of devotion. The day before I
had happened to see first a priest and then a professor examining a
magazine which had a portrait of the Emperor as frontispiece. Both
bowed slightly to the print. Coloured portraits of the Emperor and
Empress are on sale in the shops, but in many cases there is a little
square of tissue paper over the Imperial countenances.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] _Shoji_ are the screens which divide a room from the outside.
They are a dainty wooden framework of many divisions, each of which is
covered by a sheet of thin white paper. The _shoji_ provide light and
are never painted. The sliding doors between two rooms are _karakami
(fusuma_ is a literary word). They are a wooden framework with thick
paper or cloth on both sides of it and with paper packing between the
layers. _Karakami_ are often decorated with writing or may be painted.
No light passes through them.

[31] A writing or a picture on a long perpendicular strip of paper or
silk or of paper mounted on silk, with rollers. The length is about
three times the width, which is usually 1 ft. 3 in. or 1 ft. 10 in.
The _kakemono_ in the _tokonoma_ of tea-ceremony rooms is about 10 in.
wide.

[32] For budgets of large property owners, see Appendix III.

[33] There have been several serious tenants' demonstrations in Aichi
during 1921. See Chapter XIX.

[34] Each Emperor receives on his succession a name which is applied
to the period of his reign. The period of Mutsuhito's reign,
1868-1912, is called _Meiji_; that of the present Emperor _Taisho_.
Thus the year 1912 would be _Taisho_ I.

[35] It will be remembered that there is only one prefecture in which
tea is not grown in larger or smaller areas, and that it is served
economically without sugar or milk.




CHAPTER VI

BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI[36]

Nor do I see why we should take it for granted that their gods are
unworthy of respect.--_Valerius_


In Aichi prefecture I was asked to plant trees (persimmons) in the
grounds of three temples or shrines and on the land of several
farmers. In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being
grown on a system under which the landlord provided the land, trees
and manures and the farmer the labour, and the produce was equally
divided.

The cryptomeria at one of the shrines I visited were of great age. All
of them had lost their tops by lightning. It cannot be easy for those
who have never seen cryptomeria or the redwoods of California to
realise the impression made by dark giant trees that have stood before
some shrine for generations. At the approach to the shrine of which I
speak there were venerable wooden statues. I recall one figure carved
in wood as full of life as that of the famous Egyptian headman.

The aged chief priest, who was assisted by two younger priests, kindly
invited me to take part in a Shinto service. First, I ceremonially
washed my hands and rinsed my mouth. Then, having ascended the steps,
my shoes were removed for me so that my hands should not be defiled.
On entering the shrine I knelt opposite the young priests, one of whom
brought me the usual evergreen bough with paper streamers. On
receiving it I rose to my feet, passed through the beautiful building
and advanced to what I may call, for the lack of a more accurate term,
the altar table. On this table, which, as is usual in Shinto
ceremonies, was of new white wood following the ancient design, I laid
the offering. Then I bowed and gave the customary three smart
hand-claps which summon the attention of the deity of the shrine, and
bowed again. On returning to my former kneeling-place one of the
priests offered me _saké_ and a small piece of dried fish in
paper.[37] The chief priest was good enough to read and to hand to me
an address headed, "Words of Congratulation to the Investigator,"
which may be Englished as follows:

"I, Yukimichi Otsu, the chief priest, speak most respectfully and
reverently before the shrine of the august deity,
Okunitama-no-miko-no-kami, and other deities here enshrined: Dr.
Robertson Scott, of England, is here this good day. He comes to see
the things of Japan under the governance of our gracious Emperor. I,
having made myself quite pure and clean, open the door of gracious
eyes that they may look upon those who are here. May Dr. Robertson
Scott be protected during night and day, no accident happening
wherever he may go. Dr. Robertson Scott goes everywhere in this
country; he may cross a hundred rivers and pass over many hills. May
there be no foundering of his boat, no stumbling of his horse.
Offering produce of land and sea, I say this most respectfully before
the shrine."

After the shrine I visited a co-operative store, curiously reminiscent
of many a similar rural enterprise I had seen in Denmark. Sugar,
coarser than anything sold at home, was dear. Half the price paid for
sugar in Japan is tax. I was informed that there were no fewer than
400 cooperative organisations in the prefecture.

[Illustration: AUTHOR QUESTIONING OFFICIALS--]

[Illustration: AND PLANTING COMMEMORATIVE TREES p. 145]

At several places, although the villagers were busy rice planting, the
young men's association turned out. The young men were reinforced by
reservists and came sharply to attention as our _kuruma_
(_jinrikisha_, usually pneumatic-tyred) passed. Some of the villages
we bowled through were off the ordinary track, and the older villagers
observed the ancient custom of coming out from their houses or farm
plots, dropping on their knees and bowing low as we passed.[38] All
over Japan, a villager encountered on the road removed the towel from
his head before bowing. If a cloak or outer coat was worn, it was
taken off or the motion of taking it off was made. Frequently, in
showery weather, cyclists who were wearing mackintoshes or capes,
alighted and removed these outer garments before saluting.

[Illustration: RICE POLISHING BY FOOT POWER. p. 78]

I saw a village which a few years ago had been "disorderly and poor"
and in continual friction with its landlord. Eventually this man
realised his responsibility, and, inspired by Mr. Yamasaki, took the
situation in hand. He talked in a straightforward way with his
villagers, reduced a number of rents and spent money freely in
ameliorative work. To-day the village is "remarkable for its good
conduct" and the relation between landlord and tenant seems to be
everything that can be desired. The landlord is not only the moving
spirit of the co-operative store but has started a school for girls of
from fifteen to twenty. They bring their own food but the schooling is
free.

On the gables of one or two houses near the roof I noticed ventilators
which were cut in the form of the Chinese ideograph which means water,
a kind of charm against fire. At the door of one rather well-to-do
peasant house I saw several paper charms against toothache. There was
also an inscription intimating that the householder was a director of
the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert
in the application of the moxa.[39] Every house I went into had a
collection of charms. One charm, a verse of poetry hung upside-down,
as is the custom, was against ants. Another was understood to ensure
the safe return of a straying cat.

In one house in the village my attention was drawn to the fact that
the rice pot contained a large percentage of barley.

In two or three places I passed pits for the excavation of lignite,
which does not look unlike the wood taken out of bogs. A pit I stopped
at was twenty-two fathoms deep. There were twenty miners at work and
air was being pumped down.

One of the things we in the West might imitate with advantage is the
village crematorium. In Japan it is of the simplest construction. The
rate for villagers was 50 sen, that for outsiders 2 yen. No doubt
there would be an additional yen for the priest. In a little building
which was thirty years old 200 bodies had been cremated.

I looked into a small co-operative rice storehouse. The building was
provided by a number of members "swearing" to save at the rate of a
yen and a half a month each until the funds needed had accumulated.
The money was obtained by extra labour in the evening. Just before I
left Japan the Department of Agriculture was arranging to spend 2
million yen within a ten-years' period to encourage the building of
4,000 rice storehouses.

As I watched the water pouring from one rice field to another and
wondered how the rights of landowners were ever reconciled, someone
reminded me of the phrase, "water splashing quarrels," that is
disputes in which each side blames the other without getting any
farther forward. To take an unfair advantage in controversy is to draw
water into one's own paddy. The equivalent for "pouring water on a
duck's back" is "flinging water in a frog's face." A Western European
is always astonished in Japan by the lung power of Far Eastern frogs.
The noise is not unlike the bleating of lambs.

Every now and again one comes on a fragrant bed of lotus in its paddy
field. It seems odd at first that lotus--and burdock--should be
cultivated for food. As a pickle burdock is eatable, but lotus and
some unfamiliar tuberous plants are pleasant food resembling in
flavour boiled chestnuts. _Konnyaku_ (_hydrosme rivieri_), a near
relative of the arum lily, is produced to the weight of 11 million
_kwan_--a _kwan_ is roughly 8-1/4 lbs.[40] The yield of burdock is
about 44 million _kwan_. The chief of all vegetables is the giant
radish, of which 7-1/4 million _kwan_ are grown. Taro yields about 150
million _kwan_. Foreigners usually like the young sprouts taken from
the roots of the bamboo, a favourite Japanese vegetable.

This is as convenient a place as any to speak of an important
agricultural fact, the enormous amount of filth worked into the
paddies. As is well known, hardly any of the night soil of Japan is
wasted. Japanese agriculture depends upon it. Formerly the night soil
was removed from the houses after being emptied into a pair of tubs
which the peasant carried from a yoke. Such yoke-carried tubs are
still seen, but are chiefly employed in carrying the substance to the
paddies. The tubs which are taken to dwellings are now mostly borne on
light two-wheeled handcarts which carry sometimes four and sometimes
six. A farmer will push or pull his manure cart from a town ten or
twelve miles off. It is difficult to leave or enter a town without
meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get
together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to
the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen
pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by
horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by
boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had
thirty per cent. of its night soil taken ten miles away. The work was
undertaken by a co-operative society which paid the municipality the
large sum of 70,000 yen a year. The removal of night soil, its storage
in the fields in sunken butts and concrete cisterns--carefully
protected by thatched, wooden or concrete roofs--and its constant
application to paddy fields or upland plots cause an odour to prevail
which the visitor to Japan never forgets.[41]

It must not be supposed that, because the Japanese are careful to
utilise human waste products, no other manure is employed. There is an
enormous consumption of chemical fertilisers. Then there are brought
into service all sorts of crop-feeding materials, such as straw,
grass, compost, silkworm waste, fish waste, and of course the manure
produced by such stock as is kept.[42] In Aichi the value of human
waste products used on the land is only a quarter of the value of the
bean cake and fish waste similarly employed.

At Mr. Yamasaki's excellent agricultural school (prefectural), which
I visited more than once,[43] I was struck by the grave bearing of the
students. I saw them not only in their classrooms but in their large
hall, where I was invited to speak from a platform between the busts
of two rural worthies, Ninomiya, of whom we have heard before, and
another who was "distinguished by the righteousness of his public
career." As in the Danish rural high schools, store is set on hard
physical exercise. An hour of exercise--_judo_ (jujitsu), sword play
or military drill--is taken from six to seven in the morning and
another at midday with the object of "strengthening the spirit" and
"developing the character," for "our farmers must not only be honest
and determined but courageous." Severe physical labour, shared by the
teacher, is also given out of doors, for example, in heaping manure.
"We believe," said one of the instructors, "in moral virtue taught by
the hands."

For an hour a day "the main points of moral virtue" are put before the
different grades of students, according to their ages and development.
The school has a guild to which the twenty teachers and all the
students belong. It is a kind of co-operative society for the
"purchase and distribution of daily necessities," but one of its
objects is "the maintenance of public morality." Then there is the
students' association which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one
side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of
spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed
memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe":
the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript on education, thrift and
morality, and the ceremonies at the end of rice planting, at harvest
and at the maturity of the silk-worm. The fitting-up of the school is
Spartan but the rooms are high and well lighted and ventilated. The
students' hot bath accommodates a dozen lads at a time. The studies
are also the dormitories, and in the corner of each there is stored a
big mosquito netting. Except for a few square yards near the doors,
these rooms consist of the usual raised platform covered with the
national _tatami_ or matting.

I heard a characteristic story of the Director. During the
Russo-Japanese war everybody was economising, and many people who had
been in the habit of riding in _kuruma_ began to walk. Our
agricultural celebrity had always had a passion for walking, so it was
out of his power to economise in _kuruma_. What he did was to cease
walking and take to _kuruma_ riding, for, he said, "in war time one
must work one's utmost, and if I move about quickly I can get more
done."

I may add a story which this rare man himself told me. I had seen in
his house a photograph of a memorial slab celebrating the heroic death
of a peasant. It appeared that in a period of scarcity there was left
in this peasant's village only one unbroken bale of rice. This rice
was in the possession of the peasant, who was suffering from lack of
food. But he would not cook any of the rice because he knew that if he
did the village would be without seed in spring. Eventually the brave
man was found dead of hunger in his cottage. His pillow had been the
unopened bale of rice.

In the house of a small peasant proprietor I visited the inscriptions
on the two _gaku_ signified "Buddha's teaching broken by a beautiful
face" and "Cast your eyes on high." On the wall there was also a copy
of a resolution concerning a recent Imperial Rescript which 500 rural
householders, at a meeting in the county, had "sworn to observe," and,
as I understood, to read two or three times a year.

Japan, as I have already noted, has always been a more democratic
country than is generally understood; but the people have been
accustomed to act under leaders. Some time ago an official of the
Department of Agriculture visited a certain district in order to speak
at the local temple in advocacy of the adjustment of rice fields. (See
Chapter VIII.) A dignitary corresponding to the chairman of an English
county council was at the temple to receive the official, but at the
time appointed for the meeting to begin the audience consisted of one
old man. Although the official from Tokyo and the _guncho_ (head of a
county) waited for some time, no one else put in an appearance. So
they asked the old man the reason. He replied by asking them the
object of the meeting. They told him. He said that he had so
understood and that the community had so understood, but the farmers
were very busy men. Therefore, as he was the oldest man in the
district, they had sent him as their representative. Their
instructions were that he would be able to tell from his experience of
the district whether what the authorities proposed would be a good
thing for it or not. If he considered it to be a bad thing they would
not do it, but if he thought it to be a good thing they would do it.
He was to hear all that was said and then to give a decision on the
community's behalf to the officials who might attend. "So," said the
old man to the Tokyo official and the _guncho_, "if you convince me
you have convinced the village." And after two hours' explanation they
convinced him!

There are in Japan hydraulic engineering works as remarkable in their
way as any I have seen in the Netherlands. Some of these works, for
example the tunnels for conducting rice-field water through
considerable hills, have been the work of unlettered peasants. In one
place I found that 80 miles or more of irrigation was based on a canal
made two centuries ago. It is good to see so many embankings of
refractory streams and excavations of river beds commemorated by slabs
recording the public services of the men who, often at their own
charges, carried out these works of general utility.

In various parts of the country I came upon smallholders who had
reached a high degree of proficiency in the fine art of dwarfing
trees. One day I stopped to speak with a farmer who by this art had
added 1,000 yen a year to his agricultural income. A thirty-years-old
maple was one of his triumphs. Another was a pomegranate about a foot
and a half high. It was in flower and would bear fruit of ordinary
size. The wonder of dwarfing is wrought, as is now well known, by
cramping the roots in the pot and by extremely skilful pruning,
manuring and watering. While we drank tea some choice specimens were
displayed before a screen of unrelieved gold. In the room in which we
sat the farmer had arranged in a bowl of water with great
effectiveness hydrangea, a spray of pomegranate and a cabbage.

One marks the respect shown to the rural policeman. In his summer
uniform of white cotton, with his flat white cap and white gloves, and
an imposing sword, he looks like a naval officer, even if, as
sometimes happens, his feet are in _zori_. He gets respect because of
his dignified presence and sense of official duty, because of the
considerable powers which he is able to exercise, because he stands
for the Government, and because he is sometimes of a higher social
grade than that to which policemen belong in other countries. At the
Restoration many men of the samurai class did not think it beneath
them to enter the new sword-wearing police force and they helped to
give it a standing which has been maintained. As to the policeman
being a representative of the Government, the ordinary Japanese has a
way of speaking of the Government doing this or that as if the
Government were irresistible power. Average Japanese do not yet
conceive the Government as something which they have made and may
unmake[44]. But is it likely that they should, parliamentary history,
the work of their betters, being as short as it is? It is not whithout
significance that the Chambers of the Diet are housed in temporary
wooden buildings.

The rural policeman is not only a paternal guardian of the peace but
an administrative official. He keeps an eye on public health. He is
charged with correctly maintaining the record of names and
addresses--and some other particulars--of everybody in the village. It
is his duty to secure correct information as to the name, age, place
of origin and real business of every stranger. He attends all public
meetings, even of the young men's and young women's associations, and
no strolling players can give their entertainment without his
presence. As to the movements of strangers, my own were obviously well
known. Indeed a friend told me that in the event of my losing myself I
had only to ask a policeman and he would be able to tell me where I
was expected next! At the houses of well-to-do people I was struck by
the way in which the local police officer--sometimes, no doubt, a
sergeant or perhaps a man of the rank of our superintendent or chief
constable--called with the headman and joined our kneeling circle in
the reception-room. Nominally he came to pay his respects, but his
chief object, no doubt, was to take stock of what was going on. I
invariably took the opportunity of closely interviewing him.

The extraordinary degree to which Japanese are commonly accustomed in
their differences of opinion to refrain from blows makes many of their
quarrels harmless. The threat to send for the policeman or the actual
appearance of the policeman has an almost magical effect in calming a
disturbance. The Japanese policeman believes very much in reproving or
reprimanding evil doers and in reasoning with folk whose
"carelessness" has attracted attention. Sometimes for greater
impressiveness the admonitions or exhortations are delivered at the
police station[45]. In more than one village I heard a tribute paid to
the good influence exerted on a community by a devoted policeman.

The chief of an agricultural experiment station also seems to obtain a
large measure of respect, to some extent, no doubt, because he
occupies a public office. The regard felt for Mr. Yamasaki goes
deeper. A few years ago he was sent on a mission abroad and in his
absence his local admirers cast about for a way of showing their
appreciation of his work. They began by raising what was described to
me as "naturally not a large but an honourable sum." With this money
they decided to add three rooms to his dwelling. They had noted how
visitors were always coming to his house in order to profit by his
experience and advice. Mr. Yamasaki uses the rooms primarily as "an
hotel for people of good intentions--those who work for better
conditions." I was proud to stay at this "hotel" and to receive as a
parting gift an old _seppuku_ blade.

Which reminds me that one night at a house in the country I found
myself sitting under photographs of the late General and Countess Nogi
and of the gaunt bloodstained room of the depressing "foreign style"
house in which they committed suicide on the day of the funeral of
the Emperor Meiji[46]. One of my fellow-guests was a professor at the
Imperial University; the other was a teacher of lofty and unselfish
spirit. They were both samurai. I mentioned that a man of worth and
distinction has said to me that, while he recognised the nobility of
Nogi's action, he could but not think it unjustifiable. I was at once
told that Japanese who do not approve of Nogi's action "must be
over-influenced by Western thought." "Those who are quintessentially
Japanese," it was explained, "think that Nogi did right. Bodily death
is nothing, for Nogi still lives among us as a spirit. He labours with
a stronger influence. Many hearts were purified by his sacrifice. One
of Nogi's reasons for suicide was no doubt that he might be able to
follow his beloved Emperor, but his intention was also to warn many
vicious or unpatriotic people. Some politicians and rich people say
they are patriotic, but they are animated by selfish motives and
desires. Nogi's suicide was due to his loving his fellow-countrymen
sincerely. Surely he was acting after the manner of Christ. Nogi
crucified himself for the people in order to atone in a measure for
their sins and to lead them to a better way of life."

I heard from my friends something of Nogi's demeanour. The old general
was a familiar figure in Tokyo. In the street cars--those were the
days when they were not over-crowded--he was always seen standing. His
admirers used to say that his face "beamed with beneficence." But
Nogi, though he loved to be within reach of the Emperor and did his
part as head of the Peers' School, liked nothing better than to get
away to the country. He was originally a peasant and he still
possessed a _cho_ of upland holding. He was glad to work on it with
the digging mattock of the farmer.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Son-God-of-the-Spirit-of-the-Province.

[37] It was a tiny squid. There are seventy sorts of cuttlefish and
octopuses in Japanese waters. Value of dried cuttlefish in 1917, 4
million yen.

[38] The hands are laid flat on the ground with finger-tips meeting
and the forehead touches the hands.

[39] See Chapter XX.

[40] The root grows to about the size of a big apple. It may be seen
in the shops in white dried sections. A stiff greyish jelly made from
it is eaten with rice. It is also eaten as _oden_ or _dengaku_.

[41] See Appendix IV.

[42] See Appendix XX.

[43] See Appendix V.

[44] The truth is being learnt by the younger generation.

[45] For crime statistics, see Appendix VI.

[46] _Harakiri_ (_seppuku_ is the polite word) still happens. Just
before writing this note I read of the captain of the first company of
the Japanese garrison in a Korean town having committed _seppuku_
because of a sense of responsibility for the irregularities of
subordinates. But of 7,239 suicides of men in 1916 only 308 were by
cold steel. Of 4,558 cases of women suicides 140 were by steel.




CHAPTER VII

OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI

The consciousness of a common purpose in mankind, or even the
acknowledgment that such a common purpose is possible, would alter the
face of world politics at once.--GRAHAM WALLAS


There was a bad landlord who was nicknamed "Devil-gon." He was shot.
There was another bad landlord who, as he was crossing a narrow bridge
over a brook, was "pistolled through the sleeve and tumbled into the
water." Although the murderer was well known, his name was never
revealed to the police, and the family of the dead man was glad to
leave the district. The villagers celebrated their freedom by eating
the "red rice" which is prepared on occasions of festivity. In another
village, the _guncho_ who spoke to me of these things said, there were
several usurious landlords. "The village headman got angry. He called
the landlords to him. He said to them that if they continued to lend
at high interest the people would set fire to their houses and he
would not proceed against them. So the landlords became affrighted and
amended their lives." The rural people of Japan have always three
weapons against usury, it was explained to me. First, there may be
tried injuring the offending person's house--rural dwellings are
mainly bamboo work and mud--by bumping into it with the heavy
palanquin which is carried about the roadway at the time of the annual
festival. If such a hint should prove ineffective, recourse may be had
to arson. Finally, there is the pistol. I remember someone's remark,
"A man does not lose a common mind and heart by becoming a landowner."

I could not travel about the rural districts without there being
brought under my eyes the conditions which lead country girls to go to
the towns as _joro_ (prostitutes). A considerable agricultural
authority who had been all over Japan told me that he was in no doubt
that most of the girls adopted an immoral life through poverty. I
spoke to this man, who had been abroad, of the disgrace to Japan
involved in the presence of thousands of Japanese _joro_ at Singapore
and so many other ports of the Asiatic mainland. Did these women go
there of their free will? My informant was of opinion that "half are
deceived." I remember that on the Japanese steamship by which I went
out to Japan there were several Japanese girls, degraded in aspect and
apparently in ill health, who were returning from Singapore. They were
shepherded by an evil-looking fellow. The parting of these
unfortunates from their girl friends as the vessel was about to start
was a piteous sight. An official who called on me in Aichi--I
understood that he was the chief of the prefectural police--told me
that there were in the prefecture 2,011 girls in 222 houses, and that
there were in a year 725,598 customers, of whom 2,147 were foreigners.
Sums of from 200 to 500 yen might be paid to parents for a girl for a
three-years term. Food and clothes were also provided, but the girls
were almost invariably drawn into debt to the keepers, and not more
than 15 per cent. were able to return to their villages. All the girls
in the houses had alleged poverty as the reason for their being
there.[47]

Because I was told that the moral condition of the town of
Anjo--population 17,000--where the agricultural school of the
prefecture is situated, had improved since its establishment, I asked
for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no
_joro_, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters and 55 sellers of
_saké_. Against these figures were to be counted 19 Buddhist temples
of four sects with 19 priests and 20 Shinto shrines with 4 priests.

I met a schoolmaster who had prepared a history of his village in a
dozen beautifully written volumes. He had been a vegetarian for
fifteen years because, as a Buddhist, he believed that "all living
things are in some degree my relatives." I picked up from him a
variant on "the early bird catches the worm." It was, "The early riser
may find a lost _rin_" (tenth of a farthing). He gave me another
proverb, "The contents of a spitting pot, like riches, become fouler
the more they accumulate."

I heard of temples which were promoting rural improvement by means of
lanterns. In one village the lanterns were at the service of borrowers
at three different places. The inscription on the lanterns says,
"Think of the mercy of Buddha who illuminates the darkness of your
heart." There is written in smaller characters, "If you live half a
_ri_ away you need not return this lantern." Three hundred lanterns
are lost or damaged in a year, but paper lanterns are cheap.

One temple has a society composed of those who have family graves in
its grounds. These people "study how to get the most abundant crop."
There is a prize for the best cultivated _tan_. Under this temple's
auspices there is not only a co-operative credit and purchase
association, a poultry society and an annual exhibition of
agricultural products, but a school for nurses--they are "taught to be
nurses not only physically but morally." The boys and girls of the
village are invited to the temple once a month and "told a story." The
youngsters are asked to come to a "learning meeting" where they must
recite or exhibit something they have written or drawn; "blockheads as
well as clever children are encouraged." A fund is being raised so
that "a genius who may be suffering from poverty may be able to get
proper education." Then there is a Women's Religious Association which
aims at "the improvement, necessary from a religious point of view, in
the home and of agricultural business." Sermons are given to 500 women
monthly. The society sent comfort bags, containing letters,
tooth-brushes and sweets, to soldiers at the taking of Tsingtao. A
similar organisation for men had for thirteen years listened to a
monthly lecture by a well-known priest. It sends occasional
subscriptions outside the village. Finally, this praiseworthy temple
issues every month 20,000 copies of a 4-1/2-sen magazine.

The Shinto shrines of the prefecture have in all a little more than 40
_cho_ of land. Someone has hit on the plan of getting the
agricultural societies of the county and villages to provide the
priests with rice seed of superior varieties, the crop of which can be
exchanged with farmers for common rice. This is done on a profitable
basis, because the shrines exchange unpolished rice for polished. A
_go_ of seed rice makes only about .5 _go_ when husked.

I walked along the road some little way with a Buddhist priest. In
answer to my enquiry he said that as a Buddhist he felt no difficulty
about the bag strung across his shoulders being of leather, for the
founder of his sect (Shinshu) ate meat. Even a strict Buddhist might
nowadays eat animals not intentionally killed, animals which had not
been seen alive and animals which were killed painlessly. But my
companion abstained as much as possible from meat. As to the reason
why some priests were inactive in the work of rural amelioration, he
supposed that their poverty, the tradition of devoting themselves to
unworldly business and the fact that many of them were hereditary
priests accounted for it. He dwelt on the things in common between
Shinshu and Christianity and said that, next to the teaching of the
head of the agricultural college in the prefecture, the preaching of a
missionary had led him to work for the good of his village.

In my host's house in the evening someone happened to quote the
proverb, "Richer after the fire." It means, of course, that after the
fire the neighbours are so ready with help that the last state of the
victim of the fire is better than the first. The view was expressed
that hitherto charitable institutions of some Western patterns had not
been so much needed in Japan as might be supposed.[48] "Those who go
to Europe from Japan are indeed much surprised by the number of
institutions to help people." Here, however, is the story of an
institution coming into existence in a village: "There was a man who
was thought to be rich, but he lived like a miser. His _shoji_ were
made of waste paper and his guests received tea only. So he was
despised. But many years afterwards it was found that for a long time
he had been collecting books. Then, to the surprise of everybody, he
built a library for his village. He is not at all proud of this and
those who ridiculed him are now ashamed."

I was invited to a "Rural Life Exhibition." Some agricultural produce
was shown, but three hundred of the exhibits were manuscript books or
diagrams. One diagram illustrated the development in a particular
county of the use of two bactericides, formalin and carbon bisulphide.
The formalin was in use to the value of 2,000 yen. Then there was a
wall picture, a sort of Japanese "The Child: What will he Become?" The
good boy, aged fifteen, was shown spending his spare time in making
straw rope to the value of 3 sen 3 rin nightly, with the result that
after thirty years of such industry he became a rural capitalist who
possessed 1,000 yen and lived in circumstances of dignity. In contrast
with this virtuous career there was shown the rural rake's progress. A
youth who was in the habit of laying out 3 sen 3 rin riotously in
sweet-shops was proved to have wasted 1,000 yen in thirty years: the
prodigal was justly exhibited fleeing from his home in debt.

One of the books on exhibition mentioned the volumes most in demand at
some village library. I translate the titles:

        Physical and Intellectual Training
        About being Ambitious
        The Housewife of a Peasant Family
        The Management of a Farm
        The Days when Statesmen were Boys
        Culture and Striving
        Essence of Rural Improvement
        A Hundred Beautiful Stories
        The Art of Composition
        The Preparation of the Conscript
        A Medical Treatise
        A Translation of "Self-Help"
        Nature and Human Life
        The Glories of Native Places
        Anecdotes concerning Culture
        Lives of Distinguished Peasants
        Mulberry Planting
        Chinese Romances
        Glories of this Peaceful Reign
        Ninomiya Sontoku

I noticed among the exhibits a short autobiography of a farmer, an
engaging egoist who wrote:

"As a young man my will was not in study and though I used my wits I
did many stupid things and the results were bad. Then I became a
little awakened and for two years I studied at night with the primary
school teacher. After that I thought to myself in secret, 'Shall I
become a wise man in this village, or, by diligently farming, a rich
man?' That was my spiritual problem. Then all my family gathered
together and consulted and decided[49] that it would suit the family
better if I were to become a rich man, and I also agreed. To
accomplish that aim I increased my area under cultivation and worked
hard day and night. I cut down the cryptomeria at my homestead and
planted in their stead mulberries and persimmons. And I slowly changed
my dry land into rice fields (making it therefore more valuable). The
soil I got I heaped up at the homestead for eighteen years until I had
28,000 cubic feet. I was able then to raise the level of my house
which had become damp and covered with mould. The increase of my
cultivated area and of the yield per _tan_ and the improvement of my
house and the practice of economy were the delight of my life. I felt
grateful to my ancestors who gave me such a strong body. Sometimes I
kept awake all night talking with my wife about the goodness of my
ancestors. Also when in bed I planned a compact homestead. I once read
a Japanese poem, 'What a joy to be born in this peaceful reign and to
be favoured by ploughs and horses.' (Most Japanese farming is done
without either horses or ploughs.) It went deeply into my heart. Also
I heard from the school teacher of four loves: love of State, love of
Emperor, love of teacher and love of parent. I have been much favoured
by those loves. I also heard the doctrines of Ninomiya: sincerity,
diligence, moderate living, unselfishness. I felt it a great joy to
live remembering those doctrines. I also went to the prefectural
experiment station and studied fruit growing and my spirit was much
expanded. I returned again to the station and the expert talked to me
very earnestly. I asked for a special variety of persimmon. The expert
sent to Gifu prefecture for it. I planted the tree and made its top
into six grafts. It bore fruit and many passers-by envied it. Two
years after that I grafted five hundred trees and sold the grafted
stock."

Several villages sent to the exhibition statistics of great interest.
One village set forth the changes which had taken place in the social
status of its inhabitants[50]. Some communities were represented by
statements of their hours of labour[51]. One small community's tables
showed how many of its inhabitants were "diligent people," how many
"average workers" and how many "other people[52]." A county
agricultural association had painstakingly collected information not
only about the work done in a year[53] and the financial returns
obtained by three typical farmers but about the way in which they
spent what they earned.[54]

On my way back from the exhibition I heard the story of a priest. When
fourteen years of age he obtained seeds of cryptomeria and planted
them in a spot in the hills. He also practised many economies. When
still in his teens he asked permission to take two shares in a 50-yen
money-sharing club, but was not allowed to do so as no one would
believe that he could complete his payments. He persisted, however,
that he would be able to pay what was required and he was at length
accepted as a member. At twenty he became priest of a small temple
which was in bad repair and had a debt of 125 yen. He brought with him
his 100 yen from the club and the young cryptomeria. He planted the
trees in the temple grounds. He said, "I wish to rebuild the temple
when these trees grow up." He cultivated the land adjoining his temple
and contrived to employ several labourers. At last the cryptomeria
grew large enough for his purpose and he rebuilt the temple, expending
on the work not only his trees but 600 yen which he had by this time
saved. Then he proceeded to bring waste land into cultivation. At the
age of sixty-two he gave his temple to another priest and went to live
in a hut on the waste land. There came a tidal wave near the place, so
he went to the sufferers and invited five families to his now
cultivated waste land. He gave them each a _tan_ of land and the
material for building cottages and showed them how to open more land.

[Illustration: "HIBACHI" AND, IN "TOKONOMA," FLOWER ARRANGEMENT AND
"KAKEMONO." See Index]

[Illustration: SCHOOL SHRINE CONTAINING EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT. p. 113]

A good judge expressed the opinion that Buddhism was flourishing in 80
per cent. of the villages of Aichi, but this was in a material and
ceremonial sense. The prefectures of Aichi and Niigata had been called
the "kitchens of Hongwanji"[55] (the great temple at Kyoto), such
liberal contributions were forthcoming from them. "A belief in
progress," this speaker said, "may be a substitute for religion for
many of our people; another substitute is a belief in Japan." A
village headman from the next prefecture (Shidzuoka) said: "People in
my village do not omit to perform their Buddhist ceremonies, but they
are not at their hearts religious. In our prefecture the influence of
Ninomiya is greater than that of Buddhism. If the villagers are good
it is Ninomiyan principles that make them so. Under Ninomiyan
influence the spirit of association has been aroused, thriftiness has
been encouraged and extravagance reprimanded."

[Illustration: FENCING AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. p. 50]

[Illustration: WAR MEMENTOES AT THE SAME SCHOOL--ALL SCHOOLS HAVE SOME]

I told Mr. Yamasaki one day that there was an old Scotswoman who
divided good people into "rael Christians and guid moral fowk." What I
was curious to know was what proportion of Japanese rural people might
be fairly called "real Buddhists" and what proportion "good moral
folk." "There are certainly some real Buddhists, not merely good moral
folk," he assured me. "If you penetrate deeply into the lives of the
people you will be able to find a great number of them. In ordinary
daily life, during a period when nothing extraordinary happens, it is
not easy to distinguish the two classes; but when any trouble comes
then those real religious people are undismayed, while the ordinarily
good moral people may sometimes go astray. The proportion of religious
people is rather large among the poor compared with the middle and
upper classes. These poor people are always weighted with many
troubles which would be a calamity to persons of the middle or upper
classes. Such humble folk get support for their lives from what is in
their hearts. Though they may suffer privation or loss they are glad
that they can live on by the mercy of Buddha. There are some religious
people even among those who are not poor. They are usually people who
have lost some of their riches suddenly, or a dear child, or have been
deprived of high position, or have met some kind of misfortune.
Sometimes a man may become religious because he feels deeply the
misfortunes or miseries of a neighbour or the miseries of war. Or his
religion may come by meditation. A man who begins to be religious is
not, however, at once noticed. On the contrary, if he is a true
believer his daily life will be most ordinary."

One day I passed a primary school playground. The girls had just
finished and the boys were beginning Swedish drill. Everyone engaged
in the drill, including the master, was barefoot.

I saw that some of the cottages were built in an Essex fashion, of
puddled clay and chopped straw faced with tarred boards. Some
dwellings, however, were faced with straw instead of boards. They had
just had their wall thatch renewed for the winter.

In one spot there was a quarter of a mile of wooden aqueduct for the
service of the paddy fields. Much agricultural pumping is done in
Aichi. I visited an irrigation installation where pumps (from London)
were turning barren hill tops into paddy fields.[56] The work was
being done by a co-operative society of 550 members who had borrowed
the 40,000 yen they needed from a bank on an undertaking to repay in
fifteen years.

It was stated that common paddy near Anjo had been bought at 5,000 yen
per _cho_ and not for building purposes. When one member of our
company said, "The farmers here are rivalling each other in hard
work," the weightiest authority among us replied: "What the farmer
must do is to work not harder but better. At present he is not working
on scientific principles. The hours he is spending on really
profitable labour are not many. He must work more rationally. In 26
villages in the south-west of Japan, where farming calls for much
labour, it was found that the number of days' work in the year was
only 192. Statistics for Eastern Japan give 186 days.[57] As to a
secondary industry, one or two hours' work a night at straw rope
making for a month may bring in a yen because the market for rope is
confined to Japan. The same with _zori_, a coarse sort being
purchasable for 2 sen a pair. But supplementary work like silk-worm
culture produces an article of luxury for which there is a world
market."

When we returned home my host was kind enough to summarise for me--the
general reader may skip here--some of the reasons set forth by a
professor of agricultural politics for the farmer's position being
what it is:

1. The average area cultivated per family is very small.

2. The law of diminishing return.

3. Imperfection of the agricultural system. Mainly crop raising, not a
combination of crop and stock raising, as in England. No profitable
secondary business but silkworm culture. Therefore the distribution of
labour throughout the year is not good and the number of days of
effective labour is relatively small.

4. The commercial side of agriculture has not been sufficiently
developed.

5. There has been a rise in the standard of living. In the old days
the farmer did not complain; he thought his lot could not be changed.
He was forbidden to adopt a new calling and he was restricted by law
to a frugal way of living. Now farmers can be soldiers, merchants or
officials and can live as they please. They begin to compare their
standard of living with that of other callings. What were once not
felt to be miseries are now regarded as such.

6. Formerly the farmer had not the expense of education and of losing
the services of his sons to the army. There is also an increase in
taxation. A representative family which incurred a public expenditure,
not including education, of 12.86 yen in 1890, paid in 1898 19.68 yen.
In 1908 it was faced by a claim for 34.28 yen.[58]

7. Although the area of land does not increase in relation to the
increase of population, the size of the peasant family is increasing
owing to the decrease of infanticide and abortion and the development
of sanitation.

8. The farmer suffers from debts at high interest.

9. The character, morality and ability of the farmer are not yet fully
developed.

10. Formerly the farmer lived an economically self-contained
existence. He had no great need of money. He must now sell his produce
on a market with wider and wider fluctuations.

11. There are many expensive customs and habits, for instance the two
or three days' feasting at weddings and funerals.

During the evening I was told this story. In a village in a far part
of the prefecture there lived a farmer called Yosogi. He was a thrifty
and diligent man. When he became old he gave all that he had to his
son. But the old man could not stop working. He would go to the farm
and help his son. The son did not like this. He wanted his old father
to rest. In the end he found that the only way to cope with his
industrious parent was to work very hard and leave him nothing to do.
But the old man was not to be balked. He took himself off to the
hillside and began to make a paddy field where there had never been a
paddy field before. To make a paddy field on such a slope is a
difficult task. The land must be embanked with stones and then
levelled. The building of the strong embankment alone calls for much
labour. The old man toiled very hard at his job and sometimes his son
in despair sent his labourers to help him. At length the paddy field
was finished. But it was only a tenth of a _tan_ in area. When the son
saw the small result of so much labour he said to his father, "I
grieve for the way you have toiled. You have laboured hard for many
days and my labourers have helped you, but all that has been
accomplished is the making of a paddy field so small and distant that
it is uneconomical."

To this the old man replied: "When you go to Tokyo and see the
graveyard at Aoyama you will behold there many monuments of generals
and ministers of State. Their merits and their works in this world are
described on those monuments. But do you know where the monument of
the famous hero Kusunoki Masashige is? It is near Kobe, and it is not
more than half as big as those monuments at Tokyo. Do you know where
the monument of the great Taiko is? It is in Kyoto, but it is only
recently that this monument was put up. Thus the monuments of our
greatest heroes are small or have been erected recently. The reason is
that it is unnecessary to raise big monuments for them because what
they did in their lives was in itself their monument. They built their
monument in the hearts of the people. Therefore we can never judge
from the size of the monument the kind of work which was accomplished
by the man who sleeps under it. Monuments are not only for ministers
and warriors. We peasants can also erect monuments in our own way. To
open a new paddy field, to plant the bare hillside with trees, these
are our monuments. How lonely it would be for me if there were no
monument left after my death. However small this paddy field may be,
it will not be forgotten so long as it yields for your posterity the
blessing of its rice crop." "Happily," the interpreter added, "the old
man did not die so soon as he thought he would do. He lived for
several years and planted the bare hillside with trees. Now the wood
which grows there is worth 10,000 yen."

A peasant proprietor expressed the conviction that goodness in a
family was "not the result of its own efforts but of the accumulation
of ancestral effort." The "ancestral merits and good spirit remain in
the family." On the problem of rich and poor he quoted the proverb,
"The very rich cannot remain very rich for more than three
generations; a poor family cannot long remain poor." He said that he
would be interested to know what I found to be "the causes of our
villagers becoming good or bad." "For ourselves," he said, quoting
another proverb, "'At the foot of the lighthouse it is dark.'"




THE MOST EXACTING CROP IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER VIII

THE HARVEST FROM THE MUD

_Toyo-ashiwara-no-chiiho-aki-mizuho-no-Kuni_ (Land of plenteous ears
of rice in the plain of luxuriant reeds).


The vast difference between Far Eastern and Western agriculture is
marked by the fact that, except by using such a phrase as shallow
pond--and this is inadequate, because a pond has a sloping bottom and
a rice field necessarily a level one--it is difficult to describe a
rice field in terms intelligible to a Western farmer. The Japanese
have a special word for a rice field, _ta_, water field, written
[Kanji: ta]. It will be noticed that the ideograph looks like a water
field in four compartments. Another word, _hata_ or _hatake_,[59]
written [Kanji: hata], tells the story of the dry or upland field. It
is the ideograph for water field in association with the ideograph for
fire, and, as we shall see later on, when we make acquaintance with
"fire farming," an upland field is a tract the vegetation of which was
originally burnt off.

Many of us have seen rice growing in Italy or in the United States.
But in Japan[60] the paddies are very-much smaller than anything to be
seen in the Po Valley and in Texas. Owing to the plentiful water
supply of a mountainous land, cultivation proceeds with some degree of
regularity and with a certain independence of the rainy season; and
there has been applied to traditional rice farming not a few
scientific improvements.

There is a kind of rice with a low yield called upland rice which,
like corn, is grown in fields. But the first requisite of general rice
culture is water. The ordinary rice crop can be produced only on a
piece of ground on which a certain depth of water is maintained.

In order to maintain this depth of water, three things must be done.
The plot of ground must be made level, low banks of earth must be
built round it in order to keep in the water, and a system of
irrigation must be arranged to make good the loss of water by
evaporation, by leakage and by the continual passing on of some of the
water to other plots belonging to the same owner or to other farmers.
The common name of a rice plot is paddy, and the rice with its husk
on, that is, as it is knocked from the ear by threshing, is called
paddy rice. The rice exported from Japan is some of it husked and some
of it polished.

[Illustration: A 200-YEARS-OLD JAPANESE DRAWING
OF THE RICE PLANT]

Some 90 per cent. of the rice grown in Japan is ordinary rice. The
remaining 10 per cent. is about 2 per cent. upland and 8 per cent,
glutinous[61]--the sort used for making the favourite _mochi_ (rice
flour dumplings, which few foreigners are able to digest). It would be
possible to collect in Japan specimens of rice under 4,000 different
names, but, like our potato names, many of these represent duplicate
varieties. Rice, again reminding us of potatoes, is grown in early,
middle and late season sorts.[62]

Just one-half of the cultivated area of Japan is devoted to paddy,
but there is to be added to this area under rice more than a quarter
million acres producing the upland rice, the yield of which is lower
than that of paddy rice. The paddy and upland rice areas together make
up more than a half of the cultivated land. The paddies which are not
in situations favourable to the production of second crops of rice
(they are grown in one prefecture only) are used, if the water can be
drawn off, for growing barley or wheat or green manure as a second
crop[63].

It is not only the Eastern predilection for rice and the wet condition
of the country, but the heavy cropping power of the plant[64]--500
_go_ per _tan_ above barley and wheat yields--that makes the Japanese
farmer labour so hard to grow it[65]. Intensively cultivated though
Japan is, the percentage of cultivated land to the total area of the
country is, however, little more than half that in Great Britain[66].
This is because Japan is largely mountains and hills. Level land for
rice paddies can be economically obtained in many parts of such a
country by working it in small patches only. There is no minimum size
for a Japanese paddy. I have seen paddies of the area of a counterpane
and even of the size of a couple of dinner napkins.

The problem is not only to make the paddy in a spot where it can be
supplied with water, but to make it in such a way that it will hold
all the water it needs. It must be level, or some of the rice plants
will have only their feet wet while others will be up to their necks.
The ordinary procedure in making a paddy is to remove the top soil,
beat down the subsoil beneath, and then restore the top soil--there
may be from 5 to 10 in. of it. But the best efforts of the
paddy-field builder may be brought to naught by springs or by a
gravelly bottom. Then the farmer must make the best terms he can with
fortune.

Paddies, as may be imagined from their physical limitations, are of
every conceivable shape. There is assuredly no way of altering the
shape of the paddies which are dexterously fitted into the hillsides.
But large numbers of paddies are on fairly level ground.[67] There is
no real need for these being of all sizes and patterns. They are what
they are because of the degree to which their construction was
conditioned by water-supply problems, the financial resources of those
who dug them or the position of neighbours' land. And no doubt in the
course of centuries there has been a great deal of swapping, buying
and inheriting. So the average farmer's paddies are not only of all
shapes and sizes but here, there and everywhere.

Therefore there arose wise men to point out that for a farmer to work
a number of oddly shaped bits of land scattered all about the village
was uneconomical and out of date. (Like the old English strip system
which still survives in the Isle of Axholme.) So what was called an
adjustment of paddy fields was carried out in many places. The farmers
were persuaded to throw their varied assortment of fields into
hotchpot and then to have the mass cut up into oblong fields of equal
or relative sizes. These were then shared out according to what each
man had contributed. In some cases a little compensation had to be
given, for there were differences in the qualities as well as the
areas of the holdings. But reasonable justice was eventually done all
round, and ever afterwards a farmer, now that his holding was in
adjoining tracts, might spend his time working in his paddies instead
of in walking to and from them. Because many unnecessary paths and
divisions between paddies were done away with there was brought about
a saving of labour and increased efficiency of cultivation. There was
also a little more land to cultivate and the paddies were big enough
for an ox or a pony to be employed in them, and the water supply was
better and sufficiently under control for floods to be averted.[68] In
brief, costs were lower and crops were better.[69]

Thus all over Japan nowadays one sees considerable tracts of adjusted
paddy fields. They are a joy to the rural sociologist. In its way
there has been nothing like it agriculturally in our time. For each of
these little farmers valued his odds and ends of paddy above their
agricultural worth. He or his forbears had made them or bought them or
married into them. And he believed that his own paddies were in a
condition of fertility surpassing not a few, and he doubted greatly
whether after adjustment he would find himself in possession of as
valuable land as his own. Sometimes also he believed that his paddies
were especially fortunate geomantically.[70] Yet, convinced by the
arguments for adjustment, the peasant agreed to the proposed
rearrangement, let his old tracts go and accepted in exchange neat
oblongs out of the common stock. Sometimes so great was the change
brought about in a village by adjustment that more than the paddies
were dealt with. Cottages were taken to new sites and the bones in
many little grave plots were removed. In a village in which there had
been an exhumation of the bones of 2,700 persons and a transference of
tombstones, I was told that the assembling together of the remains of
the departed in one place "had had a unifying effect on the
community." In this village within a period of twelve years 96 per
cent. of the paddies had been adjusted.[71]

An advantage of adjustment which has not yet been mentioned is that
adjusted paddies can usually be dried off at harvest and can therefore
be put under a second crop, usually of grain. More than a third of the
paddy-field area of the country can be dried off, and therefore
produces a second crop of barley or wheat. The farmer has two
advantages if, owing to adjustment or natural advantages, he is able
to dry off his land. Of the first or rice crop, if he is a tenant
farmer, he has had to pay his landlord perhaps 60 per cent, in rent,
less straw;[72] but the second crop is his own. The further advantage
is that second-crop land can be cultivated dry shod. One-crop paddy is
under water all the year round, and must be cultivated with wet feet
and legs.

It is because more than half the paddies are always under water that
rice cultivation is so laborious. Think of the Western farm labourer
being asked to plough and the allotment holder to dig almost knee-deep
in mud. Although much paddy is ploughed with the aid of an ox, a cow
or a pony,[73] most rice is the product of mattock or spade labour.
There is no question about the severity of the labour of paddy
cultivation. For a good crop it is necessary that the soil shall be
stirred deeply.

Following the turning over of the stubble under water, comes the clod
smashing and harrowing by quadrupedal or bipedal labour. It is not
only a matter of staggering about and doing heavy work in sludge. The
sludge is not clean dirt and water but dirty dirt and water, for it
has been heavily dosed with manure, and the farmer is not fastidious
as to the source from which he obtains it.[74] And the sludge
ordinarily contains leeches. Therefore the cultivator must work
uncomfortably in sodden clinging cotton feet and leg coverings. Long
custom and necessity have no doubt developed a certain indifference to
the physical discomfort of rice cultivation. The best rice will grow
only in mud and, except on the large uniform paddies of the adjusted
areas, there is small opportunity for using mechanical methods.

One day when I went into the country it happened to be raining hard,
but the men and women toiled in the paddies. They were breaking up the
flooded clods with a tool resembling the "pulling fork" used in the
West for getting manure from a dung cart. On other farms the task of
working the quagmire was being done by two persons with the aid of a
disconsolate pony harnessed to a rude harrow. The men and women in the
paddies kept off the rain by means of the usual wide straw hats and
loose straw mantles, admirable in their way in their combination of
lightness and rainproofness. Often, besides the farmer's wife, a young
widow or a young unmarried woman may be seen at work, but, as was once
explained to me, "The old Miss is not frequent in Japan."[75]

Planting time arrives in the middle of June or thereabouts, when the
paddy has been brought by successive harrowings into a fine tilth or
rather sludge. It is illustrative of the exacting ways of rice that
not only has it to have a growing place specially fashioned for it, it
cannot be sown as cereals are sown. It must be sown in beds and then
be transplanted. The seed beds have been sown in the latter part of
April or the early part of May, according to the variety of rice and
the locality.[76] The seeds have usually been selected by immersion in
salt water and have been afterwards soaked in order to advance
germination. There is a little soaking pond on every farm. By the use
of this pond the period in which the seeds are exposed to the
depredations of insects, etc., is diminished. The seed bed itself is
about the width of an onion bed, in order that weeds and insect pests
may be easily reached. The seed bed is, of course, under water. The
seed is dropped into the water and sinks into the mud. Within about
thirty or forty days the seedlings are ready for transplanting. They
have been the object of unremitting care. Weeds have been plucked out
and insects have been caught by nets or trapped. There is a
contrivance which, by means of a wheel at either end, straddles the
seed bed, and is drawn slowly from one end to the other. It catches
the insects as they hop or fly up.

In many localities specially fine varieties are grown for seed on the
land of the Shinto shrines. In other localities special sorts are
raised in ordinary paddies but surrounded by the rope and white paper
streamers which represent a consecrated place. In not a few villages
there are communal seed beds so that many farmers may grow the same
variety, and there may be a considerable bulk for co-operative sale.

At transplanting time every member of the family capable of helping
renders assistance. Friends also give their aid if it is not planting
time for them too. The work is so engrossing that young children who
are not at school are often left to their own devices. Sometimes they
play by the ditch round the paddies and are drowned. Five such cases
of drowning are reported from three prefectures on the day I write
this. The suggestion is made that in the rice districts there should
be common nurseries for farmers' children at planting time.

The rate at which the planters, working in a row across the paddy, set
out the seedlings in the mud below the water, is remarkable.[77] The
first weeding or raking takes place about a fortnight after planting.
After that there are three more weedings, the last being about the end
of August. All kinds of hoes are used in the sludge. They are usually
provided with a wooden or tin float. But most of the weeding is done
simply by thrusting the hand into the mud, pulling out the weed and
thrusting it back into the sludge to rot. The back-breaking character
of this work may be imagined. As much of it is done in the hottest
time of the year the workers protect themselves by wide-brimmed hats
of the willow-plate pattern and by flapping straw cloaks or by bundles
of straw fastened on their backs.

A sharp look-out must be kept for insects of various sorts. In more
than one place I saw the boys and girls of elementary schools wading
in the paddies and stroking the young rice with switches in order to
make noxious insects rise. The creatures were captured by the young
enthusiasts with nets. The children were given special times off from
school work in which to hunt the rice pests and were encouraged to
bring specimens to school.

There is no greater delight to the eye than the paddies in their early
green, rippled and gently laid over by the wind. (One should say
greens, for there is every tint from the rather woe-begone yellowish
green of the newly planted out rice to the happy luxuriant dark green
of the paddies that have long been enjoying the best of quarters.) As
harvest time approaches,[78] the paddies, because they are not all
planted with the same variety of rice, are in patches of different
shades. Some are straw colour, some are reddish brown or almost black.
A poet speaks of the "hanging ears of rice." Rice always seems to hang
its head more than other crops. It is weaker in the straw than barley,
but rice frequently droops not only because of its natural habit, but
because it has been over-manured or wrongly manured or because of wind
or wet.

Beyond wind,[79] insects and drought, floods are the enemies of rice.
When the plants are young, three or four days' flooding do not matter
much, but in August, when the ears are shooting, it is a different
matter. The sun pours down and soon rots the rice lying in the warm
water. Sometimes the farmer, by almost withdrawing the water from his
paddies, raises the temperature of the soil with benefit to the crop.

The farmer is fortunate who is able to get the water completely out of
his paddies by the time harvest arrives, but, as we have seen,
two-thirds of the paddies must be harvested in sludge. Many crops are
muddied before they can be cut. Sometimes on the eve of harvest the
farmer wades in and tries, by arranging the fallen stems across one
another, to keep some of the ears out of the water. But he is not very
successful. Rice may lie in the wet a week or even the best end of a
fortnight without serious damage. But all that this means is that
within the period specified it may not sprout. It must be damaged to
some extent even by a few days' immersion. The reason why it is not
damaged more than it is is no doubt, first, because rice is a plant
which has been brought up to take its chances with water, and in the
second place because the thing which is known to the housewife as rice
is not really the grain at all but the interior of the grain.

Western farmers are hard put to it when their grain crops are beaten
down by wind and rain; Japanese agriculturists, because they gather
their harvest with a short sickle, do not find a laid crop difficult
to cut. But these harvesters are very muddy indeed. When the rice is
cut and the sheaves are laid along the low mud wall of the paddy they
are still partly in the sludge. We know how miserable a wet harvest is
at home, but think of the slushy harvest with which most Japanese
farmers struggle every year of their lives. The rice grower, although
year in and year out he has the advantage of a great deal of sunshine,
seldom gets his crop in without some rain. How does he manage to dry
his October and November rice? By means of a temporary fence or rack
which he rigs up in his paddy field or along a path or by the
roadside. On this structure the sheaves are painstakingly suspended
ears down. Sometimes he utilises poles suspended between trees. These
trees, grown on the low banks of the paddies, have their trunks
trimmed so that they resemble parasols.

When the sheaves are removed in order to be threshed on the upland
part of the holding, they are carried away at either end of a pole on
a man's shoulder or are piled up on the back of an ox, cow or pony.
The height of the pile under which some animals stagger up from the
paddies gives one a vivid conception of "the last straw."

Threshing is usually done by a man, woman, girl or youth taking as
many stems as can be easily grasped in both hands and drawing the
ears, first one way and then another, through a horizontal row of
steel teeth. The flail is not used for threshing rice but is employed
for barley. Another common way of knocking out grain is by beating the
straw over a table or a barrel. There are all sorts of cheap
hand-worked threshing machines. After the threshing of the rice comes
the winnowing, which may be done by the aid of a machine but is more
likely to be effected in the immemorial way, by one person pouring the
roughly threshed ears from a basket or skep while another worker
vigorously fans the grain. The result is what is known as paddy rice.
The process which follows winnowing is husking. This is done in the
simplest possible form of hand mill. Before husking the rice grain is
in appearance not unlike barley and it is no easy matter to get its
husk off. The husking mill is often made of hardened clay with many
wooden teeth on the rubbing surface. After husking there is another
winnowing. Then the grains are run through a special apparatus of
recent introduction called _mangoku doshi_, so that faulty ones may be
picked out. The result is unpolished rice.

It looks grey and unattractive, and unfortunately the unprepossessing
but valuable outer coat is polished away. This is done in a mortar
hollowed out of a section of a tree trunk or out of a large stone. One
may see a young man or a young woman pounding the rice in the mortar
with a heavy wooden beetle or mallet. Often the beetle is fastened to
a beam and worked by foot. Or the polishing apparatus may be driven by
water, oil or steam power. Constantly in the country there are seen
little sheds in each of which a small polishing mill driven by a water
wheel is working away by itself. After the polishing, the _mangoku
doshi_ is used again to free the rice from the bran. This polished
rice is still further polished by the dealer, who has more perfect
mills than the farmer.

[Illustration: SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED PADDIES, p. 20]

The farmer pays his rent not in the polished but in the husked rice.
At the house of a former _daimyo_ I saw an instrument which the
feudal lord's bailiff was accustomed to thrust into the rice the
tenants tendered. If when the instrument was withdrawn more than three
husks were found adhering, the rice was returned to be recleaned.
There are names for all the different kinds of rice. For instance,
paddy rice is _momi_; husked rice is _gemmai_; half-polished rice is
_hantsukimai_; polished rice is _hakumai_; cooked rice is _gohan_.

[Illustration: PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS. p. 75]

[Illustration: PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER (TOKYO). p. 49]

A century ago the farmer ate his rice at the _gemmai_ stage, that is
in its natural state, and there was no _beri-beri_. The "black saké"
made from this _gemmai_ rice is still used in Shinto ceremonies. In
order to produce clear _saké_ the rice was polished. Then well-to-do
people out of daintiness had their table rice polished. Now polished
rice is the common food. Half-polished rice may be prepared with two
or three hundred blows of the mallet; fully polished or white rice may
receive six, seven or eight hundred, or even it may be a thousand
blows.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] See Appendix VII.

[48] See Appendix VIII.

[49] Family in the French sense.

[50] See Appendix IX.

[51] See Appendix X.

[52] See Appendix XI.

[53] See Appendix XII.

[54] See Appendix XIII.

[55] It was recently stated that the consent of the authorities was
awaited for collections to the amount of 20 million yen, of which
13-1/2 million were for the two Hongwanjis.

[56] For yields of new paddy, see Appendix XIV.

[57] See Appendix XII.

[58] It would be from 80 to 100 yen now.

[59] _Hata_ (upland field) is not to be confounded with _hara_
(prairie, wilderness, moor, often erroneously translated, plain).

[60] Rice is grown in every prefecture. The largest total yields are
in Niigata, Hyogo, Fukuoka, Aichi, Yamagata, Ibariki and Chiba.

[61] See Appendix XV.

[62] The average yield of the three kinds at Government experimental
farms--the middle variety yields best and next comes the late
variety--is about 2-1/2 _koku_ per _tan_ or roughly (a _koku_ being
about 5 bushels and a _tan_ about a quarter of an acre) about 45
bushels per acre. The average yield of ordinary rice in Japan in an
ordinary year is 40-3/4 bushels. In the bumper year of 1920 the
average yield was 41-1/3 bushels. In the year 1916 (to which most of
the figures in this book, apart from the Appendix and footnotes, in
which the latest available figures are given, refer) there was
produced 58-1/4 million _koku_ of all kinds of rice, the value of
which was 826-1/2 million yen. The normal yield (average of 7 years,
excluding the years of highest and lowest production) is 54-1/2
million _koku_. See Appendix XV.

[63] For wheat and barley crops, see Appendix XVI.

[64] A few rice plants may be seen growing at Kew.

[65] The cost of the rice crop and the income it yields are discussed
in Appendix XVII.

[66] See Appendix XVIII.

[67] In Japanese rural statistics the word plain may be said to mean a
tract of land which is neither cultivated nor timbered nor used for
the purposes of habitation. Sometimes it is called prairie, but this
is not always correct as it is very often a barren waste, a tract of
volcanic ash, or an area producing bamboo grass. Some of this land,
however, could be cultivated after proper irrigation, etc. In this
note, plains is employed in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Of
such plains there are several. The plain in which Tokyo is situated is
82,000 acres in extent. The traveller from Kobe to Tokyo passes
through the Kinai plain in which Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka stand. It is
said to feed 2-1/2 million people. Four other plains are reputed to
feed 7-1/2 million.

[68] Rivers supply about 65 per cent. of the paddy water and
reservoirs about 21 per cent. The remainder has to be got from other
sources.

[69] An acreage of a _tan_ is aimed at, but it is frequently larger;
it may even be 4 _tan_ (an acre). The cost ranges from about 8 yen to
50 yen per _tan_. The average increase in yield alter adjustment is
about 15 per cent., to which must be added the yield of the new land
obtained, say 3 per cent. of the area adjusted. The consent of half
the owners is required for adjustment.

[70] Once when a friend in Tokyo had trouble with her servants a maid
informed her that the house was unlucky because a certain necessary
apartment faced the wrong point of the compass.

[71] In the whole of Japan by 1919 two million and a half acres had
been adjusted or were in course of adjustment.

[72] The rent is usually 57 per cent. of the rice harvest in the
paddies and 44 per cent. (in cash or kind) of the crops on the
non-paddy land. Any crop raised in the paddies between the harvesting
of one rice crop and the planting out of the next belongs to the
farmer. (All taxes and rates are paid by the landlord, and amount to
from 30 to 33 per cent. of the rent.) The area under paddy and the
area of upland under cultivation are almost equal.

[73] See Appendix XIX.

[74] See Appendix XX.

[75] In 1920 there were 38,922,437 males and 38,083,073 females.

[76] See Appendix XXI.

[77] See Appendix XXII.

[78] The harvest extends from mid-September in the north of Japan to
the end of October or beginning of November in the south. The harvest
is taken early in the north for fear of frost.

[79] The "210th day" (counted from the beginning of spring), when
flowering commences, is so critical a period that the weather
conditions during the twenty-four hours in every prefecture are
reported to the Emperor.




CHAPTER IX

THE RICE BOWL, THE GODS AND THE NATION

I thank whatever gods there be....--HENLEY

I


How many people who have not been in the East or in the rice trade
realise that rice, in the course of the polishing it receives from the
farmer and the dealer, loses nearly half its bulk? A necessary part of
the grain is lost. No wonder that sensible people in Japan and the
West demand the grey unpolished rice. In Japan some enterprising
person has started selling bottled stuff made from the part of the
rice grain that is rubbed off in the polishing process. It does not
look appetising. An easier thing would be to leave some of the coating
on the rice. One thinks of what Smollett said of white bread:

"They prefer it to wholesome bread because it is whiter. Thus they
sacrifice their health to a most absurd gratification of a misjudging
eye, and the tradesman is obliged to poison them in order to live."

Although, for economy's sake, a considerable amount of barley is eaten
with or instead of rice, it may be said in a general way that the
Japanese people, like so many millions of other Asiatics, have rice
for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner. If they have
anything to eat between meals it is as like as not to be rice cakes---
to the foreigner's taste a loathly, half-cooked compost of rice flour
or pounded rice and water, a sort of tepid underdone muffin. We in the
West have bread at every meal as the Japanese have rice, but we eat
our bread not only as plain bread but as toast and bread-and-butter;
we also ring the changes on brown, white and oat bread.

Among the covered lacquer dishes on the little table set before each
kneeling breakfaster, luncher or diner in Japan there is one which is
empty. This is the rice bowl. When the meal begins--or in the case of
an elaborate dinner at the rice course--the maid brings in a large
covered wooden copper-bound or brass-bound tub or round lacquered box
of hot rice. This rice she serves with a big wooden spoon, the only
spoon ever seen at a Japanese meal. A man may have three helpings or
four in a bowl about as big as a large breakfast cup. The etiquette is
that, though other dishes may be pecked at, the rice in one's bowl
must be finished. The usage on this point may have originated in the
feeling that it was almost impious to waste the staple food of the
country. It is not difficult to pick up the last rice grains with the
wooden _hashi_ (chopsticks), for the rice is skilfully boiled. (Soft
rice is served to invalids only.) But when the bowl is almost empty
the custom is to pour into it weak tea or hot water, and then to drink
this, so getting rid of the odd grains. It is through omitting to
drink in this way that foreigners get indigestion when at a Japanese
meal they eat a lot of rice.

At first it is not easy for the foreigner to believe that people can
come with appetite to several bowls of plain rice three times a
day.[80] But good rice does seem to have something of the property of
oatmeal, the property of a continual tastiness. Further, the rice
eater picks up now and then from a small saucer a piece of pickle
which may have either a salty or a sweet fermented taste. The
nutrition gained at a Japanese meal is largely in soups in which the
bean preparations, _tofu_ and _miso_, and occasionally eggs, are used.
And there is no country in the world where more fish is eaten than in
Japan. The coast waters and rivers team with fish, and fish--fresh,
dried and salted, shell-fish and fish unrecognisable as fish after all
sorts of ingenious treatment--is consumed by almost everybody.

The Japanese are in no doubt that the foreign rice which is brought
into the country to supplement the home supply is inferior to their
own.[81] Inferior means that they prefer the flavour of their own
rice, just as most Scots prefer oatmeal made from oats grown in
Scotland.


II

In the year of the Coronation--it took place three years after the
Emperor's accession--two prefectures had the honour of being chosen to
produce the rice to be placed before gods, Emperor and dignitaries at
Kyoto. The work was not undertaken without ceremony. I was a witness
of the rites performed at the planting of the rice in one of the
prefectures. Plots had been prepared with enormous care. Along the top
of the special fencing were the Shinto straw bands and paper
streamers. A small shrine had been built to overlook the plots. Even
the instruments of the little meteorological station near, by which
the management of the crop would be guided, were surrounded by straw
bands and streamers--religion protecting science. The mattocks and
other implements which had been used in the preparation of the paddy
or were to be used in getting in the crops and in cultivating,
harvesting, threshing and cleaning it were all new. Even the herring
which had manured the plot had been "specially selected and blessed."
Further, there was a special bath-house where the young men and women
who were to plant the rice had washed ceremonially at an early hour.

We had reached the spot through a crowd of twenty or thirty thousand
people who were gathering to witness the ceremony. A covered platform
had been built in front of the rice field shrine, and on either side
were large roofed-in spaces for some scores of Shinto priests and the
favoured spectators. The ceremony lasted two hours. It carried us
magically away from a Japan of frock coats to Japan of a thousand, it
may be two thousand years ago. Between the wail of ancient wood and
wind instruments and the cinema operators who missed nothing external
and some bored top-hatted spectators who furtively puffed a cigarette
before the ceremony came to an end,[82] what a gulf! Platter after
platter of food, sometimes rice, sometimes vegetables, sometimes
fruit, sometimes a big fish, was passed by one priest to another in
the sunlight until all the offerings were reverently placed by a
special dignitary on one of those unpainted, unvarnished, undecorated
but exquisitely proportioned altars which are an artistic glory of
Shintoism. The shrine was wholly open on the side of the rice field,
and the high priest was in full view as he stood before the altar with
bowed head and folded hands, his robe caught by the breeze, and
delivered in a loud voice his zealous invocation. His words were
stressed not only by an acolyte who twanged the strings of a venerable
harp, but by the song of a lark which rose with the first strains of
the harpist. The purpose of the ceremony was to call down the gods and
to gain their blessing for the crop and the new reign. At the moment
of highest solemnity the thousands assembled bowed their heads: the
gods were deigning to descend and accept the offering. More ancient
music, more ceremonial, and the gods having been called upon to return
to high heaven, the laden platters were gravely removed, and the rice
planting in the adjoining field began. To the sound of drum the young
men and women in special costumes strode through the wicket into the
mud of the paddies, and, under the supervision of the director of the
prefectural agricultural experiment station in a silk hat, planted out
the tufts of rice seedlings in scrupulously measured rows.

I asked a distinguished Japanese who was standing near me--he is a
Christian--how many of the educated people in the assembly believed
that the gods had descended. His answer was, "I may not believe that
the gods of a truth descended, but I find something beautiful in
calling on the gods with a harp of Old Japan, and I do believe that
our humble and natural offering to-day may be acceptable to whatever
gods there may be and that it is a worthy exercise for us to undertake
and may also be conducive to a good harvest." My friend attempted the
following rough rendering of a song which had been sung by the rice
planters before the shrine:

This day the beginning of sowing at an auspicious time--
Long life to the rice!
May it be a token of the years of the Reign,
The seed of peace for the world--
May it start from this consecrated field!
One in heart we see to it that our seedlings are well matched.
Mikawa's[83] millennium and the millennium of rice.
Let us pray for an abundant shooting.
Now let us plant the seedlings straight;
Pleasing to the gods are the ways that are not crooked.

After this ceremony, in which the staple crop of the country and the
labour of the farmer in his paddy field had been honoured by the State
and dignified by ancestral blessings, there was luncheon in one of
those deftly contrived reed-covered structures, of the building of
which the Japanese have the knack, and the Governor asked some of us
to say a few words. Then on a raised platform in the open there was
enacted a comic interlude such as might have been seen in England in
the Middle Ages. In the evening I was bidden to a dinner of the
officials responsible for the day's doings. The Governor made a kindly
reference to my labours and the local M.P. presented me with a kimono
length of the cotton material which had been woven for the planters of
the sacred rice.


III[84]

The production of rice has increased more quickly than the growth of
the population. If we consider, along with the advance in population,
the crops of the years 1882 and 1913, which were held to be average,
and, in order to be as up-to-date as possible, the normal annual
yield[85] of the five-years period 1912-18, we find that, as between
1882 and 1913, the population increased 45 per cent. and rice
production increased 63 per cent., while as between 1882 and the
normal annual yield period of 1912-18, the population increased 55 per
cent, and the crop 75 per cent.[86]

This is a noteworthy fact. But equally noteworthy is the fact that in
the 1882-1913 period, in which the production of rice increased 63 per
cent. and the population only 45 per cent., the price of rice did not
fall. On the contrary it rose. This was due largely[87] to the fact
that people had begun to eat rice who had not before been able to
afford it. Many people who grow rice eat, as has been noted, barley or
barley mixed with a little rice. From the 'eighties onwards more and
more rice was eaten.[88]

The reason was that, what with the cash obtained from cocoons through
the enormous development of sericulture,[89] what with the money
received by the girls who had gone to the factories, what with the
growth of big cities causing an increased demand for vegetables, eggs
and especially fruit at good prices, what with the use of better seed
and more artificial manure, what with agricultural co-operation,
paddy-field adjustment and the taking-in of new land, the farmer, in
spite of increased taxation,[90] was doing better, or at any rate was
minded to live better. In the thirty-years period 1882-1913, his crop
increased 63 per cent. although his area under cultivation increased
by only 17 per cent. In the following pages we shall hear more of the
methods by which the farmer's receipts have been increased. We shall
hear also, alas! of the ways in which his expenditure has increased.
He is indeed in a trying situation. Everything depends on his
character and education and on the influences, social and political,
moral and religious, under which he lives. That is why this book, in
devoting itself to an examination of the foundations of an
agricultural country, is concerned with rural sociology rather than
with the technique of crops and cropping.

The outstanding problem of the rice grower is fluctuations in
price.[91] It is also the problem of the landlord, for rents are fixed
not at so much money but at so many _koku_ of rice. This means that
on rent day the farmer must pay the same amount of rice whether his
crop has been good or bad. It also means that when the price of rice
rises the amount of rent is automatically raised. If rent were paid,
not in so many _koku_ of rice but in money at a fixed amount, the
landlord would know where he was and the tenant would be in an easier
position, for when the rice crop failed the price would be high and he
would be able to meet his rent by selling a smaller amount of rice.
The counsel of the prudent to the rice producer is to build
storehouses and not to sell the whole of his crop immediately after
harvest, but to extend the sale over the whole year, marketing each
month about the same amount if possible. The Government Granary plan
came into force in 1921, some 3 million _koku_ of unpolished rice
being bought in five grades at from 27 yen to 33 yen. In the year
before the War rice was selling at 20 yen per _koku_ (5 bushels). The
previous year (1912) it had been 21 yen--had risen at times to 23
yen--an unheard-of price. Between 1894 and 1912 it had climbed merely
from about 7 yen to a maximum of 16 yen.[92] In the year in which the
War broke out, it dropped as low as 12 yen, and in 1915 it was only 11
yen. By 1916 it had not risen beyond 14 yen.

The fall in prices was due to exceptional harvests in 1914 and 1915
(that is, 57,006,541 _koku_ and 55,924,590 _koku_ as compared with the
50,255,000 _koku_ of the year before the War, or the 51,312,000 which
may be taken as the average of the seven-years period 1907-13). Such
exceptional harvests as those of 1914 and 1915 showed a surplus of
from 4½ to 6 million _koku_ over and above the needs of the country,
which are roughly estimated at 1 _koku_ per head including infants and
the old and feeble. In 1916 it was established, when account was taken
of stored rice, that the actual surplus was something like 6 or 7
million _koku_. Therefore a fall in price took place. The extent to
which rice is imported and exported is shown in Appendix XXIV. This
Chapter would become much more technical than is necessary if I
entered into the question of the correctness of rice statistics.
Roughly, the statistics show a production 15 per cent. less than the
actual crops. Formerly the under-estimation was 20 per cent. The
practice has its origin in the old taxation system.

The notes for the account of rural life in Japan which will be found
in this book were chiefly made in the second and third years of the
War. Since that time there has been an enormous rise in the price of
everything. For a time the farmers prospered as they had prospered in
the high rice-price years, 1912-13.[93] The high prices of all grain
as well as the fabulous price of raw silk (due to increased export to
America and to increased home consumption) were a great advantage.

[Illustration: MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP THE PRICE OF RICE
FROM RISING]

Then came the rice riots of the city workers, the general slump and
finally the commercial and industrial crash. Raw silk fell nearly to
one-third of its top price, and farmers had to sell cocoons under the
cost of production. Everywhere countrymen and countrywomen employed in
the factories were discharged in droves. A large proportion of these
unfortunates returned to their villages to dispel some rural dreams of
urban Eldorado.

But this matter of the going up and coming down of prices has but a
passing interest for the reader. The only economic fact of which he
need lay hold is that in recent years the farmers have been led into
the way of spending more money--in taxation as well as in general
expenses of living--and that, when account is taken of every advantage
they have gained from better methods of production, they have pressing
on them the limitations imposed by the size of their farms and their
farming practice. Whatever the prices obtained for the: products of
the soil, climatic facts,[94] the character and social condition of
the people, their attitude towards life and authority and the attitude
of authority towards them remain very much the same. And thus a
narrative of things seen and heard chiefly during the first years of
the War is not at all out of date even if it were not supplemented as
it is by a plentiful supply of notes containing the latest statistical
data.

There is one curious exception only. The reader of these pages will
constantly come on references to the poverty of the tenant farmers.
They are, of course, practically labourers, for they cultivate two or
three acres only, and at the end of the year, as has been shown, have
merely a trifle in hand and sometimes not that. Influenced by the
labour movement, which developed in the industrial centres during and
after the War,[95] this depressed class has of late shown spirit. It
has begun to assert its claims against landowners. At the end of 1920
there were as many as ninety associations of tenant farmers, and sixty
of these had been started for the specific purpose of representing
tenants' interests against landowners. Strikes of tenants began and
continue. The end of this movement of a proverbially conservative
class is not at all certain.[96]

The outstanding facts which are to be borne in mind about agricultural
Japan are that the population is as thick on the ground as the
population of the British Isles (thicker in reality, for so much of
Japan is mountain and waste)--ten times thicker than the population of
the United States[97]--that Japan is primarily an agricultural
country, while Great Britain is largely a manufacturing and trading
country, and that only 15½ per cent. of Japan proper (including
Hokkaido) is under cultivation against 27 per cent. in Great
Britain.[98] The average area cultivated per farming family in Japan,
counting paddy and upland together, is less than 3 acres. As the total
population of Japan is now (1921) 56 millions (55,960,150 in 1920,
plus the annual increase of 600,000), every acre has to feed close on
four persons. ("Even in Hokkaido," Dr. Sato notes, "the average area
per family is only 7½ acres.") Happily the number of families
cultivating less than 1¼ acres is decreasing and the number
cultivating from 1¼ up to 5 acres is increasing.[99] In other words,
the favourite size of farm is one which finds work for all the members
of the farmer's family. As on small holdings all over the world, it is
found that profits are difficult to make when help has to be paid for.
The facts that in the last four years for which figures are available
the number of farming families keeping silk-worms has risen by half a
million and that every year the area of land under cultivation
increases show that new ways of increasing income are eagerly seized
on.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] For estimate of daily consumption of rice by Japanese, see
Appendix XXIII.

[81] For statistics of imported and exported rice, see Appendix XXIV.

[82] Japanese. I was the only foreigner present.

[83] The old name for a considerable part of Aichi

[84] This section of the chapter was written in 1921.

[85] For the way in which "normal yield" is arrived at, see p. 70.

[86] See Appendix XXV.

[87] War with China, 1894; with Russia, 1904.

[88] For farmers' diet, see Appendix XXVI.

[89] Farmers in sericultural districts live better than the ordinary
rice farmers.

[90] See Appendix XXVII.

[91] See Appendix XXVIII.

[92] For prices, see Appendix XVII.

[93] The rise in prices towards the close of the War, with the rise in
the cost of living throughout the world, has been discussed on page
xxv.

[94] See Appendix XXIX.

[95] See Chapter XX.

[96] Recent figures show 400 tenants' associations, of which a third
are militant.

[97] See Appendix XXX and page 97.

[98] See Chapter XX.

[99] See Appendix XXXI.




BACK TO FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE APOSTLE
AND THE ARTIST

CHAPTER X

A TROUBLER OF ISRAEL

The signification of this gift of life, that we should leave a better
world for our successors, is being understood.--MEREDITH


To some people in Japan the countryman Kanzo Uchimura is "the Japanese
Carlyle." To others he is a religious enthusiast and the Japanese
equivalent of a troubler of Israel. He appeared to me in the guise of
a student of rural sociology.

Uchimura is the man who as a school teacher "refused to bow before the
Emperor's portrait."[100] He endured, as was to be expected, social
ostracism and straitened means. But when his voice came to be heard in
journalism it was recognised as the voice of a man of principle by
people who heard it far from gladly. There is a seamy side to some
Japanese journalism[101] and Uchimura soon resigned his editorial
chair. He abandoned a second editorship because he was determined to
brave the displeasure of his countrymen by opposing the war with
Russia. To-day he deplores many things in the relations of Japan and
China.

[Illustration: _Fuhei_
MUZZLED EDITORS]

Uchimura has written more than two dozen books, mostly on religion.
_How I became a Christian_ has been translated into English, German,
Danish, Russian and Chinese, and is to that extent a landmark in the
literary history of Japan. His Christianity is an Early Christianity
which places him in antagonism, not only to his own countrymen who are
Shintoists, Buddhists or Confucians, or vaguely Nationalists, but to
such foreign missionaries as are sectarians and literalists. His
earliest training was in agricultural science, and the welfare of the
Japanese countryside is near his heart. If he be a Carlyle, as his
fibre and resolution, downright way of writing and speaking, hortatory
gift, humour, plainness of life and dislike of officials, no less than
his cast of countenance, his soft hat and long gaberdine-like coat
have suggested, he is a Carlyle who is content to stay both in body
and mind at Ecclefechan. He is not, however, like Carlyle, whom he
calls "master," a peasant, but a samurai.

"As you penetrate into the lives of the farmers and discover the
influences brought to bear on them," Uchimura said to me in his
decisive way, "there will be laid bare to you _the foundations of
Japan_. You know our proverb, of course, _No wa kuni no taihon nari_
('Agriculture is the basis of a nation')? Have you been to Nikko?"
This seemed a little inconsequent, but I told him I had not yet been
to Nikko. ("Until you have seen Nikko," runs the adage, "do not say
'splendid'.") "How many of the tourists who are delighted with Nikko,"
he went on, "have heard how the richest farms near that town were
devastated? A century ago a minister of the Shogun, who realised that
fertility depended on trees, saw to the whole range of Nikko hills
being afforested. It was a tract twenty miles by twenty miles in
extent. But the 'civilised' authorities of our own days sold all the
timber to a copper company for 8,000 yen. The company destroyed the
fertility of the district not only by cutting down the forest but by
poisoning the water with which the farmers irrigated their crops. A
member of Parliament gave himself with such devotion to the cause of
the ruined farmers that when he died the ashes of his cremated body
were divided and preserved in four shrines erected to his memory."

It was a sad thing, said Uchimura, that the farmers of Japan, because
of the decreased fertility of the land due to the denudation of the
hills of trees, and because of their increased expenses, should be
laying out "a quarter of their incomes on artificial manures." "The
enemies which Japan has most to fear to-day," Uchimura declared, "are
impaired fertility and floods."

It may be well, perhaps, to explain for a few readers how floods do
their ill work. The rain which falls on treeless mountains is not
absorbed there. The water washes down the mountain sides, bringing
with it first good soil and then subsoil, stones and rock. The hills
eventually become those peaked deserts the queer look of which must
have puzzled many students of Japanese pictures. The debris washed
away is carried into the rivers, along with trees from the lower
slopes, and the level of the river beds is raised. Because there is
less space in the river beds for water the rivers overflow their
banks, and disastrous floods take place. The farmers, the local
authorities and the State raise embankments higher and higher, but
embankment building is costly and cannot go on indefinitely. The real
remedy is to decrease the supply of water by planting forests in the
mountains[102]. In many places the rivers are flowing above the level
of the surrounding country. The imagination is caught by the fact that
there are four earthquakes a day in Japan[103] and that within a
twelvemonth fires destroy 400 acres or so of buildings; but every
year, on an average, floods, tidal waves and typhoons together drown
more than 600 people and cause a money loss of 25 million yen! Every
year 10½ million yen are spent by the State and the prefectures on
river control alone.

Uchimura put on his famous wideawake and we went out for a walk. "I
should like," he said, "to press the view that the vaunted expansion
of Japan has meant to the farmers an increase of prices and taxes and
of armaments out of all proportion to our population[104]."

Uchimura stood stock still in the little wood we had entered. "There
is one thing more," he added gravely. "Before you can get deeply into
your subject you must touch religion. There you see the depths of the
people. A large part of the deterioration of the countryside is due to
the deterioration of Buddhism. You must ask about it. You will see in
the villages much of what your old writers used to call 'priestcraft.'
You will hear of the thraldom of many of the people. You will see with
your own eyes that real Christianity may be a moral bath for a rural
district."

"The essentials, not the forms of Christianity," he declared, would
save the countryside by "brotherly union." "Brotherly union" would
make a better life and a better agriculture. The rural class, he
explained, was more sharply divided than foreigners understood into
owners of land who lived on their rents and farmers who farmed[105].
The division between the two classes was "as great as an Indian caste
division." "To the landowner who lives in his village like a feudal
lord the simple Gospel, with its insistence on the sacredness of work,
comes as an intellectual revolution." Women as well as men of means
received from Christianity "a new conception of humanity." They ceased
to "look upon their own glory and to take delight in the flattery of
poor people." They changed their way of speaking to the peasants. They
developed an interest, of which they knew nothing before, in the
spiritual and material betterment of the men, women and children of
their village.

I went a two-days journey into the country with Uchimura. We stayed at
the house of a landowner who was one of his adherents. I found myself
in a large room where two swallows were flitting, intent on building
on a beam which yearly bore a nest. In this room stood a shrine
containing the ancestral tablets. The daily offerings were no longer
made, but Uchimura's counsel, unlike that of some zealots, was to
preserve not only this shrine but the large family shrine in the
courtyard. Near by was an engraving of Luther.

[Illustration: "THE JAPANESE CARLYLE." p. 90]

[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. YANAGI. p. 98]

Uchimura spoke in the house to some thirty or more "people of the
district who had accepted Christianity." His appeal was to "live
Christianity as given to the world by its founder." The address, which
was delivered from an arm-chair, was based on the fifth chapter of
Matthew, which in the preacher's copy appeared to contain
cross-references to two disciples called Tolstoy and Carlyle. When I
was asked to speak I found that the women in the gathering had places
in front. "The remarkable effect of Christianity among those who
have come to think with us," Uchimura told me afterwards, "is seen
most in their treatment of women. Our host, had he not been a
Christian, would have been credited by public opinion with the
possession of a concubine, and would not have been blamed for it."
When, after the speaking, we knelt in a circle and talked less
formally of how best to benefit rural people, we were joined by the
women folk. Later, when a dozen of the neighbours were invited to
dinner, it was not served at separate tables for each kneeling guest,
but at one long table, an innovation "to indicate the brotherly
relation."

[Illustration: CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS]

[Illustration: MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME OF THE CHILDREN.
p. 112]

"So you see," said Uchimura, as we walked to the station in the
morning, "in an antiquated book, which, I suppose, stands dusty on the
shelves of some of your reformers, there is power to achieve the very
things they aim at." He went on to explain that he looked "in the
lives of hearers, not in what they say," for results from his
teaching. He believed in liberty and freedom, in sowing the seed of
change and reform and allowing people to develop as they would. "Let
men and women believe as they have light."

He spoke in his kindly way of how "the bond of a common faith enables
Japanese to get closer to the foreigner and the foreigner closer to
the Japanese." There were many things we foreigners did not
understand. We did not understand, for example, that "A man's a man
for a' that" was an unfamiliar conception to a Japanese. I was to
remember, when I interrogated Japanese about the problems of rural
life, that they had had to coin a word for "problems." Above all, I
must be careful not to "exaggerate the quality of Eastern morality."
Uchimura asserted sweepingly that "morality in the Anglo-Saxon sense
is not found in Japan." We of the West underrated the value of the
part played by the Puritans in our development. Our moral life had
been evolved by the soul-stirring power of the Hebrew prophets and of
Christ. To deny this was "kicking your own mother." Just as it was not
possible for the Briton or American to get his present morality from
Greece and Rome exclusively, it was not possible for the Japanese to
obtain it from the sources at his disposal.

The faults of the Eastern were that he thought too much of outward
conduct. Good political and neighbourly-relations, kindliness, honesty
and thrift were his idea of morality. "To love goodness and to hate
evil with one's whole soul is a Christian conception for which you may
search in vain through heathendom." The horror which the Western man
of high character felt when he thought of the future of the little
girls in attendance on geisha was not a horror generated by Plato.
"Heathen life looks nice on the outside to foreigners," but
Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism had all been weak in their
attitude towards immorality. It was Christianity alone which
controlled sexual life. Without deep-seated love of and joy in
goodness and deep-seated horror of evil it was impossible to reform
society.

Uchimura said that it had taken him thirty years to reach the
conviction that the best way of raising his countrymen was by
preaching the religion of "a despised foreign peasant." Many things he
had been told by exponents of Christianity now seemed "very strange,"
but there remained in the first four books of the New Testament, in
the essence of Christianity, principles "which would give new life to
all men." Moved by this belief, Uchimura and his friends gave their
lives to the work of the Gospel, to a work attended by humiliations;
"but this is our glory."

Japanese civilisation, he reiterated, was "only good in the sense that
Greek and Roman civilisations were good." Modern Japan represented
"the best of Europe minus Christianity; the moral backbone of
Christianity is lacking." "Probe a dozen Buddhist priests in turn," he
said, "and you find something lacking; you don't find the Buddhist or
Confucian really to be your brother[106]."

"The greatness of England," he went on, "is not due to the inherent
greatness of the English people, but to the greatness of the truths
which they have received." In considering the sources of national
greatness, it was idle to believe that some peoples were original and
some not original in their ideas and methods. Where were the people to
be found who were without extraneous influence? Where would England be
without Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christianity?

Our talk broke off as several peasant women passed us on the narrow
way by the rice fields. The mattocks they carried were the same weight
as their husbands' mattocks and the women were going to do the same
work as the men. But the women were nearly all handicapped by having a
child tied on their backs. Uchimura, returning to his objection to
foreign political adventure, said that Japan, properly cultivated,
could support twice its present population. There were many marshy
districts which could be brought into cultivation by drainage. Then
what might not forestry do? But the progress could not be made because
of lack of money. The money was needed for "national defence."

"For myself," said Uchimura, "I find it still possible to believe in
some power which will take care of inoffensive, quiet, humble,
industrious people. If all the high virtues of mankind are not
safeguarded somehow, then let us take leave of all the ennobling
aspirations, all the poetry, and all the deepest hopes we have, and
cease to struggle upward. The question is whether we have faith." We
still waited, he declared, for the nation which would be Christian
enough to take its stand on the Gospel and sacrifice itself
materially, if need be, to its faith that right was greater than
might.

And so "impractical, outspoken to rashness, but thoroughly sincere and
experienced," as one of his appreciative countrymen characterised him
to me, we take leave of the "Japanese Carlyle." With whom could I have
gone more provocatively towards the foundation of things at the
beginning of my investigation in farther Japan?

FOOTNOTES:

[100] The statement is, he told me, a calumny. He explained that he
lost his post for refusing to bow, not to the portrait, but to the
signature of the Emperor, the signature appended to that famous
Imperial rescript on education which is appointed to be read in
schools. Uchimura is very willing, he said, to show the respect which
loyal Japanese are at all times ready to manifest to the Emperor, and
he would certainly bow before the portrait of His Majesty; but in the
proposal that reverence should be paid to the Imperial autograph he
thought he saw the demands of a "Kaiserism"--his word, he speaks
vigorous English--which was foreign to the Japanese conception of
their sovereign, which would be inimical to the Emperor's influence
and would be bad for the nation.

[101] But journalism is one of the most powerful influences for good,
and some of the best brains of the country is represented in it.
Papers like the _Jiji, Asahi, Nichi Nichi_, and the Osaka papers run
in conjunction with them have altogether a circulation approaching two
millions.

[102] For statistics of forests, see Appendix XXXII.

[103] A severe shook occurs on an average about every six years. The
eminent seismologist, Professor Omori, told me that he does not expect
an earthquake of a dangerous sort for a generation.

[104] The _Oriental Economist_, a Japanese publication, in the autumn
of 1921 suggested the abandonment of all the extensions to the Empire
on the score that they had not been a benefit to Japan, and that she
was in no way dependent on them. See also Appendix XXXIII.

[105] See Appendix XXXIV.

[106] What of the old story which I have heard from Uchimura and
others of the Confucian missionary to certain head hunters of Formosa?
After many years of labour among them they promised to give up head
hunting if they might take just one more head. At last the good man
yielded, and told them that a Chinaman in a red robe was coming
towards the village the next day and his head might be taken. On the
morrow the men lay in wait for the stranger, sprang on him and cut off
his head, only to find that it was the head of their beloved
missionary. Struck with remorse and realising the evil of head taking,
the tribe gave up head hunting for ever.




CHAPTER XI

THE IDEA OF A GAP

Bold is the donkey driver, O Khedive, and bold is the Khedive who
dares to say what he will believe, not knowing in any wise the mind of
Allah, not knowing in any wise his own heart.


The "Japanese Carlyle" is getting grey. It seemed well to seek out
some young Japanese thinker and take his view of that "heathenism"
concerning which Uchimura had delivered himself so unsparingly. Let me
speak of my first visit to my friend Yanagi.

As a youth Yanagi was a lonely student. He took his own way to
knowledge and religion. The famed General Nogi had been given by the
Emperor the direction of the Peers' School, but even under such
distinguished tutelage the stripling made his stand. His reading led
him to write for the school magazine an anti-militarist article. The
veteran, as I once learned from a friend of Yanagi, promptly paraded
the school, boys and masters. He spoke of disloyal, immoral,
subversive ideas, and bade the youthful disturber of the peace attend
him at his own house. When Yanagi stood before Nogi and was asked what
he had to say, he replied with the question, "Don't you feel pain
because of sending so many men to death before Port Arthur[107]?"

Again I found my prophet in a cottage. It was a cottage overlooking
rice fields and a lagoon. From the Japanese scene outdoors I passed
indoors to a new Japan. Cezanne, Puvis de Chavannes, Beardsley, Van
Gogh, Henry Lamb, Augustus John, Matisse and Blake--Yanagi has written
a big book on Blake which is in a second edition--hung within sight
of a grand piano and a fine collection of European music[108].
Chinese, Korean and Japanese pottery and paintings filled the places
in the dwelling not occupied by Western pictures and the Western
library of a man well advanced with an interpretative history of
Eastern and Western mysticism. An armful of books about Blake and
Boehme, all Swedenborg, all Carlyle, all Emerson, all Whitman, all
Shelley, all Maeterlinck, all Francis Thompson, and all Tagore, and
plenty of other complete editions; early Christian mystics; much of
William Law, Bergson, Eucken, Caird, James, Haldane, Bertrand Russell,
Jefferies, Havelock Ellis, Carpenter, Strindberg, "Æ," Yeats, Synge
and Shaw; not a little poetry of the fashion of Vaughan, Traherne and
Crashaw; a well-thumbed Emily Brontë; all the great Russian novelists;
numbers of books on art and artists--it was an arresting collection to
come on in a Japanese hamlet, and odd to sit down beside it in order
to talk of "heathen."

"Yes," said Yanagi--he speaks an English which reflects his wide
reading--"our young maid, on being shown the full moon the other
night, bowed her head. I find this natural instinct of some value. Our
people have much natural feeling towards Nature. If modern Japanese
art has degenerated it is because it does not sufficiently find out
life in things. The sough of the wind in the trees may have only a
slight influence on character, but it is a vital influence. I do not
like, of course, the word 'heathendom' of which Uchimura seems so
fond. I dearly admire Christ, but most of the Christianity of to-day
is not Christ. It is largely Paul. It is a mixture. It is not the
clear, pure, original thing. Christians must reform their Christianity
before it can satisfy us. In the East we now see clearly enough to
seek only the best that the West can offer."

Yanagi said that the spontaneity and naturalness of Eastern religions
ought to be recognised. "You will find Christians admiring Walt
Whitman, but it is Whitman the democrat they admire, not Whitman the
prophet of naturalness." He spoke with appreciation of the Zen sect
of Buddhists. Many of the Zen devotees were "noble and had a profound
idea." He was unable to see "any difference at all" between the best
part of Buddhism and the best part of Christianity. He said that his
own mysticism was based on science, art, religion and philosophy. "My
sincerest wish," he declared, "is to produce a beautiful
reconciliation of these four. As it is, too often scientists and
philosophers have no deep knowledge of religion or art, artists have
no deep knowledge of religion or science, and the religious have no
idea of art. Surely the deepest religious idea is the deepest artistic
and philosophic idea. Perhaps our scientists are in the poorest state
just now with no understanding of art or religion. Our scientists are
immersed in the problem of matter, our religious people in the problem
of spirit, and our artists forget that in dealing with nature they are
dealing with spirit as well as body."

Faced by force and science when Commander Perry came, Japan, in order
to save herself from foreign colonisation, had had to concentrate all
her attention on force and science. She had concentrated her attention
with signal success. But naturally she had had, in the process, to
slacken her hold somewhat on the spiritual life.

"Always remember how difficult the Japanese find it to know which way
to take. Their whole basis has been shaken and on the surface all has
become chaotic. Ten years hence it will be possible to take a just
view. There is much reason for high hopes. For one thing, the burden
of old thought does not rest so heavily on us as might be supposed. We
are very free in many ways. In the matter of religion Japan is the
most free nation in the world. If England were to become Buddhist it
would sound strange or exotic, but Japan is free to become what she
may."

"There may be a great difference between one of our temples and
shrines and an English church," Yanagi proceeded, "but I cannot
believe in the gap which some people seem to see yawning between East
and West. It is deplorable that the world should think that there is
such a complete difference between East and West. It is usually said
that self-denial, asceticism, sacrifice, negation are opposed to
self-affirmation, individualism, self-realisation; but I do not
believe in such a gap. I wish to destroy the idea of a gap. It is an
idea which was obtained analytically. The meeting of East and West
will not be upon a bridge over a gap, but upon the destruction of the
idea of a gap.

"In future, religion cannot be limited by this or that sect or idea.
Religion cannot be limited to Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism or
Mahomedanism. Uchimura says that it is the essence of Christianity
which has the power to rescue Japan from its chaotic state. But the
essence of Buddhism can also contribute some important element to the
future of Japan. The notion that the essence of Christianity and the
essence of Buddhism are far apart is artificial and prejudiced."

One day some weeks later I walked with Yanagi on the hills. He said:
"The weakest point in the Japanese character is the lack of the power
of questioning. We are repressed by our educational system. And so
many things come here at one time that it makes confusion. What is so
often taken for a lack of originality in us is a state resulting from
an immense importation of foreign ideas. They have been overpowering.
Many of us have no clear ideas on life, society, sex and so on, and
you will find it difficult to get satisfactory answers to many
questions which you will want to ask."

As to morality, it was dangerous to say "this or that is immoral."
Morality was often merely custom. Ordinary morality had scant
authority. Critics of Japanese morality should not forget that, in the
opinion of Japanese, Western people were more erotic than they were.
Western dancing--not to speak of Western women's evening costumes--was
undoubtedly more erotic than Japanese dancing. Again, the sexual
curiosity of foreigners seemed stronger than that manifested by
Japanese. It was a well-known fact that the girls at many hotels and
restaurants had not a little to complain of from foreign men who
misjudged their naïve ways. It must be remembered that Japanese were
franker in sexual matters than Europeans and Americans. Sexual
ill-doing was not so much concealed as in Europe. A wrong impression
of Japanese morality was taken away by tourists whose guides showed
them, as in Paris, what they expected to see.

"I wonder," he said, "that Western visitors to Tokyo who talk of our
immorality are not struck by the fact that in an Eastern capital a
foreign lady may walk home at night and be practically safe from being
spoken to. The Japanese are undoubtedly a very kind people. They may
be unmoral, but they are not immoral."

"Most of our people do not understand liberty in the mental sexual
relations. Love is not free. In a very large proportion of cases,
indeed, parents would oppose a match because a son or daughter had
fallen in love. And if it is difficult to marry for love it is not
easy to fall in love.[109] Society in which young men and young women
meet is restricted; there are few opportunities of conversation.
Without liberty towards women there can be no perfect sense of
responsibility towards them."

What had been taught to women as the supreme virtue was the virtue of
sacrifice for father, husband, children. It was most important to let
women know the significance of individualism. They were always
offering themselves for others before they became themselves. But the
idea of individuality was very little clearer to the Japanese man than
to the Japanese woman. People were too prone to wish to give 100 yen
before they had 100 yen. The Japanese were the most devotional people
in the world, but they hardly knew yet the things to be devoted to.

Yanagi is a leading member of a small association of literary men,
artists and students who graduated together from the Peers' School.
They call themselves for no obvious reason the Shirakaba or Silver
Birch Society. The intelligent and consistent efforts of these young
men to introduce vital Western work in literature, philosophy,
painting, sculpture, draughtsmanship and music, and the large measure
of success they have attained is of some significance. Several members
of the group belong to the old Kuge families, that is the ancient
nobility which surrounded the Emperor at Kyoto before the
Restoration. Cut off for centuries from military and administrative
activities by the dominance of the Shogunate Government, the Kuge
devoted themselves to the arts and the refinements of life. For the
exclusiveness of the past some of their descendants substitute
artistic integrity. The Shirakaba has had for several years a
remarkable magazine. Its editor and its publisher, its size, its price
and its date of publication are continually changed; it never makes
any bid for popularity; it expresses its sentiments in a downright way
and it has always been anti-official: yet it survives and pays its
way. Beyond the magazine, the Society has had every year at least one
exhibition of what its members conceive to be significant modern
European work. The members have also supported a few Japanese artists
of outstanding sincerity. Through the Shirakaba the influence of
Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rodin, Blake, Delacroix, Matisse, Augustus John,
Beardsley, Courbet, Daumier, Maillol, Chavannes and Millet,
particularly Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rodin and Blake, has been marked. The
Silver Birch group has never tired of extolling the great names of
Rembrandt, Dürer, El Greco, Van Eyck, Goya, Leonardo, Michael Angelo,
Tintoretto, Giotto and Mantegna[110].

While an ardent Young Japan has formed and dissolved many societies,
movements and fashions, this Shirakaba group has held fast and has
gained friends by its sincerity, its vision and its audacity[111].
Rodin encouraged the Shirakaba efforts to reproduce the best Western
art by presenting it with three pieces of sculpture.

"The intellectual man does no fighting," Froude has written. Why do
not Yanagi and his friends make a stand on public questions?
"Because," he said, "at the present stage of our development it is
almost impossible to take up a strong attitude, and because, important
though political and social questions are, they are not, in our
opinion, of the first importance. To artists, philosophers, students
of religion, such problems are secondary. More important problems are:
What is the meaning of this world? What is God? What is the essence of
religion? How can we best nourish ourselves so as to realise our own
personalities? Political and social problems are secondary for us at
present; they are not related emotionally to our present
conditions[112].

        For the East the Root,
        For the West the Fruit.

"If we faced such problems directly we should probably make them
primary problems, as you do in Great Britain. Our present attitude
does not prove, however, that we are cold to political and social
problems. In fact, when we think of these terrible political and
social questions they make us boil. But you will understand that in
order to have something to give to others, we must have that
something. We are seeking after that something."

Yanagi, continuing, spoke of the direct contribution which the new
artistic movement in Japan, under the influence of modern Western art,
was making to the solution of political and social questions[113]. The
interest of the younger generation in Post Impressionism was "quite
disharmonious with the ordinary attitude towards militarism."
European art broke down barriers in the Japanese mind. When the
younger generation, nourished on higher ideals, grew up, it would be
the State, and there would be a more hopeful condition of affairs.
People generally supposed that social questions were the most
practical; but religious, artistic, philosophic questions were, in the
truest sense of the word, the most practical.

Yanagi went on to tell of his devotion to Blake. He could not
understand "why Englishmen are so cool to him." He asked me how it was
that there was no word about Blake in Andrew Lang's work on English
literature. "I cannot imagine," he said, "why such an intelligent man
could not appreciate Blake." Yanagi regarded Blake as "the artist of
immense will, of immense desire, and a man in whom can be seen that
affirmative attitude towards life, exhibited later by Whitman." Yanagi
spoke also of "Anglo-Saxon nobility, liberty, depth of character and
healthiness," and of "a deep and noble character" in English
literature which he did not find elsewhere. Whitman, Emerson, Poe and
William James were "the crown of America."

As I close this chapter I recall Yanagi's library, in the service of
which, bettering Mark Pattison's example, two-thirds of its owner's
income was for some time expended. I remember the thatched dwelling
overlooking the quiet reed-bound lagoon with its frosty sunrises, red
moonrises and apparitions of Fuji above the clouds seventy miles away.
No Western visitor whom I took to Abiko failed to be moved by that
room, designed by Yanagi himself in every detail, wherein East meets
West in harmony. I have made note of his Western books but not of the
classics and strange mystic writings of Chinese and Korean priests in
piles of thin volumes in soft bindings of blue or brown. I have not
mentioned a Rembrandt drawing and next to it the vigorous but restful
brush lines of an artist priest of the century that brought Buddhism
to Japan; severe little gilt-bronze figures of deities from China, a
little older; pottery figures of exquisite beauty from the tombs of
Tang, a little later; Sung pottery, a dynasty farther on; Korai
celadons from Korean tombs of the same epoch; and whites and blue and
whites of Ming and Korean Richo. On the wall a black and yellow tiger
is "burning bright" on a strip of blood-red silk tapestry woven on a
Chinese loom for a Taoist priest 500 years ago. Cimabue's portrait of
St. Francis breathes over Yanagi's writing desk from one side, while
from the other Blake's amazing life mask looks down "with its Egyptian
power of form added to the intensity of Western individualism." These
are Yanagi's silent friends. His less quiet friends of the flesh have
felt that this room was a sanctuary and Yanagi a priest of eternal
things, but a priest without priestcraft, a priest living joyously in
the world. Above his desk is inscribed the line of Blake:

        Thou also, dwellest in eternity

and Kepler's aspiration, "My wish is that I may perceive God whom I
find everywhere in the external world in like manner within and
without me."

FOOTNOTES:

[107] One of the reasons assigned for the suicide of the General was
thoughts of his responsibility for the terrible slaughter in the
assaults on Port Arthur.

[108] Mrs. Yanagi is one of the best contraltos heard at the now
numerous Japanese concerts of Western music.

[109] _Shinju_, or suicide for love, the girl often being a geisha, is
common.

[110] "I am inclined to think," wrote Yanagi in 1921, in a paper on
Korean art, "that we have paid if anything rather too much attention
to European works while making little effort to pay attention to what
lies much nearer to us."

[111] POLICE STANDARDS.--The sale of one issue of the magazine was
prohibited by the police, who found a nude "antagonistic to the
ordinary standard of public morals." The editors' answer next
month--the police standard being, "No front views"--was to publish
half a dozen more nudes with their backs to the reader.

[112] It will be remembered that this conversation took place in the
summer of 1915 at the outset of my investigation. Since then, as noted
throughout this book, economic questions have increasingly pressed
themselves forward. I may mention that in 1919 Yanagi wrote a
vigorous and moving protest against misgovernment in Korea. In a
recent letter to me he says: "You know that I am going to establish a
Korean Folk Art Society in Seoul. This is a big work, but I want to do
it with all my power for love of Korea. I approach the solution of the
Korean question by the way of Art. Politics can never solve the
question. I want to use the gallery as a meeting-place of Koreans and
Japanese. People cannot quarrel in beauty. This is my simple yet
definite belief." Yanagi's manifesto on his project made one think of
the age when the great culture of China and India glowed across the
straits of Tsushima in the wake of early Buddhism.

[113] A well-known member of the Shirakaba group started two years ago
an "ideal village" among the mountains. It is an effort towards social
freedom in which the police manifest a continuous interest.




ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND
BACK)

CHAPTER XII

TO THE HILLS

(TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)

Nothing which concerns a _countryman_ is a matter of unconcern to
me.--TERENCE


During the month of July I went from one side of Japan to the other,
starting from Tokyo, across the sea from which lies America, and
coming out at Niigata, across the sea from which lies Siberia.

We first made a four hours' railway run through the great Kwanto plain
(6,000 square miles). Travelling is comfortable on such a trip, for
travellers take off their coats and waistcoats, and the train-boy--he
has the word "Boy" on his collar in English--brings fans and bedroom
slippers. The fans, which on one side advertised "Hotels in European
style, directly managed by the Imperial Government Railway[114],"
offered on the other a poem and a drawing. A poem addressed to a snail
played with the idea of its giving its life to climbing Fuji. The poem
was composed by a poet who wrote many delightful _hokku_
(seventeen-syllable poems), showing a humorous sympathy with the
humblest creatures. One poem is:

        Come and play with me,
        Thou orphan sparrow!

Like Burns, Issa addressed a poem to a louse.

As we climbed from the vicinity of the sea to higher lands someone
recalled the saying about saints living in the mountains and sages by
the sea. Speaking of religion, one man said that he had known of
people giving half their income to religious purposes. He also
mentioned that for some years his mother had gone to hear a sermon in
a Japanese Christian church every Sunday, but she still served her
Buddhist shrine.

It was at an inn at the hot spring near the Mount Nasu volcano--the
odour of the sulphurous hot water was everywhere in the district--that
I first enjoyed the attentions of the blind _amma_ (_masseur_ or
_masseuse_), the call of whose plaintive pipe is heard every evening
in the smallest community. _Amma san_ rubbed and pommelled me for an
hour for 28 sen. The _amma_ does not massage the skin, but works
through the _yukata_ (bath gown) of the patient. I had my massaging as
I knelt with the other guests of the inn at an entertainment arranged
for the benefit of residents. The entertainers, professional and
non-professional--the non-professionals were local farmers--knelt on a
low platform or danced in front of it. They were extraordinarily able.
A dramatic tale by one of the story-tellers was about a yokelish young
wrestler and a daimyo. Another described the woes and suicide of an
old-time Court lady.

The next day we started on foot on a seven miles' climb of the
volcano. Its lower slopes were covered with a variety of that
knee-high bamboo with a creeping root, which is so troublesome to
farmers when they break up new ground. One variety is said to blossom
and fruit once in sixty years and then die. An ingenious professor has
traced mice plagues to this habit. In the year in which the bamboo
fruits the mice increase and multiply exceedingly. Suddenly their food
supply gives out and they descend to the plains to live with the
farmers.

At length we came in sight of the smoke and vapour of the volcano.
Soon we were near the top, where the white trunks and branches of dead
trees and scrub, killed by falling ash or gusts of vapour, dotted an
awesome desolation of calcined and fused stone and solidified mud. At
the summit we looked down into the churning horror of the volcano's
vat and at different spots saw the treacly sulphur pouring out,
brilliant yellow with red streaks. The man to whom there first came
the idea of hell and a prisoned revengeful power must surely have
looked into a crater. In the throat of this crater there seethed and
spluttered an ugliness that was scarlet, green, brown and yellow. The
sound of the steam blowing off was like the roar of the sea. The air
was stifling. It was very hot, and there was a high eerie wind.

Adventurous men had built rude bulwarks of stone over some of the
orifices, and in this way had compelled the volcano to furnish them
with sulphur free from dirt. The production of sulphur in Japan is
valued at close on three million yen.

As we went on our journey we spoke of the sturdiness and cheeriness of
our chief carrier, who had told us that he was seventy. I asked him if
he thought it fair that he should have to walk so far on a hot day
with so much to carry while we were empty-handed. He replied that it
might appear to be unjust, but that he was happy enough. He said that
he had lived long and seen many things, and he knew that to be rich
was not always to be happy. He quoted the proverb, "Sunshine and rice
may be found everywhere," and the poem which may be rendered, "If you
look at a water-fowl thoughtlessly you may imagine that she has
nothing to do but float quietly on the water, yet she is moving her
feet ceaselessly beneath the surface."

At the little hot spring inn where we next stayed, insect powder was
on sale, not without reasonable hope of patronage by the guests. The
_Asahi_ once facetiously reported that I had taken on a journey three
_to_ (six pecks) of insect powder. The chief protector of the prudent
traveller in remote Japan is a giant pillowslip of cotton. He gets
into it and ties the strings together under his chin. The mats and
futon of old-fashioned hotels are full of fleas. The hard cylindrical
Japanese pillow has no doubt its tenants also, but I never got
accustomed to using it, and laid my head on a doubled-up kneeling
cushion.

A foot-high partition separated the men's hot bath from the women's.
My cold bath in the morning I found I had to take unselfconsciously at
a water-gush in front of the house. As the food was poor here, we
were glad of our tinned food and ship's biscuits. This was of course
in a remote part. Apart from ordinary Japanese food, there are usually
available at the inns chicken, fish of some sort, eggs, omelettes and
soups. With a pot of jam or two and some powdered milk in one's bag,
one can live fairly well. Fresh milk can now be got in unlikely places
on giving notice overnight. It is produced for invalids and children.
If one makes no fuss, remembers one is a traveller who has resolved to
see rural Japan, and realises that the inn people will try to do their
best, one will not fare so badly. On the railway one is well catered
for by the provision of _bento_ (lunch) boxes, sold on the platforms
of stations. These chip boxes contain rice (hot), cold omelette, cold
fish or chicken and assorted pickles, and provide an appetising and
inexpensive meal.

Monkeys, bears and antelopes are shot in this district. One man spoke
of a troop of eighty monkeys. In the high mountain regions there are
still people who escape the census and live a wild life. The records
of a gipsy folk called Sanka have a history going back 700 or 800
years.

As we wound our way up and down the hill-sides we saw evidence of
"fire-farming." It is the simple method by which a small tract with a
favourable aspect is cleared by fire and cultivated, and then, when
the fertility is exhausted, abandoned. I was assured that after
fire-farming "tea springs up naturally," and that though tea-drinking
may have been introduced from China there could not be such large
areas of tea growing wild if tea were not indigenous.

Most of our paths lay through woods and matted vegetation. I noticed
that trees were often felled in order that mushrooms might be grown on
and around their trunks. There is a large consumption of these
tree-grown mushrooms in Japan and an export trade worth two and a half
million yen.

[Illustration: CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS.]

An inscribed stone by our path was a reminder of the belief in
"mountain maidens." They have the undoubted merit of not being "so
peevish as fairies." At another stone, before which was a pile of
small stones, a farmer told us that when a traveller threw a stone
on the heap he "left behind his tiredness."

[Illustration: IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES, AND A BALE OF RICE
The photograph was taken in Aichi-ken. p. 73]

In the first house we came to we found a young widow turning bowls
with power from a water-wheel. She could finish 400 bowls in a day and
got from one to five sen apiece. She said that she had often wished to
see a foreigner. Like nearly all the girls and women of the hills, she
wore close-fitting blue cotton trousers.

We descended to a kind of prairie which had a tree here and there and
roughly wooded hills on either side. This brought us to the problem of
the wise method of dealing with the enormous wood-bearing areas of the
country, the timber crop of which is so irregular in quality. Japan
requires many more scientifically planned forests. As coal is not in
domestic use, however, large quantities of cheap wood are needed for
burning and for charcoal making. The demand for hill pasture is also
increasing. How shall the claims of good timber, good firewood, good
charcoal-making material and good pasture be reconciled? In the county
through which we were passing--a county which, owing to its large
consumption of wood fuel, needs relatively little charcoal--the
charcoal output was worth as much as 35,000 yen a year.

We saw "buckwheat in full bloom as white as snow," as the Chinese poem
says. At a farmhouse there was a box fixed on a barn wall. It was for
communications for the police from persons who desired to make their
suggestions for the public welfare privately.

Towards evening, when we had done about twenty miles, I managed to
twist an ankle. Happily I had the chance of a ride. It was on the back
of a dour-looking mare which was accompanied by her foal and tied by a
halter to the saddle of a led pack-horse which was carrying two large
boxes. Thus impressively I did several miles in descending darkness
and across the rocky beds of two rivers. The horse of this district is
a downcast-looking animal in spite of the fact that it is stalled
under the same roof as its owner and is thus able to share to some
extent in his family life.

At the town at which we at last arrived, the comfort of the hot bath
was enhanced by a sturdy lass of the inn who unasked and unannounced
came and applied herself resolutely to scrubbing and knuckling our
backs.

The next day I went to the principal school. There were in the place
three primary schools, one with a branch for agricultural work. The
"attendance" at the principal school, where there were 379 boys and
girls, was 98 per cent, for the boys and 94 per cent, for the
girls.[115] The buildings were most creditable to a small place fifty
miles from a railway station. The community had met the whole cost out
of its official funds and by subscriptions. More than half the
expenditure of many a village is on education, which in Japan is
compulsory but not free. One cannot but be impressed by the pride
which is taken in the local schools. The dominating man-made feature
of the landscape is less frequently than might be supposed a temple or
a shrine: where the picture which catches the eye is not the vast
expanse of the crops of the plain or the marvels of terracing for hill
crops, it is the long, low school building, set almost invariably on
the best possible site. The poorly paid men and women teachers are
earnest and devoted, and their influence must be far-reaching. They
are rewarded in part, no doubt, by the respect which pupils and the
general public give to the _sensei_ (teacher).[116] At the school I
visited, the children, as is customary, swept and washed out the
schoolrooms and kept the playground trim. Above one teacher's desk
were the following admonitions:

        Be obedient.
        Be decent.
        Be active.
        Be social.
        Be serious.

"Be serious"!--graver small folk sit in no schools in the world. Here,
as usual, corporal punishment was never given. I suggested to teachers
all sorts of juvenile delinquencies, but their faith in the
sufficiency of reprimands, of "standing out" and of detention after
school hours was unshaken.

A new wing, a beautiful piece of carpenter's work, had cost 4,000 yen,
a large sum in Japan, where wood and village labour are equally cheap.
It was to be used chiefly for the gymnastics which are steadily adding
to the stature of the Japanese people. At one end there was an
opening, about 20 ft. across and 5 ft. deep, designed as an honourable
place for the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, which are solemnly
exposed to view on Imperial birthdays[117].

Apart from a local spirit of pride and emulation and a belief in
education, one of the reasons for the building of new schools and
adding to old ones is to be found in the recent extension of the
period of compulsory attendance. It used to be from six to ten years
of age; it is now from six to twelve. The visitor to Japan usually
under-estimates the ages of children because they are so small.
Japanese boys grow suddenly from about fifteen to sixteen.

In the whole of this county, with a population of 35,000, there were,
I learnt at the county offices, 22 elementary schools with 36 branch
schools, 3 secondary schools and 17 winter schools. Within the same
area there were 46 Buddhist temples with about 60 priests, and 125
Shinto shrines with 11 priests.

The chief police officer, in chatting with me, mentioned that, out of
71 charges of theft, only 47 were proceeded with. When charges were
not proceeded with it was either because restitution had been made or
the chief constable had exercised his discretion and dismissed the
offender with a reprimand. When transgressors are dismissed with a
reprimand an eye is kept on them for a year. As the Japanese are in
considerable awe of their police, I have no doubt that, as was
explained to me, those who have lapsed into evil-doing, but are
released from custody with a warning, may "tremble and correct their
conduct." In the whole county in a year 14,400 admonitions were given
at 14 police stations. The noteworthy thing in the criminal
statistics is the small proportion of crime against women and
children.

The fact that the county was in a remote part of Japan may be held,
perhaps, to account for the fact that there were in it, I was assured,
only 14 geisha and 8 women known to be of immoral character. All of
them were living in the town and they were said to be chiefly
patronised by commercial travellers and imported labourers. I was told
that there were pre-nuptial relations between many young men and young
women. Two undoubted authorities in the district agreed that they
could not answer for the chastity of any young men before marriage or
of "as many as 10 per cent." of the young women. In an effort to save
the reputation of their daughters, fathers sometimes register
illegitimate children as the offspring of themselves and their wives.
Or when an unmarried girl is about to have a child her father may call
the neighbours to a feast and announce to them the marriage of his
daughter to her lover. The figures for illegitimate births are
vitiated by the fact that in Japan children are recorded as
illegitimate who are born to people who have omitted to register their
otherwise respectable unions.[118]

In the county in which I was travelling I was assured that half the
still births might be put down to immoral relations and half to
imperfect nourishment or overworking of the mother. In this district
girls marry from 17 or 18, men from 18 to 30.

The town was full of country people who had come to see the festival.
One feature of it was the performance of plays on four ancient wheeled
stages of a simplicity in construction that would have delighted
William Poel. Formerly these plays were given by the local youths; now
professional actors are employed. The different acts of the historical
dramas which were performed were divided into half a dozen scenes, and
when one of these scenes had been enacted the stage was wheeled
farther along the street. At the conclusion of each scene some three
dozen small boys, all wearing the white-and-black speckled cotton
kimono and German caps which are the common wear of lads throughout
Japan, would swarm up on the stage, and, with fans waved downwards,
would yell at the pitch of their voices an ancient jingle, which
seemed to signify "Push, push, push and go on!" This was addressed to
a score or so of young men who with loud shouts hauled the heavy
stage-wagon along the street. The performances on the four moving
theatres went on simultaneously and sometimes the cars passed one
another. The performances were given on the eve and on the day and
through the night of the festival. The acting was amazingly good,
considering the July heat and the cramped conditions in which the
actors worked. Happy boys sat at the back of the scenes fanning the
players. Our kindly and voluble landlady was not satisfied with the
number of times the stages stopped before her inn. She loudly
threatened the youths who were dragging them that she would reclaim
some properties she had lent and tell her dead husband of their
ingratitude!

At one of the booths which had been opened for the festival by a
strolling company there were women actors, contrary to the convention
of the Japanese stage on which men enact female rôles and in doing so
use a special falsetto. Some of these actresses performed men's parts.
At every performance in a Japanese theatre, as I have already
mentioned, a policeman is provided with a chair on a special platform,
or in an otherwise favourable position, so that he can view and if
necessary censor what is going on. The constable at this particular
play was kind enough to offer me his seat. The rest of the audience
was content with the floor. The poor little company of players brought
to their work both ability and an artistic conscience, but they had to
do everything in the rudest way. They were in no way embarrassed by
the attendants frequently trimming the inferior oil lamps on the
stage. A little girl on the floor, entranced by the performance on the
stage, or curious about some detail of it, ran forward and laid her
chin on the boards and studied the actors at leisure. The folk in the
front row of the gallery dangled their naked legs for coolness.

One of my friends asked me how we managed in the West to identify the
people who wanted to leave the theatre between the acts. I explained
that as our performances did not last from early afternoon until
nearly midnight it was rare for anyone to wish to leave a theatre
until the play was over. At a Japanese playhouse, however, a portion
of the audience may be disposed to go home at some stage of the
proceedings and return later. The careful manager of a small theatre
identifies these patrons by impressing a small stamp on the palms of
their hands.

From the theatre we went to the travelling shows. They charged 2 sen.
We were shown a mermaid, peepshows, a snake, an unhappy bear, three
doleful monkeys and some stuffed animals which may or may not have had
in life an uncommon number of legs. There was a barefaced imposture by
a young and pretty show-woman who insisted that two marmots in her lap
were the offspring of a girl. "Look," she cried, "at two sisters, the
daughters of one mother. See their hands!" And she held up their paws.
She rounded off the fraud by feeding the creatures with condensed
milk.

As I returned to the inn from these Elizabethan scenes I noticed that
I was preceded in the crowd by a spectacled policeman who carried a
paper lantern. Although, as I have explained, the stage plays given in
the street were continued all night, only one arrest was made. The
prisoner was a drunkard who proved to be a medicine seller but
described himself as a journalist. I went to see the clean wooden cell
where topers are confined until they are sober. It had a very low
door, so that culprits might be compelled to enter and leave humbly on
their knees.

We had begun our festival day at six in the morning by attending a
celebration at the Shinto shrine. "Although it is no longer necessary,
perhaps, to attend the ceremony in a special kind of _geta_," said our
landlady, "it would be as well if you observed the old rule not to
attend without taking a bath in the early morning."[119]

At the ancient shrine the townspeople whose turn it was to attend the
annual function had assembled in ceremonial costumes. One man wore his
hair tied up in the fashion of the old prints. The plaintive strains
of old instruments made the strange appeal of all folk music. A
decorous procession was headed by the piebald pony of the shrine.
Youths and maidens carried aloft tubs of rice, vegetables, fish and
_saké_. These were received by the chief priest. He carefully placed a
strip of cloth before his mouth and nose[120] and addressed the chief
deity, all heads being bowed. Then the priest placed the offerings in
the darkened interior of the shrine. There was a cheery naturalness in
all the proceedings. A few small children in gay holiday dress ran
freely among the worshippers and encountered indulgent smiles. When an
end had been made of offering food and drink the priest within the
shrine read a second message to the deity. Again all heads were bowed.
His thin voice was heard in the morning quiet, interrupted only by a
child's cry, the twittering of birds and the wind rustling the
cryptomeria, dark against the blue of the hills.

After the ceremony the food and drink which had been brought by the
people were consumed by the priests and the country folk in a large
room of the chief priest's house. We were given ceremonial _saké_ to
which rice had been added and as mementoes little cakes and dried
fish. Not so long ago the presence of a foreigner would have been
unwelcome at such a ceremony as we had witnessed: the fear of
"contagion of foreigners" extended even to people from another
prefecture. To-day the amiable priest placed in our hands for a few
moments a small Buddha supposed to be six centuries old.

Before the festival the priest had observed certain taboos for eight
days. He had avoided meeting persons in mourning and his food had been
cooked at a specially prepared fire. He had been careful not to touch
other persons, particularly women; he had bathed several times daily
in cold water and he had said many prayers. The heads of the household
in the community whose turn it was to attend at the shrine were also
supposed to have observed some of the same taboos. Only those persons
might make offerings at the shrine whose fathers and mothers were
living.[121] Formerly portions of the offerings of rice and _saké_ at
the shrine were solemnly given to a young girl.

In this district, when we discussed the influences which made for
moral or non-material improvement, everyone put the school first. Then
came home training. In this part of the world the Buddhist priest was
too often indifferent; the Shinto priest worked at his farm. One
person well qualified to express an opinion said that a "wise and
benevolent" chief constable could exercise a good moral influence.
Others believed in public opinion. A policeman said, "The first thing
is for people to have food and clothes; without such primary
satisfaction it is very difficult to expect them to be moral." In
considering the influence of the police and the schoolmaster it is not
without interest to remember that a chief of police and the head of a
school receive about the same salary. Assistant teachers and plain
constables are also on an equality. I found the salary of the
administrative head of one county, the _guncho_, to be only 2,000 yen
a year.

I was told that in the prefecture we were passing through there were
no fewer than 360 co-operative societies. The credit branches had a
capital of two million yen; the purchase and sale branches showed a
turnover of three million yen. In time of famine, due to too low a
temperature for the rice or to floods which drown the crop,
co-operation had proved its value. The prefectures north of Tokyo
facing the Pacific are the chief victims of famine, for near Sendai
the warm current from the south turns off towards America. I was told
that the number of persons who actually die as the result of famine
has been "exaggerated." The number in 1905 was "not more than a
hundred." These unfortunates were infants "and infirm people who
suffered from lack of suitable nourishment." Every year the
development of railway and steam communications makes easier the task
of relieving famine sufferers.[122] In the old days people were often
found dead who had money but were unable to get food for it. As Japan
is a long island with varying climates there is never general
scarcity.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] For statistics of railways, see Appendix XXXV.

[115] The percentage of children "attending" school for the whole of
Japan is officially reported in 1918 as: cities, 98.18 per cent.;
villages, 99.23 per cent.; but this does not mean daily attendance.

[116] Since 1919 the salaries of elementary school teachers have been
raised to 26, 16 and 15 yen per month, according to grade.

[117] Only last year (1921) another schoolmaster lost his life in an
endeavour to save the Emperor's portrait from his burning school.

[118] See Appendix XXXVI.

[119] A hot bath is ordinarily obtainable only in the afternoon and
evening in most Japanese hotels. In the morning people are content
merely with rinsing their hands and face.

[120] In addressing a superior, many Japanese still draw in their
breath from time to time audibly.

[121] That is, persons who might be considered not to have failed in
their filial duties.

[122] After the failure of the 1918-19 crop in India, 600,000 persons
were in receipt of famine relief.




CHAPTER XIII

THE DWELLERS IN THE HILLS
(FUKUSHIMA)

I didn't visit this place in the hope of seeing fine prospects--my study
is man.--BORROW


Before I left the town I had a chat with a landowner who turned his
tenants' rent rice into _saké_. He was of the fifth generation of
brewers. He said that in his childhood drunken men often lay about the
street; now, he said, drunken men were only to be seen on festival
days.

There had been a remarkable development in the trade in flavoured
aerated waters, "lemonade" and "cider champagne" chiefly. I found
these beverages on sale in the remotest places, for the Japanese have
the knack of tying a number of bottles together with rope, which makes
them easily transportable. The new lager beers, which are advertised
everywhere, have also affected the consumption of _saké_.[123] _Saké_
is usually compared with sherry. It is drunk mulled. At a banquet,
lasting five or six hours or longer, a man "strong in _saké_" may
conceivably drink ten _go_ (a _go_ is about one-third of a pint)
before achieving drunkenness, but most people would be affected by
three _go_. Some of the topers who boast of the quantity of _saké_
they can consume--I have heard of men declaring that they could drink
twenty _go_--are cheated late in the evening by the waiting-maids. The
little _saké_ bottles are opaque, and it is easy to remove them for
refilling before they are quite empty.

The brewer, who was a firm adherent of the Jishu sect of Buddhists,
was accustomed to burn incense with his family at the domestic shrine
every morning. But this was not the habit of all the adherents of his
denomination. As to the moral advancement of the neighbourhood, his
grandfather "tried very earnestly to improve the district by means of
religion, but without result." He himself attached most value to
education and after that to young men's associations.

As we left the town we passed a "woman priest" who was walking to
Nikko, eighty miles away. Portraits of dead people, entrusted to her
by their relatives for conveyance to distant shrines, were hung round
her body.

As the route became more and more hilly I realised how accurate is
that representation of hills in Japanese art which seems odd before
one has been in Japan: the landscape stands out as if seen in a flash
of lightning.

Three things by the way were arresting: the number of shrines, mostly
dedicated to the fox god; the rice suspended round the farm buildings
or drying on racks; and the masses of evening primroses, called in
Japan "moon-seeing flowers."

A feature of every village was one or more barred wooden sheds
containing fire-extinguishing apparatus, often provided and worked by
the young men's association. Sometimes a piece of ground was described
to me as "the training ground of the fire defenders." The night
patrols of the village were young fellows chosen in turn by the
constable from the fire-prevention parties, made up by the youths of
the village. There stood up in every village a high perpendicular
ladder with a bell or wooden clapper at the top to give the alarm. The
emblem of the fire brigade, a pole with white paper streamers
attached, was sometimes distinguished by a yellow paper streamer
awarded by the prefecture.

On a sweltering July day it was difficult to realise that the villages
we passed through, now half hidden in foliage, might be under 7 ft. of
snow in winter. In travelling in this hillier region one has an extra
_kurumaya_, who pushes behind or acts as brakeman.

At the "place of the seven peaks" we found a stone dedicated to the
worship of the stars which form the Plough. Again and again I noticed
shrines which had before them two tall trees, one larger than the
other, called "man and wife." It was explained to me that "there
cannot be a more sacred place than where husband and wife stand
together." A small tract of cryptomeria on the lower slopes of a hill
belonged to the school. The children had planted it in honour of the
marriage of the Emperor when he was Crown Prince.

Often the burial-grounds, the stones of which are seldom more than
about 2 ft. high by 6 ins. wide, are on narrow strips of roadside
waste. (The coffin is commonly square, and the body is placed in it in
the kneeling position so often assumed in life.) Here, as elsewhere,
there seemed to be rice fields in every spot where rice fields could
possibly be made.

On approaching a village the traveller is flattered by receiving the
bows of small girls and boys who range themselves in threes and fours
to perform their act of courtesy. I was told that the children are
taught at school to bow to foreigners. I remember that in the remoter
villages of Holland the stranger also received the bows of young
people.

On the house of the headman of one village were displayed charms for
protection from fire, theft and epidemic. We spoke of weather signs,
and he quoted a proverb, "Never rely on the glory of the morning or on
the smile of your mother-in-law."

We had before us a week's travel by _kuruma_. Otherwise we should have
liked to have brought away specimens of the wooden utensils of some of
the villages. The travelling woodworker whom we often encountered--he
has to travel about in order to reach new sources of wood supply--has
been despised because of his unsettled habits, but I was told that
there was a special deity to look after him. In the town we had left
there was delightful woodwork, but most of the draper's stuff was
pitiful trash made after what was supposed to be foreign fashions. I
may also mention the large collection of blood-and-thunder stories
upon Western models which were piled up in the stationers' shops.

As we walked up into the hills--the _kuruma_ men were sent by an
easier route--we passed plenty of sweet chestnuts and saw large
masses of blue single hydrangea and white and pink spirea. We came on
the ruined huts of those who had burnt a bit of hillside and taken
from it a few crops of buckwheat. The charred trunks of trees stood up
among the green undergrowth that had invaded the patches. There was a
great deal of plantain and a _kurumaya_ mentioned that sometimes when
children found a dead frog they buried it in leaves of that plant.
Japanese children are also in the habit of angling for frogs with a
piece of plantain. The frogs seize the plantain and are jerked ashore.

We took our lunch on a hill top. It had been a stiff climb and we
marvelled at the expense to which a poor county must be put for the
maintenance of roads which so often hang on cliff sides or span
torrents. The great piles of wood accumulated at the summit turned the
talk to "silent trade." In "silent trade" people on one side of a hill
traded with people on the other side without meeting. The products
were taken to the hill top and left there, usually in a rough shed
built to protect the goods from rain. The exchange might be on the
principle of barter or of cash payment. But the amount of goods given
in exchange or the cash payment made was left to honour. "Silent
trade" still continues in certain parts of Japan. Sometimes the price
expected for goods is written up in the shed. "Silent trade"
originated because of fears of infectious disease; it survives because
it is more convenient for one who has goods to sell or to buy to
travel up and down one side of a mountain than up and down two sides.

As we proceeded on our way we were once more struck by the
extraordinary wealth of wood. Here is a country where every household
is burning wood and charcoal daily, a country where not only the
houses but most of the things in common use are made of wood; and
there seems to be no end to the trees that remain. It is little wonder
that in many parts there has been and is improvident use of wood.
Happily every year the regulation of timber areas and wise planting
make progress. But for many square miles of hillside I saw there is no
fitting word but jungle.

At the small ramshackle hot-spring inns of the remote hills the
guests are mostly country folk. Many of them carefully bring their own
rice and _miso_, and are put up at a cost of about 10 sen a day. In
the passage ways one finds rough boxes about 4 ft. square full of wood
ash in the centre of which charcoal may be burned and kettles boiled.

We were in a region where there is snow from the middle of November to
the middle of April. For two-thirds of December and January the snow
is never less than 2 ft. deep. The attendance of the children at one
school during the winter was 95 per cent. for boys and 90 per cent.
for girls. (See note, p. 112.)

My _kurumaya_ pointed to a mountain top where, he said, there were
nearly three acres of beautiful flowers. The rice fields in the hills
were suffering from lack of water and a deputation of villagers had
gone ten miles into the mountains to pray for rain. It is wonderful at
what altitudes rice fields are contrived. I noted some at 2,500 ft. In
looking down from a place where the cliff road hung out over the river
that flowed a hundred feet below I noticed a stone image lying on its
back in the water. It may have come there by accident, but the ducking
of such a figure in order to procure rain is not unknown.

At an inn I asked one of the greybeards who courteously visited us if
there would be much competition for his seat when he retired from the
village assembly. He thought that there would be several candidates.
In the town from which we had set out on our journey through the
highlands a doctor had spent 500 yen in trying to get on the assembly.

The tea at this resting place was poor and someone quoted the proverb,
"Even the devil was once eighteen and bad tea has its tolerable first
cup." On going to the village office I found that for a population of
2,000 there were, in addition to the village shrine, sixteen other
shrines and three Buddhist temples. Against fire there were four fire
pumps and 155 "fire defenders." A dozen of the young men of the
village were serving in the army, four were home on furlough, six were
invalided and forty were of the reserve. As many as thirty-seven had
medals. The doctors were two in number and the midwives three. There
was a sanitary committee of twenty-three members. The revenue of the
village was 5,740 yen. It had a fund of 740 yen "against time of
famine." The taxes paid were 2,330 yen for State tax, 2,460 yen for
prefectural tax and 4,350 yen for village tax. The village possessed
two co-operative societies, a young men's association, a Buddhist
young men's association, a Buddhist young women's association, a
society for the development of knowledge, a society of the graduates
of the primary school, two thrift organisations, a society for
"promoting knowledge and virtue," and an association the members of
which "aimed at becoming distinguished." There were in the village
ninety subscribers to the Red Cross and two dozen members of the
national Patriotic Women's Association.

In the county through which we were moving there was gold, silver and
copper mining.[124] Out of its population of 36,000 only 632 were
entitled to vote for an M.P.

We rested at a school where the motto was, "Even in this good reign I
pray because I wish to make our country more glorious." There were
portraits of four deceased local celebrities and of Peter the Great,
Franklin, Lincoln, Commander Perry and Bismarck. Illustrated wall
charts showed how to sit on a school seat, how to identify poisonous
plants and how to conform to the requirements of etiquette. The
following admonitions were also displayed--a copy of them is given to
each child, who is expected to read the twelve counsels every morning
before coming to school:

  1.--Do your own work and don't rely on others to do it.

  2.--Be ardent when you learn or play.

  3.--Endeavour to do away with your bad habits and cultivate good ones.

  4.--Never tell a lie and be careful when you speak.

  5.--Do what you think right in your heart and at the same time have
  good manners.

  6.--Overcome difficulties and never hold back from hard work.

  7.--Do not make appointments which you are uncertain to keep.

  8.--Do not carelessly lend or borrow.

  9.--Do not pass by another's difficulties and do not give another
  much trouble.

  10.--Be careful about things belonging to the public as well as
  about things belonging to yourself.

  11.--Keep the outside and inside of the school clean and also
  take care of waste paper.

  12.--Never play with a grumbling spirit.

There was stuck on the roofs of many houses a rod with a piece of
white paper attached, a charm against fire. One house so provided was
next door to the fire station. Frequently we passed a children's
_jizo_ or Buddha, comically decked in the hat and miscellaneous
garments of youngsters whose grateful mothers believed them to have
been cured by the power of the deity.

Speaking of clothes, it was the hottest July weather and the natural
garment was at most a loin cloth. The women wore a piece of red or
coloured cotton from their waist to their knees. The backs of the men
and women who were working in the open were protected by a flapping
ricestraw mat or by an armful of green stuff. The boys under ten or so
were naked and so were many little girls. But the influence of the
Westernising period ideas of what was "decent" in the presence of
foreigners survives. So, whenever a policeman was near, people of all
ages were to be seen huddling on their kimonos. I was sorry for a
merry group of boys and girls aged 12 or 13 who in that torrid
weather[125] were bathing at an ideal spot in the river and suddenly
caught sight of a policeman. It is deplorable that a consciousness of
nakedness should be cultivated when nakedness is natural, traditional
and hygienic. (Even in the schools the girls are taught to make their
kimonos meet at the neck--with a pin![126]--much higher than they used
to be worn.) It is only fair to bear in mind, however, that some
hurrying on of clothes by villagers is done out of respect to the
passing superior, before whom it is impolite to appear without
permission half dressed or wearing other than the usual clothing.

At a hot spring we found many patrons because, as I was told, "Ox-day
is very suitable for bathing." The old pre-Meiji days of the week were
twelve: Rat-, Ox-, Tiger-, Hare-, Dragon-, Snake-, Horse-, Sheep-,
Monkey-, Fowl-, Dog-and Boar-day. When the Western seven days of the
week were adopted they were rendered into Japanese as: Sun, Moon,
Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth, followed by the word meaning star
or planet and day. For instance, Sunday is _Nichi_ (Sun) _yo_ (star)
_bi_ (day), and Monday, _Getsu_ (Moon) _yo_ (planet) _bi_ (day), or
_Nichi-yo-bi_ and _Getsu-yo-bi_. For brevity the _bi_ is often dropped
off.

The headman of a village we passed through told me that the occasion
of my coming was the first on which English had been heard in those
parts. Talking about the people of his village, he said that there had
been four divorces in the year. Once in four or five years a child was
born within a few months of marriage. In the whole county there had
been among 310 young men examined for the army only four cases of
"disgraceful disease." There was no immoral woman in the 75-miles-long
valley. Elsewhere in the county many young men were in debt, but in
the headman's village no youth was without a savings-bank book. And
the local men-folk "did not use women's savings as in some places."

One shrine we passed seemed to be dedicated to the moon. Another was
intended to propitiate the horsefly. Several villages had boxes
fastened on posts for the reception of broken glass. As we approached
one village I saw an inscription put up by the young men's
association, "Good Crops and Prosperity to the Village." When we came
to the next village the schoolmaster was responsible for an
inscription, "Peace to the World and Safety to the State." In other
places I found young men's society notice boards giving information
about the area of land in a village, how it was cropped, the kind of
crops, the area of forest, lists of famous places, etc.

[Illustration: MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL FIFTY MILES FROM A RAILWAY.
p. 114]

[Illustration: FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED. p. 94]

In the gorges we rode over many suspension bridges and crossed the
backbone of Japan in unforgettable scenes of romantic beauty. From
the craggy paths of our highlands, amid a wealth not only of gorgeous
flowers and greenery but of great velvety butterflies, we saw the
far-off snow-clad Japanese Alps.

[Illustration: TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES, p. 37]

[Illustration: AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING." p. 36]

[Illustration: SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING." p. 36]

At one of the schools where we lunched I noticed that the large wall
maps were of Siam and Malaya, Borneo, Australia and China (two). The
portraits were of Florence Nightingale, Lincoln, Napoleon and Christ
as the Good Shepherd, the last named being "a present from a believer
friend of the schoolmaster."[127] This school closed at noon from July
10 to July 31, and had twenty days' vacation in August and another
twenty days in the rice-planting and busy sericultural season. The
sewing-room of the school was used in winter as a dormitory for boys
who lived at a distance. Accommodation for girls was provided in the
village. The children brought their rice with them. The products of
the school farm were also eaten by the boarding pupils. It was
estimated that the cost of maintaining the girls was 10 sen a day.
Three-fourths of this expense was borne by the village. The regularity
and strictness of the dormitory management were found to have an
excellent effect. At the winter school, an adjunct of the day school,
there was an attendance of a score of youths and sixty girls.

Speaking of a place where we stayed for the night, one who had a wide
knowledge of rural Japan said that he did not think that there was a
lonelier spot where farming was carried on. There was no market or
fair for 80 or 90 miles and the little groups of houses were 2 or 3
miles apart. In this district, it was explained, "the rich are not so
rich and the poor are not so poor."

We passed somewhere a fine shrine for the welfare of horses. At a
certain festival hundreds of horses are driven down there to gallop
round and round the sacred buildings. Thousands of people attend this
festival, but it was declared that no one was ever hurt by the horses.

The poetical names of country inns would make an interesting
collection. I remember that it was at "the inn of cold spring water"
that the waiting-maid had never seen cow's milk. She proved to be the
daughter of the host and wore a gold ring by way of marking the fact.
This girl told us that on the banks of the river there was only one
house in 70 miles. The village was having the usual holiday to
celebrate the end of the toilsome sericultural season.

On our way to the next village we met two far-travelled young women
selling the dried seaweed which, in many varieties, figures in the
Japanese dietary.[128] (There are shops which sell nothing but
prepared seaweeds.) A notice board there informed us that the road was
maintained at the cost of the local young men's society. As we were on
foot we felt grateful, for the road was well kept. We passed for miles
over planking hung on the cliff side or on roadway carried on
embankments. On the suspended pathways there was now and then a plank
loose or broken, and there was no rail between the pedestrian and the
torrent dashing below. Where there was embanked roadway it was almost
always uphill and downhill and it frequently swung sharply round the
corner of a cliff. As the river increased in volume we saw many rafts
of timber shooting the rapids. At one place twenty-six raftsmen had
been drowned. The remnants of two bridges showed the force of the
floods.

In this region the _kurumaya_ were hard put to it at times and once a
_kuruma_ broke down. Its owner cheerfully detached its broken axle and
went off with it at a trot ten miles or so to a blacksmith. Later he
traversed the ten miles once more to refit his _kuruma_, afterwards
coming on fifteen more miles to our inn. The endurance and cheeriness
of the _kurumaya_ were surprising. It was usually in face of their
protests that we got out to ease them while going uphill. Every
morning they wanted to arrange to go farther than we thought
reasonable. Each man had not only his passenger but his passenger's
heavy bag. One day we did thirty-six miles over rough roads. The
_kurumaya_ proposed to cover fifty. They showed spirit, good nature
and loyalty. The character of their conversation is worth mentioning.
At one point they were discussing the plays we had witnessed, at other
times the scenery, local legends, the best routes and the crops,
material condition and disposition of the villagers. Our _kurumaya_
compared very favourably indeed with men of an equal social class at
home. Their manners were perfect. They stayed at the same inns as we
did--once in the next room--and behaved admirably. Every evening the
men washed their white cotton shorts and jackets--their whole costume
except for a wide-brimmed sun hat and straw _waraji_. Tied to the axle
of each _kuruma_ were several pairs of _waraji_, for on the rough hill
roads this simple form of footgear soon wears out. Discarded _waraji_
are to be seen on every roadside in Japan.

The inscriptions on some of the wayside stones we passed had been
written by priests so ignorant that the wording was either ridiculous
or almost without meaning. But there was no difficulty in deciphering
an inscription on a stone which declared that it had been erected by a
company of Buddhists who claimed to have repeated the holy name of
Amida 2,000,000 times. (The idea is that salvation may be obtained by
the repetition of the phrase _Namu Amida Butsu_.) A small stone set up
on a rock in the middle of paddy fields intimated that at that spot
"people gathered to see the moon one night every month." A third stone
was dedicated to the monkey as the messenger of a certain god, just as
the fox is regarded as the messenger of Inari.

We saw during our journey large numbers of _kiri_ (Paulownia) used for
making _geta_ and bride's chests. Some farmers seem to plant _kiri_
trees at the birth of a daughter so as to have wood for her wedding
chest or money for her outfit[129]. _Kiri_ seems to be increasingly
grown. On the other hand in the same districts lacquer trees were now
seldom planted. The farmers complained that they were cheated by the
collectors of lacquer who come round to cut the trees. The age of
cutting was given me as the eighth or ninth year, but poor farmers
sometimes allowed a young tree to be cut. A tree may be cut once a
year for three or four years. After that it is useless even for fuel,
owing to the smell it gives off, and is often left standing. The old
scarred trunks, sometimes headless, suggested the tattooed faces and
bodies of Maori veterans. As lacquer is poisonous to the skin the wood
calls for careful handling. I saw one of the itinerant lacquer
collectors, his hands wrapped in cotton, operating on a tree.

During a particularly hot run we had the good fortune to come on a
soda-water spring from which we all drank freely. A factory erected to
tap the spring was in ruins. Evidently the cost of carriage was
prohibitive.

In these hills the rice was planted farther apart than is usual so
that the sun might warm the water. Here as elsewhere _daikon_ were
hung up to dry on walls and trees, and looked like giant tallow
candles. Below a bridge, which marked the village boundary, flags had
been flung down by way of keeping off epidemics. Evil spirits were
warded off by special dances.

The porch of a little tea-house where we rested was covered with
grapes. Soon after leaving it we reached our destination for the
night, a small town of houses of several storeys which clustered on a
hillside under the shadow of a Zen temple. Meat and eggs were
forbidden to the town, but as the residents were all Zen Buddhists the
restriction was no hardship. There was no cow in the place, but
condensed milk was allowed. A man at the inn told me that he knew of
ten Shinto shrines which forbade the use of chickens and eggs in their
localities. The view from the temple, perched high on its rock above
the wide riverway, was exceptionally fine. Parties of boys and girls
of thirteen paid visits to this temple "because thirteen is known as a
perilous age." The people of the vegetarian town, instead of feeding
on the fish in the river, fed them. I saw a shoal of fish being given
scraps at the water edge.

As we went on our way and spoke of the bad roads it was suggested that
in the old days roads were purposely left uphill and downhill in order
that the advance of enemies might be hindered. We came to a
dilapidated tea-house kept by an ugly old woman who showed a touching
fondness for a cat and a dog. From her shack we had a view of a
volcano which had destroyed two villages a few years before. Our
hostess, who made much of us, said that the catastrophe had been
preceded by "horrible da-da-da-bang" sounds and lightnings, and that
it was accompanied by "thunderbolts and heavy thick smoke." The old
woman had beheld "soil boiling and cracking."

Along our route we had more evidences of "fire farming." The procedure
was to sow buckwheat the first year and rape and millet the second
year. In the cryptomeria forests there was a variety which, when cut,
sprouts from the ground and makes a new growth like an elm. One crop
we saw was ginseng, protected by low structures covered by matting.

At length we heard the distant sound of a locomotive whistle. We were
approaching the newly opened railway which was to take us the short
run to the sea. Soon we were in a rather unkempt village which had
hardly recovered from its surprise at finding that it had a railway
station. We paid our _kurumaya_ the sum contracted for and something
over for their faithful service and for their long return run, and
having exchanged bows and cordial greetings, we left for a time the
glorified perambulators which a foreign missionary is supposed to have
introduced half a century ago. (The Japanese claim the honour of
"inventing" the jinrikisha.)

FOOTNOTES:

[123] See Appendix XXXVII.

[124] See Appendix XXXVIII.

[125] In Tokyo one may sleep night after night in summer with no
covering but the thinnest loose cotton kimono and have an electric fan
going within the mosquito curtain, and still feel the heat.

[126] The kimono has no button, hook, tie, or fastening of any kind,
and is kept in place by the waist string and _obi_.

[127] It is an illustration of the difficulty of using a foreign
symbolism that it is unlikely that a single child in the school had
ever seen a shepherd or a sheep.

[128] In 1918 the value of seaweed was returned at 13,600,000 yen.

[129] In fifteen years a _kiri_ tree may be about 20 ft. high and 3
ft. in circumference and be worth 30 yen. _Kiri_ trees to the value of
3 million yen were felled in 1918.




CHAPTER XIV

SHRINES AND POETRY

(NIIGATA AND TOYAMA)

Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people.--JOHNSON


The railway made its way through snow stockades and through many
tunnels which pierced cryptomeria-clad hills. Eventually we descended
to the wonderful Kambara plains, a sea of emerald rice. Fourteen
million bushels of rice are produced on the flats of Niigata
prefecture, which grows more rice than any other. The rice, grown
under 800 different names, is officially graded into half a dozen
qualities. The problem of the high country we had come from was how to
keep its paddy fields from drying up; the problem of Niigata is
chiefly to keep the water in its fields at a sufficiently low level.
Almost every available square yard of the prefecture is paddy.

At Gosen there were depressing-looking weaving sheds, but the Black
Country created by the oil fields farther on was in even more striking
contrast with the beautiful region we had left. The petroleum yield
was 65 million gallons, and the smell of the oil went with us to the
capital city.

Niigata has a dark reputation for exporting farmers' daughters to
other parts of Japan, but I have also heard that the percentage of
attendance made by the children at the primary schools of the
prefecture is higher than anywhere else. Like Amsterdam, Niigata is a
city of bridges. There must be 200 of them. The big timber bridge
across the estuary is nearly half a mile long. One finds in Niigata a
Manchester-like spirit of business enterprise. Our hotel was
excellent.

Because they speak with all sorts of people and hear a great deal of
conversation the blind _amma_ are full of interesting gossip. A clever
_amma_ who ran his knuckles up and down my back said that farm land a
good way from Niigata was sold at from 200 yen to 300 yen and
sometimes at 400 yen per quarter acre.[130] Prefectural officials who
called on me explained that drainage operations on a large scale were
being completed. The water of which the low land was relieved would be
used to extend farming in the hills. An effort was also being made to
develop stock-keeping in the uplands. It was proposed "to supply every
farmer with a scheme for increasing his live stock." The optimistic
authorities were particularly attracted by the notion of keeping
sheep. The plan was to arrange for co-operation in hill pasturing and
in wool and meat production. Mutton was as yet unknown, however, in
Niigata. (The mutton eaten by foreigners in Japan usually comes from
Shanghai.)

I went into the country to a little place where the natural gas from
the soil was used by the farmers for lighting and cooking. I heard
talk in this village and in others of the influence of the local army
reservists' society. "Young men on returning from their army service
are always influential. They are much respected by the youths and are
talkative indeed in the village assembly."

As our host was the village headman he kindly brought the assembly
together to meet me. I asked the assembled fathers about two stones
erected in the village. Somebody had kindled a fire of rice screenings
near one of them and it had been scorched. On the other stone a kimono
had been hung to dry. The explanation was that the stones were
monuments not shrines, and that the people who had set them up had
left the district. The stones were no doubt respected while the donors
lived. It was not uncommon for a pilgrim to a shrine to erect a
memorial on his return home.

In this village fifty Shinto shrines of the fifth class had been
closed under the influence of the Home Office. They were shrines which
had no offering from the village to support them. They had only a few
worshippers. All the remaining shrines were of the fifth class but
one, and it was of the fourth class. In the county there was a
second-class shrine and in the whole prefecture there were two or
three first-class shrines. The villagers had agreed among themselves
which of their own shrines should be made an end of. A shrine which
was dispensed with was burnt. The stone steps approaching it were also
removed. Burning was not sacrilege but purification. On the closing of
a shrine there might be complaints on the part of some old man or
woman, but the majority of people approved. One Shinto shrine guardian
lived at the fourth-class shrine and conducted a ceremony at the
sixteen fifth-class shrines. Of the twenty Buddhist temples in the
village (300 families cultivating an average of a _cho_ apiece),
twelve were Hokke, five Shingon, two Shinshu and one Zen. All the
priests were married.[131]

I have used the phrase "Buddhist temple" loosely and may do so again,
for it conveys an idea which "Buddhist church" does not. A temple
(_do_) is properly an edifice in which a Buddha is enshrined. This
building is not for services or burial ceremonies or anniversary
offerings for departed souls. It may or may not have a guardian
(_domori_). He is never a priest with a shaven head. A Buddhist church
(_tera_) is a place where adherents go as anniversaries come round or
for sermons. It possesses a priest. There is a considerable difference
in the style of Buddhist edifices according to their denomination--Zen
buildings are particularly plain--but all are more elaborate than
Shinto shrines.

A large Shinto shrine is called _yashiro_ (house of god); a small one
_hokora_. A _hokora_ is transportable. Originally it was and in some
places it still is a perishable wooden shrine thatched with reed or
grass straw which is renewed at the spring and autumn festivals. It
may be less than two feet high and may be made of stone or wood. But
it cannot be regarded as a building. Inside there are _gohei_ (upright
sticks with paper streamers). In a rich man's house a _hokora_ may be
seven or eight feet high or bigger than the smallest _yashiro_, and
may be embellished with colour and metal.

Returning to Buddhism, if a priest has a son he may be succeeded by
him. But many Buddhist priests marry late and have no children. Or
their children do not want to be priests. So the priest adopts a
successor. Sometimes he maintains an orphan as acolyte or coadjutor.
During the day this assistant goes to school. In the evenings and
during holidays he is taught to become a priest. When the
primary-school education is finished the lad may be sent by his
patron, if he is well enough off, to a school of his sect at Kyoto or
Tokyo.

My travelling companion spoke of the infiltration of new ideas in town
and country. "A mixing is taking place in the heart and head of
everybody who is not a bigot. But I don't know that some kinds of
Christianity are to do much for us. I heard the other day of a
Japanese Presbyterian who was preaching with zest about hell fire.
Generally speaking, our old men are looking to the past and our young
men are aspiring, but not all. Some are content if they can live
uncriticised by their neighbours. When they become old they may begin
to think of a future life and visit temples. But as young men their
thoughts are fully occupied by things of this world."

In the office of the headman whom I mentioned a page or so back, there
was behind his chair a _kakemono_ which read, "Reflecting and
Examining One's Inner Spirit." We passed a night in the old house of
this headman, who was a poet and a country gentleman of a delightful
type. Being an eldest son he had married young, and his relations with
his eldest boy, a frank and clever lad, were pleasant to see. The
garden, instead of being shut in by a wall with a tiled coping or by a
palisade of bamboo stems in the ordinary way, was open towards the
rice fields, a scene of restful beauty. As our _kuruma_ drew near the
house, the steward appeared, a broom in his hand. Running for a short
distance before us until we entered the courtyard, he symbolically
swept the ground according to old custom. After a delightful hot bath
and an elaborate supper, which my fellow traveller afterwards assured
me had meant a week's work for the women of the household--snapping
turtle and choice bamboo shoots were among the honourable dishes--we
gathered at the open side of the room overlooking the garden.
Fireflies glowed in the paddies and in the garden two stone lanterns
had been lighted. One of them, which had a crescent-shaped opening cut
in it, gleamed like the moon; the other, which had a small serrated
opening, represented a star.

I paid a visit to the local agricultural co-operative store which did
business under the motto, "Faith is the Mother of all Virtue." More
than half the money taken at the store was for artificial manures.
Next came purchases of imported rice, for, like the Danish peasants
who export their butter and eat margarine, the local peasants sold
their own rice and bought the Saigon variety. The society sold in a
year a considerable quantity of _saké_. Stretched over the doorway of
the building in which the goods of the society were stored were the
rope and paper streamers which are seen before Shinto shrines and
consecrated places. The society had a large flag post for weather
signals, a white flag for a fine day, a red one for cloudy weather and
a blue one for rain.

I brought away from this village a calendar of agricultural operations
with poems or mottoes for each month, in the collection of which I
suspect the poet had a hand:

_January_: Future of the day determined in the morning.

_February_: The voice of one reading a farming book coming
  from the snow-covered window.

_March_: Grafting these young trees, thinking of the days
  of my grandchildren.

_April_: Digging the soil of the paddy field, sincerity
  concentrated on the edge of the mattock.

_May_: Returning home with the dim moonlight glinting
  on the edges of our mattocks.

_June_: Boundless wealth stored up by gracious heaven:
  dig it out with your mattock, take it away with your
  sickle.

_July_: Weeding the paddy field[132] in a happiness and
  contentment which townspeople do not know.

_August_: Standing peasant worthier than resting rich man.

_September_: Ears of rice bend their heads as they ripen.
  (An allusion to wisdom and meekness.)

_October_: White steam coming out of a manure house on
 an autumn morning.

_November_: Moon clear and bright above neatly divided
  paddy fields.

_December_: All the members of the family smiling and
  celebrating the year's end, piling up many bales of rice.

In this district I first noticed cotton. It is sown in June and is
picked from time to time between early September and early November.
Cotton has been grown for centuries in Japan, but nowadays it is
produced for household weaving only, the needs of the factories being
met by foreign imports. The plant has a beautiful yellow flower with a
dark brown eye.

In one village I asked how many people smoked. The answer was 60 per
cent. of the men and 10 per cent. of the women. In the same village,
which did not seem particularly well off, I was told that 200 daily
papers might be taken among 1,300 families. Eighty per cent. of the
local papers were dailies and cost 35 sen a month. Tokyo papers cost
45 or 50 sen a month.

I visited a school, half of which was in a building adjoining a temple
and half in the temple itself. In the same county there were two other
schools housed in temples. The small Shinto shrine in this temple held
the Imperial Rescript on education. On one side of it was an ugly
American clock and on the other a thermometer. In the temple (Zen) two
Tokyo University students were staying in ideal conditions for
vacation study.

I saw at one place a very tired, unslept-looking peasant with a small
closed tub carried over his shoulder by means of a pole. On the tub
was tied a white streamer, such as is supplied at a Shinto shrine, and
a branch of _sakaki_ (_Eurya ochnacea_, the sacred tree). The
traveller was the delegate of his village. He had been to a mountain
shrine in the next prefecture and the tub held the water he had got
there. The idea is that if he succeeds in making the journey home
without stopping anywhere his efforts will result in rain coming down
at his village. If he should stop at any place to rest or sleep, and
there should be the slightest drip from his tub there, then the rain
will be procured not for his own village but for the community in
which he has tarried. So our voyager had walked not only for a whole
day but through the night. I heard of a rain delegate who had stamina
enough to keep walking for three or four days without sleeping.

Another way of obtaining rain has principally to do with tugging at a
rock with a straw rope. Then there is the plan already referred to of
tying straw ropes to a stone image and flinging it into the river,
saying, "If you don't give us rain you will stay there; if you do give
us rain you shall come out." There is also the method of paying
someone liberally to throw the split open head of an ox into the deep
pool of a waterfall. "Then the water god being much angry," said my
informant, "he send his dragon to that village, so storm and rain come
necessarily." Yet another plan is for the villagers simply to ascend
to a particular mountain top crying, "Give us rain! Give us rain!"
While dealing with these magic arts I may reproduce the following
rendering of a printed "fortune" which I received from a rural shrine:
"Wish to agree but now somewhat difficult. Wait patiently for a while.
Do nothing wrong. Wait for the spring to come. Everything will be
completed and will become better. Endeavouring to accomplish it soon
will be fruitless."

It was a student of agricultural conditions, in Toyama who gossiped to
me of the large expenditure by farmers of that prefecture on the
marriage of their daughters. "It is not so costly as the boys'
education and it procures a good reception for the girl from
father-and mother-in-law. The pinch comes when there is a second and
third daughter, for the average balance in hand of a peasant
proprietor in this prefecture at the end of the year is only 48 yen.
Borrowing is necessary and I heard of one bankruptcy. The Governor
tried to stop the custom but it is too old. They say Toyama people
spend more proportionately than the people in other prefectures. In
general they do not keep a horse or ox. I heard of young farmers
stealing each other's crops. Parents are very severe upon a daughter
who becomes ill-famed, for when they seek a husband for her they must
spend more. So mostly daughters keep their purity before marriage. But
I know parts of Japan where a large number of the girls have ceased to
be virtuous. Concerning the priests, those of Toyama are the worst. A
peasant proprietor with seven of a family and a balance at the end of
the year of 100 yen must pay 30 to 40 yen to the temple. Some priests
threaten the farmer, saying that if he does not pay as much as is
imposed on him by the collector an inferior Buddha will go past his
door. Priests want to keep farmers foolish as long as they can."

FOOTNOTES:

[130] For prices of land, see Appendix LIV.

[131] There are about 116,000 Shinto shrines of all grades and 14,000
priests, and 71,000 temples and 51,000 priests. There are about a
dozen Shinto sects and about thirty Buddhist sects and sub-sects.

[132] It is done by wading in leech-infested water under a burning sun
and pulling out the weeds by hand and pushing them down into the
sludge.




CHAPTER XV

THE NUN'S CELL

(NAGANO)

It is one more incitement to a man to do well.--BOSWELL


Eighty per cent. of Nagano is slope. Hence its dependence on
sericulture. The low stone-strewn roofs of the houses, the railway
snow shelters and the zig-zag track which the train takes, hint at the
climatic conditions in winter time. Despite the snow--ski-ing has been
practised for some years--the summer climate of Nagano has been
compared with that of Champagne and there is one vineyard of 60,000
vines.

I was invited to join a circle of administrators who were discussing
rural morality and religion. One man said that there was not 20 per
cent. of the villages in which the priests were "active for social
development." Another speaker of experience declared that "the four
pillars of an agricultural village" were "the _soncho_ (headman), the
schoolmaster, the policeman and the most influential villager." He
went on: "In Europe religion does many things for the support and
development of morality, but we look to education, for it aims not at
only developing intelligence and giving knowledge, but at teaching
virtue and honesty. But there is something beyond that. Thousands of
our soldiers died willingly in the Russian war. There must have been
something at the bottom of their hearts. That something is a certain
sentiment which penetrates deeply the characters of our countrymen.
Our morality and customs have it in their foundations. This spirit is
_Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit). It appeared among our warriors as
_bushido_ (the way of the soldier), but it is not the monopoly of
soldiers. Every Japanese has some of this spirit. It is the moral
backbone of Japan."

"I should like to say," another speaker declared, "that I read many
European and American books, but I remain Japanese. Mr. Uchimura sees
the darkest side of Buddhism and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn expected too much
from it. 'So mysterious,' Hearn said, but it is not so mysterious to
us. We must be grateful to him for seeing something of the essence of
our life. Sometimes, however, we may be ashamed of his beautifying
sentences. I am a modern man, but I am not ashamed when my wife is
with child to pray that it may be healthy and wise. It is possible for
us Japanese to worship some god somewhere without knowing why. The
poet says, 'I do not know the reason of it, but tears fall down from
my eyes in reverence and gratitude.' I suppose this is natural
theology. The proverb says, 'Even the head of a sardine is something
if believed in.' I attach more importance to a man's attitude to
something higher than himself than to the thing which is revered by
him. Whether a man goes to Nara and Kyoto or to a Roman Catholic or a
Methodist church he can come home very purified in heart."

"Some foreigners have thought well to call us 'half civilised,'" the
speaker went on. "Can it be that uncivilised is something distasteful
to or not understood by Europeans and Americans? We have the ambition
to erect some system of Eastern civilisation. It is possible that we
may have it in our minds to call some things in Europe 'half
civilised.' Surely the barbarians are usually the people other than
ourselves. When the townsman goes to the country he says the people
are savages. But the countryman finds his fellow-savages quite decent
people."

"Some time ago," broke in a professor, "I read a novel by René Bazin
and I could not but think how much alike were our peasants and the
peasants of the West."

The previous speaker resumed: "The other day a foreigner laughed in my
presence at our old art of incense burning and actually said that we
were deficient in the sense of smell. I told him that fifty years ago
our samurai class, in excusing their anti-foreign manifestations,
said they could not endure the smell of foreigners, and that to this
day our peasants may be heard to say of Western people, 'They smell;
they smell of butter and fat.'"

In the city of Nagano early in the morning I went to a large Buddhist
temple where the authorities had kindly given me special facilities to
see the treasures--alas! all in a wooden structure. A strange thing
was the preservation untouched of the room in which the Emperor Meiji
rested thirty years ago. May oblivion be one day granted to that awful
chenille table cover and those appalling chairs which outrage the
beautiful woodwork and the golden _tatami_ of a great building! At the
entrance of the temple priests in a kind of open office were reading
the newspaper, playing _go_ or smoking. More pleasing was the sight of
matting spread right round the temple below its eaves, in order that
weary pilgrims might sleep there, and the spectacle of travel-stained
women tranquilly sleeping or suckling their infants before the shrine
itself. There is a pitch dark underground passage below the floor
round the foundations of the great Buddha, and if the circuit be made
and the lock communicating with the entrance door to the sacred figure
be fortunately touched on the way, paradise, peasants believe, is
assured. I made the circuit a few moments after an old woman and found
the lock, and on returning to the temple with the rustic dame knelt
with her before the shrine as the curtain which veils the big Buddha
was withdrawn. The face of one wooden figure in the temple had been
worn, like that of many another in Japan, with the stroking that it
had received from the ailing faithful.

[Illustration: IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY. p. 142]

[Illustration: GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A WESTERN SCYTHE. p. 367]

I had the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was
specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to
see some nuns' cells. They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas.
The word "cells" was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned
rooms of a cheerful Japanese house. The fragile, wistful nun who was
so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression. Her dress
was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination of green
and cream. Her head was shaven; her hands, which continually told
her beads, were hidden. Religious services are conducted and sermons
are delivered here and in other nunneries by the nuns themselves. I
could not but be sorry for some girl children who had become nuns on
their relatives' or guardians' decision. Adult newcomers are given a
month in which, if they wish, they may repent them of their vows; but
what of the children? The head of this nunnery was a member of the
Imperial family. The institution, like the temple from which I had
just come, stores thousands of wooden tablets to the memory of the
dead. There are many little receptacles in which the hair, the teeth
or the photographs of believers are preserved. I found that both at
the nunnery and the temple a practical interest was being shown in the
reformation of ex-criminals.

[Illustration: THE CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS. p. 230]

[Illustration: NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL" BY THE AUTHOR. p. 142]

[Illustration: STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. p. 50]

While in the highlands of Nagano I spent a night at Karuizawa, a hill
resort at which tired missionaries and their families, not only from
all parts of Japan but from China, gather in the summer months beyond
the reach of the mosquito.[133] I stayed in the summer cottage of my
travelling companion's brother-in-law. The family consisted of a
reserved, cultivated man with a pretty wife of what I have heard a
foreigner call "the maternal, domestic type." In their owlishness
newcomers to the country are inclined to commiserate all Japanese
housewives as the "slaves of their husbands." They would have been
sadly wrong in such thoughts about this happy wife and mother. The
eldest boy, a wholesome-looking lad, had just passed through the
middle school on his way to the university, and spoke to me in simple
English with that air of responsibility which the eldest son so soon
acquires in Japan. His brothers and sisters enjoyed a happy relation
with him and with each other. The whole family was merry, unselfish
and, in the best sense of the word, educated. As we knelt on our
_zabuton_ we refreshed ourselves with tea and the fine view of the
active volcano, Asama, and chatted on schools, holidays, books, the
country and religion. After a while, a little to my surprise, the
mother in her sweet voice gravely said that if I would not mind at all
she would like very much to ask me two questions. The first was, "Are
the people who go to the Christian church here all Christians?" and
the second, "Are Christians as affectionate as Japanese?"

Karuizawa, which is full of ill-nourished, scabby-headed,
"bubbly-nosed"[134] Japanese children, is an impoverished place on one
of the ancient highways. We took ourselves along the road until we
reached at a slightly higher altitude the decayed village of Oiwaké.
When the railway came near it finished the work of desolation which
the cessation of the daimyos' progresses to Yedo (now Tokyo) had begun
half a century ago. In the days of the Shogun three-quarters of the
300 houses were inns. Now two-thirds of the houses have become
uninhabitable, or have been sold, taken down and rebuilt elsewhere.
The Shinto shrines are neglected and some are unroofed, the Zen temple
is impoverished, the school is comfortless and a thousand tombstones
in the ancient burying ground among the trees are half hidden in moss
and undergrowth.

The farm rents now charged in Oiwaké had not been changed for thirty,
forty or fifty years. In the old inn there was a Shinto shrine, about
12 ft. long by nearly 2 ft. deep, with latticed sliding doors. It
contained a dusty collection of charms and memorials dating back for
generations. Outside in the garden at the spring I found an irregular
row of half a dozen rather dejected-looking little stone _hokora_
about a foot high. Some had faded _gohei_ thrust into them, but from
the others the clipped paper strips had blown away. At the foot of the
garden I discovered a somewhat elaborate wooden shrine in a
dilapidated state. "Few country people," someone said to me, "know who
is enshrined at such a place." It is generally thought that these
shrines are dedicated to the fox. But the foxes are merely the
messengers of the shrine, as is shown by the figures of crouching or
squatting foxes at either side. A well-known professor lately arrived
at the conviction that the god worshipped at such shrines is the god
of agriculture. He went so far as to recommend the faculty of
agriculture at Tokyo university to have a shrine erected within its
walls to this divinity, but the suggestion was not adopted.

In the course of another chat with the old host of the inn he referred
to the time, close on half a century ago, when 3,000 hungry peasants
marched through the district demanding rice. They did no harm. "They
were satisfied when they were given food; the peasants at that time
were heavily oppressed." To-day the people round about look as if they
were oppressed by the ghosts of old-time tyrants. But there is
"something that doth linger" of self-respect. When we left on our way
to Tokyo I gave the man who brought our bags a mile in a barrow to the
station 40 sen. He returned 10 sen, saying that 30 sen was enough.

FOOTNOTES:

[133] Although, as has been seen, the rural problems under
investigation in this book are inextricably bound up with religion,
limits of space make it necessary to reserve for another volume the
consideration of the large and complex question of missionary work.

[134] As to the "bubbly-nosed callant," to quote the description given
of young Smollett, nasal unpleasantness seems to be popularly regarded
as a sign of health. The constant sight of it is one of the minor
discomforts of travel.




IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE[135]

CHAPTER XVI

PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE

(SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

A foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may speak his
mind freely.--GOLDSMITH


I went back to Nagano to visit the silk industrial regions. My route
lay through the prefectures of Saitama and Gumma. I left Tokyo on the
last day of June. Many farmers were threshing their barley. On the
dry-land patches, where the grain crop had been harvested, soya bean,
sown between the rows of grain long before harvest, was becoming
bushier now that it was no longer overshadowed. Maize in most places
was about a foot high, but where it had been sown early was already
twice that height. The sweet potato had been planted out from its
nursery bed for weeks. Here and there were small crops of tea which
had been severely picked for its second crop. I noticed melons,
cucumbers and squashes, and patches of the serviceable burdock. Many
paddy farmers had water areas devoted to lotus, but the big floating
leaves were not yet illumined by the mysterious beauty of the
honey-scented flowers.

In order to imagine the scene on the rice flats, the reader must not
think of the glistering paddy fields[136] as stretching in an unbroken
monotonous series over the plain. Occasionally a rocky patch,
outcropping from the paddy tract, made a little island of wood.
Sometimes it was a sacred grove in which one caught a glimpse of a
Shinto shrine or the head stones of the dead. Sometimes there was a
little clump of cropped tree greenery which kept a farmhouse cool in
summer and, at another time of the year, sheltered from the wind. Few
householders were too poor or too busy to be without their little
patch of flowers.

Before the train climbed out of the Kwanto plain temperature of not
far below 100° F. the planting of rice seemed to be almost an enviable
occupation. The peasant had his great umbrella-shaped straw hat,
sometimes an armful of green stuff tied on his back, and a delicious
feeling of being up to the knees in water or mud on a hot day-one
recalled the mud baths of the West-when the alternative was walking on
a dusty road, digging on the sun-baked upland or perspiring in a house
or the train.

With the rise in the level a few mulberries began to appear and
gradually they occupied a large part of the holdings. Sometimes the
mulberries were cultivated as shoots from a stump a little above
ground level, and sometimes as a kind of small standard. As mulberry
culture increased, the silk factories' whitewashed cocoon stores and
the tall red and black iron chimneys of the factories themselves
became more numerous. It is a pity that the silk factory is not always
so innocent-looking inside as the pure white exterior of its stores
might suggest. It is certain that the overworked girl operatives,
sitting at their steaming basins, drawing the silk from the soaked
cocoons, were glad to find the weather conditions such that they could
have the sides of their reeling sheds removed.

At many of the railway stations there were stacks of large, round,
flat bean cakes, for the farmer feeds his "cake" to his fields direct,
not through the medium of cattle. Although a paddy receives less
agreeable nutritive materials than bean cake, the extensive use of
this cake must be comforting to a little school of rural reformers in
the West. These ardent vegetarians have refused to listen to the
allegation that vegetarianism was impossible because without
meat-eating there would be no cattle and therefore no nitrogen for the
fields.

It was not only the bean cakes at the stations which caught my
attention but the extensive use of lime. Square miles of paddy field
were white with powdered lime, scattered before the planting of the
rice, an operation which in the higher altitudes would not be finished
until well on in July.

A contented and prosperous countryside was no doubt the impression
reflected to many passengers in the train that sunny day. But I knew
how closely pressed the farmers had been by the rise in prices of many
things that they had got into the way of needing. I had learnt, too,
the part that superstition[137] as well as simple faith played in the
lives of the country folk. When, however, I pondered the way in which
the rural districts had been increasingly invaded by factories run
under the commercial sanctions of our eighteen-forties, I asked myself
whether there might not be superstitions of the economic world as well
as of religious and social life.

I heard a Japanese speak of being well treated at inns in the old days
for 20 sen a night. It should be remembered, however, that there is a
system not only of tipping inn servants but of tipping the inn. The
gift to the inn is called _chadai_ and guests are expected to offer a
sum which has some relation to their position and means and the food
and treatment they expect. I have stayed at inns where I have paid as
much _chadai_ as bill. To pay 50 per cent. of the bill as _chadai_ is
common. The idea behind _chadai_ is that the inn-keeper charges only
his out-of-pocket expenses and that therefore the guest naturally
desires to requite him. In acknowledgment of _chadai_ the inn-keeper
brings a gift to the guest at his departure--fans, pottery, towels,
picture postcards, fruit or slabs of stiff acidulated fruit jelly (in
one inn of grapes and in another of plums) laid between strips of
maize leaf. The right time to give _chadai_ is on entering the hotel,
after the "welcome tea." In handing money to any person in Japan,
except a porter or a _kurumaya_, the cash or notes are wrapped in
paper.

On the journey from the city of Nagano to Matsumoto, wonderful views
were unfolded of terraced rice fields, and, above these, of terraced
fields of mulberry. How many hundred feet high the terraces rose as
the train climbed the hills I do not know, but I have had no more
vivid impression of the triumphs of agricultural hydraulic
engineering. We were seven minutes in passing through one tunnel at a
high elevation.

I spoke in the train with a man who had a dozen _cho_ under grapes, 20
per cent. being European varieties and 80 per cent. American. He said
that some of the people in his district were "very poor." Some farmers
had made money in sericulture too quickly for it to do them good. He
volunteered the opinion, in contrast with the statement made to me
during our journey to Niigata, that the people of the plains were
morally superior to the people of the mountains. The reason he gave
was that "there are many recreations in the plains whereas in the
mountains there is only one." In most of the mountain villages he knew
three-quarters of the young men had relations with women, mostly with
the girls of the village or the adjoining village. He would not make
the same charge against more than ten per cent. of the young men of
the plains, and "it is after all with teahouse girls." He thought that
there were "too many temples and too many sects, so the priests are
starved."

An itinerant agricultural instructor in sericulture who joined in our
conversation was not much concerned by the plight of the priests. "The
causes of goodness in our people," he said, "are family tradition and
home training. Candidly, we believe our morals are not so bad on the
whole. We are now putting most stress on economic development. How to
maintain their families is the question that troubles people most.
With that question unsolved it is preaching to a horse to preach
morality. We can always find high ideals and good leaders when
economic conditions improve. The development of morality is our final
aim, but it is encouraged for six years at the primary school. The
child learns that if it does bad things it will be laughed at and
despised by the neighbours and scolded by its parents. We are busy
with the betterment of economic conditions and questions about
morality and religion puzzle us."

When I reached Matsumoto I met a rural dignitary who deplored the
increasing tendency of city men to invest in rural property.
"Sometimes when a peasant sells his land he sets up as a
money-lender." I was told that nearly every village had a sericultural
co-operative association, which bought manures, mulberry trees and
silk-worm eggs, dried cocoons and hatched eggs for its members and
spent money on the destruction of rats. Of recent years the county
agricultural association had given 5 yen per _tan_ to farmers who
planted improved sorts of mulberry. About half the farmers in the
county had manure houses. Some 800 farmers in the county kept a
labourer.

I went to see a _guncho_ and read on his wall: "Do not get angry.
Work! Do not be in a hurry, yet do not be lazy." "These being my
faults," he explained, "I specially wrote them out." There was also on
his wall a _kakemono_ reading: "At twenty I found that even a plain
householder may influence the future of his province; at thirty that
he may influence the future of his nation; at forty that he may
influence the future of the whole world." Below this stirring
sentiment was a portrait of the writer, a samurai scholar, from a
photograph taken with a camera which he had made himself. He lived in
the last period of the Shogunate and studied Dutch books. He was
killed by an assassin at the instance, it was believed, of the Shogun.

One of the noteworthy things of Matsumoto was the agricultural
association's market. Another piece of organisation in that part of
the world was fourteen institutes where girls were instructed in the
work of silk factory hands. The teachers' salaries were paid by the
factories. So were also the expenses of the silk experts of the local
authorities. On the day I left the city the daily paper contained an
announcement of lectures on hygiene to women on three successive days,
"the chief of police to be present." This paper was demanding the
exemption of students from the bicycle tax, the rate of which varies
in different prefectures.

A young man was brought to see me who was specialising in musk melons.
He said that the Japanese are gradually getting out of their
partiality for unripe fruit.

On our way to the Suwas we saw many wretched dwellings. The feature
of the landscape was the silk factories' tall iron chimneys,
ordinarily black though sometimes red, white or blue.

It is not commonly understood that Japanese lads by the time they
"graduate" from the middle school into the higher school have had some
elementary military training. A higher-school youth knows how to
handle a rifle and has fired twice at a target. At Kami Suwa the
problem of how middle-class boys should procure economical lodging
while attending their classes had been solved by self-help. An
ex-scholar of twenty had managed to borrow 4,000 yen and had proceeded
to build on a hillside a dormitory accommodating thirty-six boarders.
Lads did the work of levelling the ground and digging the well. The
frugal lines on which the lodging-house was conducted by the lads
themselves may be judged from the fact that 5 yen a month covered
everything. Breakfast consisted of rice, _miso_ soup and pickles.
Cooking and the emptying of the _benjo_[138] were done by the lads in
turn. A kitchen garden was run by common effort. Among the many
notices on the walls was one giving the names of the residents who
showed up at 5 o'clock in the morning for a cold bath and fencing. I
also saw the following instruction written by the founder of the
house, which is read aloud every morning by each resident in turn:

Be independent and pure and strive to make your characters more
beautiful. Expand your thought. Help each other to accomplish your
ambitions. Be active and steady and do not lose your self-control. Be
faithful to friends and righteous and polite. Be silent and keep
order. Do not be luxurious (_sic_). Keep everything clean. Pay
attention to sanitation. Do not neglect physical exercises. Be
diligent and develop your intelligence.

The borrower of the 4,000 yen with which the institution was built
managed to pay it back within seven years with interest, out of the
subscriptions of residents and ex-residents.

An agricultural authority whom I met spoke of "farming families
living from hand to mouth and their land slipping into the possession
of landlords"; also of a fifth of the peasants in the prefecture being
tenants. A young novelist who had been wandering about the Suwa
district had been impressed by the grim realities of life in poor
farmers' homes and cited facts on which he based a low view of rural
morality.

Suwa Lake lies more than 3,500 ft. above sea level and in winter is
covered with skaters. The country round about is remarkable
agriculturally for the fact that many farmers are able to lead into
their paddies not only warm water from the hot springs but water from
ammonia springs, so economising considerably in their expenditure on
manure. A simple windmill for lifting the fertilising water is sold
for only 4 yen.

We went to Kofu, the capital of Yamanashi prefecture, through many
mountain tunnels and ravines. Entrancing is the just word for this
region in the vicinity of the Alps. But joy in the beauty through
which we passed is tinged for the student of rural life by thoughts of
the highlander's difficulties in getting a living in spots where quiet
streams may become in a few hours ungovernable torrents. I remember
glimpses of grapes and persimmons, of parties of middle-school boys
tramping out their holiday--every inn reduces its terms for them--and
of half a dozen peasant girls bathing in a shaded stream. But there
were less pleasing scenes: hills deforested and paddies wrecked by a
waste of stones and gravel flung over them in time of flood. Here and
there the indomitable farmers, counting on the good behaviour of the
river for a season or two, were endeavouring, with enormous labour, to
resume possession of what had been their own. The spectacle
illustrated at once their spirit and their industry and their need of
land. At night we slept at Kofu at "the inn of greeting peaks." In the
morning a Governor with imagination told me of the prefecture's
gallant enterprises in afforestation and river embanking at
expenditures which were almost crippling.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] The three leading silk prefectures are in order: Nagano,
Fukushima and Gumma.

[136] At this time of the year, when the rice plants are small, the
water in the paddies is still conspicuous.

[137] An old Japan hand once counselled me that "the thing to find out
in sociological enquiries is not people's religions but their
superstitions."

[138] See Appendix IV.




CHAPTER XVII

THE BIRTH, BRIDAL AND DEATH OF THE SILK-WORM

(NAGANO)

The mulberry leaf knoweth not that it shall be silk.--_Arab proverb_


One acre in every dozen in Japan produces mulberry leaves for feeding
the silk-worms which two million farming families--more than a third
of the farming families of the country--painstakingly rear.

But the mulberry is not the only mark of a sericultural district. Its
mark may be seen in the tall chimneys of the factories and in the
structure of the farmers' houses. Breeders of silk-worms are often
well enough off to have tiled instead of thatched roofs; they have
frequently two storeys to their dwellings; and they have almost always
a roof ventilator so that the vitiated air from the _hibachi_-heated
silk-worm chambers may be carried off. Yet another sign of sericulture
being a part of the agricultural activities of a district is its
prosperity. Silk-worms produce the most valuable of all Japanese
exports. Japan sends abroad more raw silk than any other country.[139]

It is in the middle of the country that sericulture chiefly nourishes.
The smallest output of raw silk is from the most northerly prefecture
and from the prefecture in the extreme south-west of the mainland. But
human aptitude plays its part as well as climate. The Japanese hand is
a wonderful piece of mechanism--look at the hands of the next Japanese
you meet--and in sericulture its delicate touch is used to the utmost
advantage.

The gains of sericulture are not made without corresponding
sacrifices. Silk-worm raising is infinitely laborious. The constant
picking of leaves, the bringing of them home and the chopping and
supplying of these leaves to the smallest of all live stock and the
maintenance of a proper temperature in the rearing-chamber day and
night mean unending work. The silk-worms may not be fed less than four
or five times in the day; in their early life they are fed seven or
eight times. This is the feeding system for spring caterpillars.
Summer and autumn breeds must have two or three more meals. The men
and women who attend to them, particularly the women, are worn out by
the end of the season. "The women have only three hours' rest in the
twenty-four hours," I remember someone saying. "They never loose their
_obi_."

When the caterpillars emerge from the tiny, pin-head-like eggs of the
silk-worm moth they are minute creatures. Therefore the mulberry
leaves are chopped very fine indeed. They are chopped less and less
fine as the silk-worms grow, until finally whole leaves and leaves
adhering to the shoots are given. Some rearers are skilful enough to
supply from the very beginning leaves or leaves still on the shoots.
The caterpillars live in bamboo trays or "beds" on racks. In the house
of one farmer I found caterpillars about three-quarters of an inch
long occupying fifteen trays. When the silk-worms grew larger they
would occupy two hundred trays.

The eggs, when not produced on the farm, are bought adhering to cards
about a foot square. There are usually marked on these cards
twenty-eight circles about 2 ins. in diameter. Each circle is covered
with eggs. The eggs come to be arranged in these convenient circles
because, as will be explained later on, the moths have been induced to
lay within bottomless round tins placed on the circles on the cards.
The eggs are sticky when laid and therefore adhere. In a year
35,000,000 cards, containing about a billion eggs, are produced on
some 10,000 egg-raising farms.

The eggs--they are called "seed"--are hatched in the spring (end of
April--as soon as the first leaves of the mulberry are available--to
the middle of May), summer (June and July) and autumn (August and
October). It takes from three to seven days--according to
temperature--for the "seed" to hatch, and from twenty to thirty-two
days--according to temperature--for the silk-worms to reach maturity.
Half the hatching is done in spring. In one farmer's house I visited
in the spring season I found that he had hatched fifty cards of
"seed." From the birth of the caterpillars to the formation of cocoons
the casualties must be reckoned at ten per cent. daily. Not more than
eighty-five per cent. of the cocoons which are produced are of good
quality. The remainder are misshapen or contain dead chrysalises. As
there are more than a thousand breeds of silk-worm, all cocoons are
not of the same shape and colour. Some are oval; some are shaped like
a monkey nut. Most are white but some are yellow and others yellow
tinted.

In the whole world of stock raising there is nothing more remarkable
than the birth of silk-worm moths. The cocoons on the racks in the
farmer's loft are covered by sheets of newspaper in which a number of
round holes about three-quarters of an inch in diameter have been cut.
When the moths emerge from their cocoons they seek these openings
towards the light and creep through to the upper side of the
newspaper. For newly born things they come up through these openings
with astonishing ardour. In body and wings the moths are flour white.
White garments are suitable for the babe, the bride and the dead, and
the moth perfected in the cocoon is arrayed not only for its birth but
for bridal and death, which come upon it in swift succession. The male
as well as the female is in white and is distinguishable by being
somewhat smaller in size. On the newspaper the few males who have not
found partners are executing wild dances, their wings whirring the
while at a mad pace. When from time to time they cease dancing they
haunt the holes in the paper through which the newly born moths
emerge. When a female appears a male instantly rushes towards her, or
rather the two creatures rush towards one another, and they are at
once locked in a fast embrace. Immediately their wings cease to
flutter, the only commotion on the newspaper being made by the unmated
males. In a hatching-room these males on the stacks of trays are so
numerous that the place is filled with the sound of the whirring of
their wings. The down flies from their wings to such an extent that
one continually sneezes. The spectacle of the stacks of trays covered
by these ecstatic moths is remarkable, but still more remarkable is
the thrilling sense of the power of the life-force in a supposedly low
form of consciousness.

The wonder of the scene is missed, no doubt, by most of those who are
habituated to it. From time to time weary, stolid-looking girls or old
women lift down the trays and run their hands over them in order to
pick up superfluous male moths. Sometimes the male moths are walking
about the newspaper, sometimes they are torn callously from the
embrace of their mates. The fate of the male moths is to be flung into
a basket where they stay until the next day, when perhaps some of them
may be mated again. The novice is impressed not only by the
ruthlessness of this treatment but by the way in which the whole loft
is littered by male moths which have fallen or have been flung on the
floor and are being trampled on.

The female moths, when their partners have been removed, are taken
downstairs in newspapers in order to be put into the little tin
receptacles where the eggs are to be laid. On a tray there are spread
out a number of egg cards with, as before mentioned, twenty-eight
printed circles on each of them. On these circles are placed the
twenty-eight half-inch-high bottomless enclosures of tin. Some one
takes up a handful of moths and scatters them over the tins. Some of
the moths fall neatly into a tin apiece. Others are helped into the
little enclosures in which, to do them credit, they are only too
willing to take up their quarters. The curious thing is the way in
which each moth settles down within her ring. Indeed from the moment
of her emergence from the cocoon until now she has never used her
wings to fly. Nor did the male moth seem to wish to fly. The sexes
concentrate their whole attention on mating. After that the female
thinks of nothing but laying eggs. Almost immediately after she is
placed within her little tin she begins to deposit eggs, and within a
few hours the circle of the card is covered.

Food is given neither to the females nor to the males. Those which are
not kept in reserve for possible use on the second day are flung out
of doors. When the female moth has deposited her eggs she also is
destroyed.[140] The _shoji_ of the breeding and egg-laying rooms
permit only of a diffused light. The discarded moths are cast out into
the brilliant sunshine where they are eaten by poultry or are left to
die and serve as manure.

Sericulture is always a risky business. There is first the risk of a
fall in prices. Just before I reached Japan prices were so low that
many people despaired of being able to continue the business, and
shortly after I left there was a crisis in the silk trade in which
numbers of silk factories failed. At the time I was last in a
silk-worm farmer's house cocoons were worth from 5 to 6 yen per _kwan_
of 8-1/4 lbs. From 8 to 10 _kwan_ of cocoons could be expected from a
single egg card. Eggs were considered to be at a high price when they
were more than 2 yen per card. The risks of the farmer are increased
when he launches out and buys mulberry leaves to supplement those
produced on his own land. Sometimes the price of leaves is so high
that farmers throw away some of their silk-worms. The risks run by the
man who grows mulberries beyond his own leaf requirements on the
chance of selling are also considerable.

Beyond the risk of falling prices or of a short mulberry crop there is
in sericulture the risk of disease. One advantage of the system in
which the eggs are laid in circles on the cards instead of all over
them is that if any disease should be detected the affected areas can
be easily cut out with a knife and destroyed. Disease is so serious a
matter that silk-worm breeding, as contrasted with silk-worm raising,
is restricted to those who have obtained licences. The silk-worm
breeder is not only licensed. His silkworms, cocoons and mother moths
are all in turn officially examined. Breeding "seeds" were laid one
year by about 33,000,000 odd moths; common "seeds" by about
948,000,000.

Of recent years enormous progress has been made in combating disease.
I have spoken of how a silk-worm district may be recognised by the
structure of the farmhouses and the prosperity of the farmers, but
another striking sign of sericulture is the trays and mats lying in
the sun in front of farmers' dwellings or on the hot stones of the
river banks in order to get thoroughly purified from germs. It is
illustrative of the progress that has been made under scientific
influence, that whereas twenty years ago a sericulturist would reckon
on losing his silk-worm harvest completely once in five years, such a
loss is now rare. Scientific instructors have their difficulties in
Japan as in the rural districts of other countries, but the people
respect authority, and they are accustomed to accept instruction given
in the form of directions. Also the Japanese have an unending interest
in the new thing. Further, there is a continual desire to excel for
the national advantage and in emulation of the foreigner. The advance
in scientific knowledge in the rural districts is remarkable, because
it is in such contrast with the primitive lives of the country people.
Picture the surprise of British or American farmers were they brought
face to face with thermometers, electric light and a working knowledge
of bacteriology in the houses of peasants in breech clouts.

It was while I was trying to learn something of the sericultural
industry that I had the opportunity of visiting a noteworthy
institution. It is noteworthy, among other reasons, because I seldom
met a foreigner in Japan who knew of its existence. It is the great
Ueda Sericultural College in the prefecture of Nagano. I was struck
not only by its extent but by its systematised efficiency. On a level
with the director's eyes was a motto in large lettering, "Be diligent.
Develop your virtues."

[Illustration: TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL, p. 124.]

[Illustration: GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE, p. 136]

[Illustration: SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS, p. 158]

The Institute devotes itself to mulberries, silk-worms and silk
manufacture. There are 200 students, as many as it will hold. The
young men become teachers of sericulture, advisers in mills and
experts of co-operative sericultural societies. The institution, in
addition to the fees it receives and its earnings from its own
products, some 33,000 yen in all, has an annual Government subsidy of
about 114,000 yen. There are other sericultural colleges doing similar
work in Tokyo and Kyoto, and there is also in the capital the Imperial
Sericultural Experiment Station (with a staff of 87), where I saw
all sorts of research work in progress. This experiment station has
half a dozen branches scattered up and down the silk districts.

[Illustration: SOME OF THE SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA. p. 161]

[Illustration: VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM. p. 133]

At Ueda I went through corridors and rooms, sterilised thrice a year,
to visit professors engaged in a variety of enquiries. One professor
had turned into a kind of beef tea the pupæ thrown away when the
cocoons are unwound; another had made from the residual oil two or
three kinds of soap. The usual thing at a silk factory is for the
pupæ, which are exposed to view when the silk is unrolled from the
scalded cocoons, to lie about in horrid heaps until they are sold as
manure or carp food. The professor declared that his product was equal
to a third of the total weight of the pupæ utilised, and was sure that
it could be sold at a fifteenth of the price of Western beef essences.
The Director of the College had tried the product with his breakfast
for a fortnight and avowed that during the experiment he was never so
perky.

It was a pleasure to look into the well-kept dormitories of the
students, where there was evidence, in books, pictures and athletic
material, of a strenuous life. The young men are made fit not only by
_judo_, fencing, archery, tennis and general athletics, but by being
sent up the mountains on Sundays. The men are kept so hard that at the
open fencing contest twice a year the visitors are usually beaten. The
director quoted to me Roosevelt's "Sweat and be saved."

From men we went to machines and mulberries. I inspected all sorts of
hot chambers for killing cocoons. I saw, in rooms draped in black
velvet like the pictured scenes at a beheading, silk testing for
lustre and colour. I gazed with respect on many kinds of winding and
weaving machinery. Then, going out into the experiment fields, I
strode through more varieties of mulberry than I had imagined to
exist. There are supposed to be 500 sorts in the country but many are
no doubt duplicates. The varieties differ so much in shape and texture
of leaf that the novice would not take some of them for mulberries.

It was held that it would not be difficult to increase the mulberry
area in Japan by another quarter of a million acres. The yield of
leaves might be raised by 3,300 lbs. per acre if the right sort of
bushes were always grown and the right sort of treatment were given to
them and to the soil. As to the additional labour needed for an
extended sericulture, the annual increase in the population of Japan
would provide it. I was told that "the technics of sericulture are
sure to improve." It would be easy to raise the yield 2 _kwan_ per egg
card for the whole country. Within a seven-year period the production
of cocoons per egg card had become 20 per cent. better. The talk was
of doubling the present yield of cocoons. The "proper encouragement"
needed for doubling the production of cocoons was more technical
instruction and more co-operative societies. There had been a
continual rise in the world's demand for silk and there was no need to
fear "artificial silk." "People who buy it often come to appreciate
natural silk." And I read in an official publication that "the climate
of Japan is suitable for the cultivation of mulberry trees from
south-west Formosa to Hokkaido in the north."

FOOTNOTES:

[139] For statistics of sericulture, see Appendix XXXIX.

[140] She is examined microscopically in order to make sure that she
was not affected by infectious disease.




CHAPTER XVIII

"GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES

(NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

At your return show the truth.--FROISSART


I visited factories in more than one prefecture. At the first
factory--it employed about 1,000 girls and 200 men--work began at 4.30
a.m., breakfast was at 5 and the next meal at 10.30. The stoppages for
eating were for a few minutes only. A cake was handed to each girl at
her machine at 3. Suppertime came after work was finished at 7.[141]
No money was paid the first year. The second year the wages might be 3
or 4 yen a month. The statement was made that at the end of her five
years' term a girl might have 300 yen, but that this sum was not
within the reach of all.[142] The girls were driven at top speed by a
flag system in which one bay competed with another and was paid
according to its earnings. Owing to the heat the flushed girls
probably looked better in health than they really were. They were fat
in the face, but this could not be regarded as an indication of their
general well-being. It was admitted that some girls left through
illness. Employees returned to their homes for January and February,
when the factory was closed down; there was also three days' holiday
in June. In the dormitory I noticed that each girl had the space of
one mat only (6 ft. by 3 ft.). Twenty-two girls slept in each
dormitory. The men connected with this factory were low-looking and
shifty-eyed.

An agricultural expert who was well acquainted with the conditions of
silk manufacture and of the district and was in a disinterested
position told me after my visit to this factory how the foremen
scoured the country for girl labour during January and February. The
success of the _kemban_ or girl collector was due to the poverty of
the people, who were glad "to be relieved of the cost of a daughter's
food." Occasionally the _kemban_ had sub-agents. The mill proprietors
were in competition for skilled girls, and money was given by a
_kemban_ intent on stealing another factory's hand.

The novices had no contract. The contract of a skilled girl provided
that she should serve at the factory for a specified period and that
if she failed to do so, she should pay back twenty times the 5 yen or
whatever sum had been advanced to her. Obviously 100 yen would be a
prohibitive sum for a peasant's daughter to find. The amount of the
workers' pay was not specified in the contract. The document was
plainly one-sided and would be regarded in an English court as against
public policy and unenforceable. Married women might take an infant
with them to the factory. In more than one factory I saw several
thin-faced babies.

The effect of factory life on girls, a man who knew the countryside
well told me, was "not good." The girls had weakened constitutions as
the result of their factory life and when they married had fewer than
the normal number of children. The general result of factory life was
degeneration. The girls "corrupted their villages."

The custom was, I understood, that the girls were kept on the factory
premises except when they could allege urgent business in town. But
they were allowed out on the three nights of the _Bon_ festival. It
was rare that priests visited the factories and there were no shrines
there. The girls had sometimes "lessons" given them and occasionally
story-tellers or gramophone owners amused them. The food supplied by
some factories was not at all adequate and the girls had to spend
their money at the factory tuck-shops. "Most proprietors," I was told,
"endeavour to make part of their staff permanent by acting as
middlemen to arrange marriages between female and male workers." The
infants of married workers were "looked after by the youngest
apprentices."

In another place I saw over a factory which employed about 160 girls,
who were worked from 5:30 a.m. to 6:40 p.m. with twenty minutes for
each meal. If a girl "broke her contract" it was the custom to send
her name to other factories so that she could not get work again. The
foremen at this establishment seemed decent men.

One who had no financial interest in the silk industry but knew the
district in which this second factory stood said that "many girls"
came home in trouble. The peasants did not like "the spoiling of their
daughters," but were "captured in their poverty by the idea of the
money to be gained." Undoubtedly the factory life was pictured in
glowing colours by the _kemban_.

In a third factory there were more than 200 girls and only 15 men. The
proprietor and manager seemed good fellows. I was assured that it was
forbidden for men workers to enter the women's quarters, but on
entering the dormitory I came on a man and woman scuffling. The girls
of this factory and in others had running below their feet an iron
pipe which was filled with steam in cold weather. On some days in
July, the month in which I visited this factory, I noticed from the
temperature record sheet that the heat had reached 94 degrees in the
steamy spinning bays, where, unless the weather be damp, it was
impossible, because of spinning conditions, to admit fresh air. I saw
a complaint box for the workers. As in other factories, there was a
certain provision of boiled water and ample bathing accommodation. Hot
baths were taken every night in summer and every other night in
winter. Here, as elsewhere, though many of the girls were pale and
anaemic, all were clean in their persons, which is more than can be
said of all Western factory hands. Work began at 4 a.m. and went on
until 7 p.m. From 10 to 15 minutes were allowed for meals. The winter
hours were from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In this factory, as in others, there was a system of tallies, showing
to all the workers the ranking of the girls for payment. The standard
wage seemed to be 20 sen a day, and the average to which it was
brought by good work 30 sen. There were thirty or more girls who had
deductions from their 20 sen. Apprentices were shown as working at a
loss. Once or twice a month a story-teller came to entertain the girls
and every fortnight a teacher gave them instruction. When I asked if a
priest came I was told that "in this district the families are not so
religious, so the girls are not so pious." Two doctors visited the
factory, one of them daily. Counting all causes, 5 per cent. of the
girls returned home. The owner of the factory, a man in good physical
training and with an alert and kindly face, said the industry
succeeded in his district because the employers "exerted themselves"
and the girls "worked with the devotion of soldiers." I thought of a
motto written by the Empress, which I had seen at Ueda, "It is my wish
that the girls whose service it is to spin silk shall be always
diligent." Behind the desk of this factory proprietor hung the motto,
"Cultivate virtues and be righteous."

The fourth factory I saw seemed to be staffed entirely with
apprentices who were turned over to other factories in their third
year. The girls appeared to have to sleep three girls to two mats. In
the event of fire the dormitory would be a death-trap. I was told that
there was an entertainment or a "lecture on character" once a week.
The motto on the walls of this factory was, "Learning right ways means
loving mankind."

I went over the factory which belonged to the largest concern in Japan
and had 10,000 hands. The girls were looked after in well-ventilated
dormitories by ten old women who slept during the day and kept watch
at night. There was a fire escape. All sorts of things were on sale at
wholesale prices at the factory shop, but for any good reason an exit
ticket was given to town. The dining-room was excellent. There was a
hospital in this factory and the nurse in the dispensary summarised at
my request the ailments of the 35 girls who were lying down
comfortably: stomachic, 12; colds, 7; fingers hurt by the hot water of
the cocoon-soaking basins, 5; female affections, 4; nervous, 2; eyes,
rheumatism, nose, lungs and kidneys, 1 each. The average wages in this
factory worked out at 60 yen for 9 months. The hour of beginning work
was 4:30 at the earliest. The factory stopped at sunset, the latest
hour being 6:30. I was assured that of the girls who did not get
married 70 per cent. renewed their contracts. A large enclosed open
space was available in which the girls might stroll before going to
bed. The motto of the establishment was, "I hear the voice of spring
under the shadow of the trees." In reference to the new factory
legislation the manager said that the hours of labour were so long
that it would be some time before 10 hours a day would be
initiated.[143] This factory and its branches were started thirty
years ago by a man who was originally a factory worker. Although now
very rich he had "always refused to be photographed and had not
availed himself of an opportunity of entering the House of Peers."

I visited several factories the girls working at which did not live in
dormitories but outside. At a winding and hanking factory which was
airy and well lighted the hours were from 6 to 6. At a factory where
the hours were from 4:30 to 7 some reelers had been fined. Japanese
Christian pastors sometimes came to see the girls, and on the wall of
the recreation room there were paper _gohei_ hung up by a Shinto
priest.

I got the impression that the girls in the factories at Kofu in
Yamanashi prefecture were not driven so hard as those at the factories
in the Suwas in Nagano. Someone said: "However the Suwa people may
exploit their girls, we are able, working shorter hours and giving
more entertainments, to produce better silk, for the simple reason
that the girls are in better condition. We can get from 5 to 10 per
cent. more for our silk." A factory manager said that it would be
better if the girls had a regular holiday once a week, but one firm
could not act alone. (The factories are working seven days a week,
except for festival days and public holidays.)

With regard to the _kemban_, I was told in Yamanashi that many girls
went to the factories "unwillingly by the instructions of their
parents." It was also stated that the money paid to girls or their
parents on their engagement was not properly a gratuity but an
advance. I heard that the police keep a special watch on _kemban_.
They would not do this without good reason.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] The times stated are those given to me in the factories. The
question of overtime is referred to later in the Chapter.

[142] Again the reader must be reminded of the rise in wages and
prices (estimated on p. xxv). During the recent period of inflation,
silk rose to 3,000 yen per picul and fell to 1,300 or 1,400 yen. There
have been great fluctuations in the wages of factory girls. At the
most flourishing period as much as 25 yen per head was paid to
recruiters of girls. In this Chapter, however, it is best to record
exactly what I saw and heard.

[143] On the day on which I re-read this for the printers, I notice in
an American paper that one of the largest employers of labour in the
United States has just stated that he did not see his way to abolish
the twelve-hours' day.




CHAPTER XIX

"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE

The psychology of behaviour teaches us that [a country's] failures and
semi-failures are likely to continue until there is a far more
widespread appreciation of the importance of studying the forces which
govern behaviour.--SAXBY

I


I do not think that some of the factory proprietors are conscious that
they are taking undue advantage of their employees. These men are just
average persons at the ante-Shaftesbury stage of responsibility
towards labour.[144] Their case is that the girls are pitifully poor
and that the factories supply work at the ruling market rates for the
work of the pitifully poor. Said one factory owner to me genially:
"Peasant families are accustomed to work from daylight to dark. In the
silk-worm feeding season they have almost no time for sleep. Peasant
people are trained to long hours. Lazy people might suffer from the
long hours of the factory, but the factory girls are not lazy."

It hardly needs to be pointed out that there is all the difference
between a long day at the varied work of a farm, even in the trying
silk-worm season, and a long day, for nine or ten months on end,
sitting still, with the briefest intervals for food, in the din and
heat of a factory. Such a life must be debilitating. When it is added
that in most factories, in the short period between supper and sleep,
and again during the night, the girls are closely crowded, no further
explanation is wanted of the origin of the tuberculosis which is so
prevalent in the villages which supply factory labour.[145] There is
no question that in the scanty moments the girls do have for an airing
most of them are immured within the compounds of their factories. A
large proportion of the many thousands of factory girls[146] who are
to be mothers of a new generation in the villages are passing years of
their lives in conditions which are bad for them physically and
morally. It must not be forgotten that very many of the girls go to
the factories before they are fully grown. On the question of
morality, evidence from disinterested quarters left no doubt on my
mind that the _morale_ of the girls was lowered by factory life. The
Lancashire factory girl goes home every evening and she has her
Saturday afternoon and her Sunday, her church or chapel, her societies
and clubs, her amusements and her sweetheart. Her Japanese sister has
none of this natural life and she has infinitely worse conditions of
labour.

It is only fair to remember, however, that the Japanese factory girl
comes from a distance. She has no relatives or friends in the town in
which she is working. But the plea that she would get into trouble if
she were allowed her liberty without control of any sort does not
excuse her present treatment. If the factories offered decent
conditions of life not a few of the companies would get at their doors
most of the labour they need and many of the girls would live at home.
If the factories insist on having cheap rural labour then they should
do their duty by it. The girls should have reasonable working hours,
proper sleeping accommodation and proper opportunities inside and
outside the factories for recreation and moral and mental improvement.
It is idle to suggest that fair treatment of this sort is impossible.
It is perfectly possible.

The factory proprietors are no worse than many other people intent on
money making. But the silk industry, as I saw it, was exploiting,
consciously or unconsciously, not only the poverty of its girl
employees but their strength, morality, deftness[147] and remarkable
school training in earnestness and obedience. Several times I heard
the unenlightened argument that, if there were a certain sacrifice of
health and well-being, a rapidly increasing population made the
sacrifice possible; that, as silk was the most valuable product in
Japan, and it was imperative for the development and security of the
Empire that its economic position should be strengthened, the
sacrifice must be made. Nothing need be said of such a hopelessly
out-of-date and nationally indefensible attitude except this: that it
is doubtful whether any considerable proportion of the people
connected with the silk industry have felt themselves specially
charged with a mission to strengthen the economic condition of their
country. They have simply availed themselves of a favourable
opportunity to make money. That opportunity was presented by the cheap
labour available in farmers' daughters unprotected by effective trade
unions, by properly administered factory laws or by public opinion.



II[148]


The enterprise, the efficiency and the profits shown by the
sericultural industry have been remarkable, and not a few of the
capitalists connected with it are personally public-spirited. But many
well-wishers of Japan, native-born and foreign, cannot help wondering
what is the real as compared with the seeming return of the industry
to a nation the strength of which is in its reservoir of rustic health
and willingness. It is significant of the extent to which the
factories are working with cheap labour that, in a country in which
there are more men than women,[149] there was in about 20,000
factories 58 per cent. of female labour. If I stress the fact of
female employment it is because in Japan nearly every woman
eventually marries. Enfeebled women must therefore hand on
enfeeblement to the next generation.[150]

The Japanese, in their present factory system, as in other
developments, insist on making for themselves all the mistakes that we
have made and are now ashamed of. In judging the Japanese let us
remember that all our industrial exploitation of women[151] was not,
as we like to believe, an affair as far off as the opening nineteenth
century. I do not forget as a young man filling a newspaper poster
with the title of an article which recounted from my own observation
the woes of women chain makers who, with bared breasts and their
infants sprawling in the small coals, slaved in domestic smithies for
a pittance. And as I write it is announced that the head of the United
States Steel Corporation says that "there is no necessity for trade
unions," which are, in his opinion, "inimical to the best interests of
the employers and the public." That is precisely the view of most
Japanese factory proprietaries.

The trade union is not illegal in Japan, but its teeth have been drawn
(1) by the enactment that "those who, with the object of causing a
strike, seduce or incite others" shall be sentenced to imprisonment
from one to six months with a fine of from 3 to 30 yen; (2) by the
power given to the police (_a_) to detain suspected persons for a
succession of twenty-four hour periods, and (_b_) summarily to close
public meetings, and (3) by the franchise being so narrow that few
trade unionists have votes. During the six years of the War there were
as many as 141,000 strikers, but a not uncommon method of these
workers was merely to absent themselves from work, to refrain from
working while in the factory, or to "ca' canny." Nevertheless 633 of
them were arrested. When I attended in Tokyo a gathering of members of
the leading labour organisation in Japan it was discreetly named
Yu-ai-kai (Friend-Love-Society, i.e. Friendly Society). Now it is
boldly called the Confederation of Japanese Labour. A Socialist
League[152] and several labour publications exist. Workers assemble to
see moving pictures of labour demonstrations, and a labour meeting has
defied the police in attendance by singing the whole of the "Song of
Revolution." But crippled as the unions are under the law against
strikes and by the poverty of the workers, they find it difficult to
attain the financial strength necessary for effective action. Many
workers are trade unionists when they are striking but their trade
unionism lapses when the strike is over, for then the unions seem to
have small reason for existing. The head of the Federation of Labour
lately announced that the number of trade unionists was only 100,000,
or half what it was during the recent big strikes and it is doubtful
whether, even including the 7,000 members of the Seamen's Union, there
are in Japan more than 50,000 contributing members of the different
unions. But this 50,000 may be regarded as staunch.

The poverty-stricken unions certainly afford no real protection to the
girl workers, who form indeed a very small proportion of their
members. And the Factory Law does little for them. A Japanese friend
who knows the labour situation well writes to me:

"According to the Factory Law, which came into force in the autumn of
1916, 'factory employers are not allowed to let women work more than
twelve hours in a day.' (Article III, section 1.) But if necessary,
'the competent Minister is entitled to extend this limitation to
fourteen hours.' (Section 2.) As to night work the law says that
'factory employers are not allowed to let women work from 10 p.m. to 4
a.m.' (Article IV.) If, however, there are necessary reasons, 'the
employers can be exempted from the obligation of the Article IV.'
(Article V.) Article IX says that 'the employers are forbidden to let
women engage in dangerous work.' But whether work is dangerous or not
is determined by 'the competent Minister' (Article XI), who may or may
not be well informed. There is also Article XII, 'The competent
Minister can limit or prohibit the work of women about to have
children' and within three weeks after confinement. But anyone who
enters factories may see women with pale faces because they work too
soon after their confinement.

"I cannot tell you how far these provisions are enforced. I can only
say that I have not yet heard of employers being punished for
violating the Factory Law. Can it be supposed that employers are so
honest as never to violate the Factory Law? As to working hours, in
some factories they may work less than fourteen hours as the law
indicates. In others they may work more, because 'there are necessary
reasons.' This is especially true of the factories in the country
parts. As 200 inspectors have been appointed, the authorities must by
now know the actual situation pretty well."

Dr. Kuwata, a former member of the Upper House, with whom I frequently
discussed the labour situation, declares the Factory Law to be
"palpably imperfect and primitive." At the end of 1917 there were,
according to official figures, 99,000 female factory operatives under
fifteen years of age and 2,400 under twelve. Some 20,000 of these
children were employed in silk factories. What protection have they?
Before passing this page for the press I have shown it to a
well-informed Japanese friend and he says that he has never seen any
newspaper report of a prosecution under the Factory Law. Obviously a
Factory Law under which no one is ever prosecuted is not
operative.[153]

It is excellent that Japan has sent a large permanent delegation to
Switzerland to establish a system of liaison with the International
Labour Office of the League of Nations. This company of young men will
keep the Japanese Government well informed. There is undoubtedly in
Japan, under Western influence, a steady development of sensitiveness
to working-class conditions and a rapid growth of modern social
ideas. But the Government and the Diet will not step out far in
advance of general opinion, the most will naturally be made by the
authorities and trade interests of bad factory conditions on the
Continent of Europe and in some industries in the United States, and
the majority of a public which has been carefully nurtured in the
belief that a profitable industrialism is the great desideratum for
Japan will not be restive. Real factory reform is not to be expected
until an enlightened view is taken by Japanese in general of the
exploitation of girls for any purpose. It is not in commercial human
nature, Eastern or Western, that factory directors and shareholders
should forgo without a struggle the advantage of possessing cheaper
and more subjected labour than their foreign rivals. Some influence
may be exerted in the right direction by the fact that those who are
profiting by cheap and docile labour may themselves be undersold
before long by cheaper and still more docile labour in China.[154] And
in 1922 Japan is under an obligation, accepted at the Washington
Labour Conference, to stop women working more than eleven hours a day
and to abolish night work. Meantime the labour movement makes
progress. It is significant that many of its leaders are under the
influence of "direct action" ideas. They hope little from a Diet
elected on a narrow franchise and supported by a strong Government
machine backed by the Conservative farmer vote. Although, however,
there does not seem to be as yet a junction between the labour
movement and the unions of the tenant farmers, who have their own
interests alone in view, the future may present unexpected
developments. As I write, the labour movement is conducting a trial of
strength with the great Mitsubishi and Kawasaki enterprises and is
presenting a stronger front than it has yet done.

This Chapter would give an unfair impression of the relations of
capital and labour in Japan if it included no reference to the
well-intentioned efforts made by several large employers to improve
the conditions of working-class life and labour. Sometimes they have
followed the example of philanthropic firms in Great Britain and
America. As often as not they have been inspired by old Japanese ideas
of a master's responsibilities. Many leading industrials have believed
and still believe that by the conservation and development of old
ideas of paternalism and loyalty the trade-union stage of industrial
development may be avoided. This conviction was expressed to me by,
among others, Mr. Matsukata, of the famous Kawasaki concern, who has
made generous contributions to "welfare" work. My own brief experience
as an employer in Japan made me acquainted with some canons in the
relationship of employer and employed which have lost their authority
in the West. Given wisdom on the part of masters, the prolonged
bitterness which has marked the industrial development of the West
need not be repeated in Japan, but whether that wisdom will be
displayed in time is doubtful. The Japanese commercial world has been
commendably quick to learn in many directions in the West. It will be
a serious reflection on the intelligence of the country if the lessons
of the industrial acerbities of Europe and the United States should
not be grasped. Meantime it is a duty which the foreign observer owes
to Japan to speak quite plainly of attempts as silly as they are
useless[155] to obscure the lamentable condition of a large proportion
of Japanese workers, to hide the immense profits which have been made
by their employers and to pretend that factory laws have only to be
placed on the statute book in order to be enforced. But if he be
honest he must also recognise the handicap of specially costly
equipment[156] and of unskilled labour and inexperience under which
the Japanese business world is competing for the place in foreign
trade to which it has a just claim. Such conditions do not in the
least excuse inhumanity, but they help to explain it.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] It is a chastening exercise to read before proceeding with this
Chapter an extract from Spencer Walpole's _History of England_, vol.
iii, p. 317, under the year 1832: "The manufacturing industries of the
country were collected into a few centres. In one sense the persons
employed had their reward: the manufacturers gave them wages. In
another sense their change of occupation brought them nothing but
evil. Forced to dwell in a crowded alley, occupying at night a house
constructed in neglect of every known sanitary law, employed in the
daytime in an unhealthy atmosphere and frequently on a dangerous
occupation, with no education available for his children, with no
reasonable recreation, with the sky shrouded by the smoke of an
adjoining capital, with the face of nature hidden by a brick wall,
neglected by an overworked clergyman, regarded as a mere machine by an
avaricious employer, the factory operative turned to the public house,
the prize ring or the cockpit."

[145] See Appendix XL.

[146] Number of factory workers, a million and a half, of whom 800,000
are females. For statistics of women workers, see Appendix XLI.

[147] The Minister of Commerce has himself stated that the
sericultural industry is rooted in the dexterity of the Japanese
countrywoman.

[148] This section of the Chapter was written in 1921.

[149] In Japan in 1918 there were, per 1,000, 505.2 men to 494.8
women.

[150] Of the workers under the age of fifteen in the 20,000 factories,
82 per cent. were girls. The statistics in this paragraph were issued
by the Ministry of Commerce in 1917.

[151] For sketches of women and children (with a chain between their
legs) harnessed to coal wagons in the pits, see _Parliamentary
Papers_, vol. xv, 1842. "There is a factory system grown up in England
the most horrible that imagination can conceive," wrote Sir William
Napier to Lady Hester Stanhope two years after Queen Victoria's
accession. "They are hells where hundreds of children are killed
yearly in protracted torture." In Torrens's _Memoirs of the Queen's
First Prime Minister_, one reads: "Melbourne had a Bill drawn which
with some difficulty he persuaded the Cabinet to sanction, prohibiting
the employment of children _under 9 in any except silk mills_."

[152] More than 200 books on Socialism were published in 1920.

[153] For a declaration by Dr. Kuwata concerning bad food and
"defiance of hygienic rules," see Appendix XLII.

[154] See Appendix XLIII.

[155] See Appendix XLII.

[156] In a pre-War publication of the United States Department of
Commerce it was stated that the cost of cotton mills per spindle is in
England _32s._, in the United States _44s._, in Germany _52s._, and in
Japan _100s._

[Illustration: ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. p. 158]

[Illustration: CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE. p. 148]

[Illustration: RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" BOX (OPEN) AND POT OF TEA WITH
CUP. p. 110  The _bento_ box provides rice, meat, fish, omelette and
assorted pickles; also paper napkin and _hashi_ (chop-sticks) and
(between them) a toothpick.]




FROM TOKYO TO THE NORTH BY THE
WEST COAST

CHAPTER XX

"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED"

(FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)

BOSWELL: If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should.
JOHNSON: Why yes, Sir, I am serious.


In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan,
travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima
prefecture--in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts
a week--encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of
the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may
be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture and county,"
someone said to me, "take barley themselves; enthusiastic _guncho_
take it gladly."

The prefectural station, by selecting the best varieties of rice for
sowing, had effected a 10 per cent. improvement in yield. In each
county an official "agricultural encourager" had been appointed. The
lectures given at the experiment station were attended by 18,000
persons. The studious who listen to the lectures had formed an
association that provided at the station a fine building where supper,
bed, breakfast and lunch cost 30 sen. It contained a model of the Ise
shrine with a motto in the handwriting of a well-known Tokyo
agricultural professor, "Difficulties Polish You."

"Some villagers," said a local authority, "want to make the Buddhist
temple the centre of the development of village life. In several
places agricultural products are exhibited at Shinto shrines. Farmers
offer them out of a kind of piety, but the products are afterwards
criticised from a technical point of view. This is done on the
initiative of the villagers encouraged by the prefecture."

Hereabouts the winter work of the people, in addition to basket, rope
and mat making, was paper making and smoothing out the wrinkles of
tobacco.[157] A considerable number of people had emigrated to South
America. The principal need of the villages, it was stated, was money
at less than the current rate of 20 per cent. In one place I found a
factory built on the side of a daimyo's castle.

I was told of crops of _konnyaku_ which had made one man the second
richest person in the prefecture and had therefore qualified him for
membership in the House of Peers. (The House includes one member from
each prefecture as the representative of the highest taxpayers of that
prefecture.)

During my journeys I picked up many odds and ends of information by
walking through the trains and having chats with country people. I was
also helped by county and prefectural agricultural officials who,
having learnt of my movements, were kind enough to join me in the
train for an hour or so. One head of an agricultural school which was
full up with students told me that there were already in Fukushima two
prefectural and five county agricultural schools.

Our train, half freight with a locomotive at each end, went over the
backbone of Japan through the usual series of snow shelters and
tunnels. Having surmounted the heights we slid down into Yamagata. I
should properly write Yamagataken, which we cannot translate
Yamagatashire, for a _ken_ (prefecture) is made up of counties. There
are eleven counties in Yamagataken.

Almost any sort of dwelling looks tolerable in August, but many of the
houses that first caught our attention must be lamentable shelters in
winter. Some farmers, I learnt, were "in a very bad condition." We
dropped from a silk and rice plateau and then to a region where the
main crop was rice. The bare hills to be seen in our descent were an
appalling spectacle when it was realised how close was their relation
to the disastrous floods of the prefecture. A man in the train had
lost 10,000 yen by floods, a large sum in rural Japan. In two years
the prefecture had spent in river-bank repairs nearly a million yen. A
flood some years ago did damage to the amount of 20 million yen. The
prefecture had a debt of 60 million yen, chiefly due to havoc wrought
by its big river. A yearly sum was spent on afforestation in addition
to what was laid out by the State and by private individuals. A
forestry association was trying to raise half a million yen for tree
planting. But the flooding of the plains was not the only water
trouble of the Yamagatans. In one district they had a stream which
contained solutions of compounds of sulphuric acid so strong that
crops fail for three years on ground watered from it. In other parts
of the prefecture, however, farmers had the advantage, enjoyed in many
parts of Japan, of being able to water from ammonia water springs.

Hereabouts I first noticed the device common to many districts of
having on the roof of a cottage a water barrel, tub or cistern, ready
to be emptied on the shingle roof when sparks fly from a burning
dwelling. Sometimes the wooden water receptacles are wrapped round
with straw.

In the prefectural city of Yamagata I heard of a primary school which
had a farm and made a profit, also of four landowners who had engaged
an agricultural expert for the instruction of their tenants. "A very
certain crop" round about the city was grapes. Some 25,000 persons
yearly visited the prefectural 12 _-cho_ experiment station, which
within a year had distributed to farmers 7,600 cyanided fruit trees
and 80 bushels of special seed rice.

Near the experiment station was a crematorium of ugly brick and
galvanised iron belonging to the city of Yamagata at which 1,000
bodies were burnt in a year in furnaces heated with pine blocks. A
selection might be made from four rates ranging from 35 sen to 5 yen.
The most expensive rate was for folk who arrived in Western-style
coffins.

The experiment station had another institution at its doors. This had
to do not with the dead but with the living. Its name was "The Garden
where Virtues are Cultivated." The director of it was the father of
the agricultural expert of the prefecture. The garden, which was not a
garden, was a home for bad boys, or rather for thirty bad boys and one
bad girl. The bad girl--the director, being a man of humanity, common
sense and courage, thought it most necessary that there should be at
least one bad girl--acted as maidservant to the director. The bad boys
"maided" themselves and the school. The lads were such as had fallen
into the hands of the police. They were being reformed in a somewhat
original way by a somewhat original director.

Early in the day they had their cold bath, which was itself a break
with Japanese custom, for, though most Japanese have a nightly hot
bath, they are content with a basin wash in the morning. Then the boys
"cleaned school." Next they were marched up one by one to a mirror and
required to take a good look at themselves, in order, no doubt, to see
just how bad they were. After this they were called on to "give thanks
to the Emperor and their ancestors." Finally came a half-hour lecture
on "morality." It was considered that by this time the boys were
entitled to their breakfast. For open-air labour they were sent to the
experiment station, but they had manual work also in their own school,
where, among other things, they "made useful things out of waste," the
income from which went to their families. On Sundays the master,
though he must be nearer sixty than fifty, fenced with every one of
the thirty boys in turn--no ordinary task, for Japanese fencing calls
not only for an eye and a hand, but for a muscular back. Some
wholesome-looking young fellows, members of a young men's association,
served as volunteer masters and lived in the bare fashion that was so
good for the boys.

The director did not believe that bad boys were hopeless. He said that
not only the boys but their parents were better for the work done in
"The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." He seemed to have become a
sort of consulting expert to primary school-masters who were at a loss
to know how to manage bad boys. Chastisement, as is well known, is
unusual in Japanese schools. The director of the human _hortus
inclusus_ confessed to me that though two of his boys whom he had
caught fighting might not have been separated without, in the Western
phrase, "feeling the weight of his hand," his heaviest punishment on
other difficult occasions was the moxa.

The moxa brings us back to real horticulture. Moxa is _mogusa_ or
mugwort. _Mogusa_ means "burning herb." The moxa is a great
therapeutic agent in the Far East. A bit of the dried herb is laid on
the skin and set fire to as a sort of blister. From the application of
the moxa as a cure for physical ills to its application for the cure
of bad boys is a natural step. One sees by the scars on the backs of
not a few Japanese that in their youth either their health or their
characters left something to be desired. The moxa, then, is the rod in
pickle in "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." But I think it is
not brought out often. A wrestling ring in a mass of sand thrown down
in a yard, a harmonium, a blackboard for the boys to work their will
on, doors labelled "The Room of Patience," "The Room of Honesty," "The
Room of Cleanliness" and "The Room of Good Arrangement," not to speak
of a rabbit loping about the school premises--these and some other
touches in the management of the school spoke of an even stronger
influence toward well-doing than the moxa. But even if the moxa should
fail, the attention of the boys could always be drawn to the
crematorium.

One who knew the rural districts discoursed to me in this wise: "The
best men are not numerous, but neither are the worst. I doubt whether
the desire to enjoy life is as strong in the Japanese as in the people
of the West. Most farmers would no doubt be happy with material
comfort. Pressed as they have been by material needs, they have no
time to think. When they are easier, they may get something beyond the
physical. At present we must regard their material welfare as the most
urgent thing." But a man standing by, who was also a countryman,
strongly dissented. "Religion," he said, "is not only important but
fundamental."

I have been received by more than one prefectural governor at eight in
the morning. His Excellency of Yamagata sets a good example by rising
at five and by going to bed at nine. He told me that he thought the
farmer's chief lack was cheap money. Low interest and a long term
might convert into arable 25,000 acres of barren land in his
prefecture. In the old days, as I knew, the farmers drove tunnels
considerable distances for irrigation, but with modern engineering
better results would be possible if money were available. As to the
misdeeds of the rivers, it might almost be said that every village was
feeling the need of embanking and of going to the source of loss by
planting trees in the hills. Beautiful forests of feudal period had
been wasted in the early days of Meiji and the result was now plain.

But attention had to be given to the minds as well as the pockets of
the villagers. Families that were once reasonably content were now
discontented. A livelihood was harder to get, taxation was heavier and
there was an increase in needs. Country people imagined townspeople to
be comfortably off, "not realising how they were tormented." Villagers
envied townsmen their amusements. Some prefectures had forbidden the
_Bon_ dance and had supplied nothing in its place. It was easy to see
why farmers no longer applied themselves so closely to their calling
and were wavering in their allegiance to country life. Healthful
amusements were necessary for those whose minds were not much
developed. Also, country people should be taught the true character of
town life, and that agriculture, though it might not yield the profit
of commerce and industry, ensured a reasonably happy life in healthful
places where physical strength could be enjoyed. The right kind of
village libraries should be encouraged. Music might perhaps be forced
into competition with _saké_.

A mental awakening by education was the final solution of the rural
problem, the Governor thought. Religion was also important for the
development of the village. Believers not under the eyes of others
would avoid wrong-doing because watched by heaven. Lectures on
agriculture and sanitation had a good influence when delivered by
priests. Temples were often schools before the era of Meiji and so
priests were socially active. Under the new dispensation the work was
taken out of their hands. So they had come to care little for the
affairs of the world. But they were influential and the prefecture had
asked for their help. The merits of many priests might not be
conspicuous, but the number of them who were active was increasing and
the villagers deferred to them if they took any step.

The most hopeful thing in the villages was the awakening of the young
men: they were becoming "sincere," a favourite Japanese word. For the
most part the credit societies were not efficient, but in one county
credit societies had lessened the business of the banks. The best way
to furnish capital to farmers was out of the capital of their fellow
farmers.

Possibly the girls of the villages were not making the same advance as
the boys. They did not go to their field labour willingly. Sometimes
when a woman was asked by a neighbour on the road, "Have you been
working on the farm?" she would answer, "No, I have been to the
temple." The host of women's papers had a bad effect. With regard to
the _habutae_ (silk goods) factories, there was a bright side, for
they gave work to the girls in winter, when they were idle "and
therefore poor and sometimes immoral." On the other hand, factory
girls tended to become vain and thriftless and the stay-at-home girls
were inclined to imitate them.

FOOTNOTES:

[157] See Appendix XLV.




CHAPTER XXI

THE "TANOMOSHI"

(YAMAGATA)

Society is kept in animation by the customary and by sentiment.--MEREDITH


Six feet of snow is common on the line on which we travelled in
Yamagata prefecture, and washouts are not infrequent. A train has been
stopped for a week by snow. It was difficult to think of snow when one
saw groups of pilgrims with their flopping sun-mats on their backs.
The shrines on three local mountain tops are visited by 20,000 people
yearly.

We bought at railway stations different sorts of gelatinous fruit
preparations. Most places in Japan have a speciality in the form of a
food or a curiosity that can be bought by travellers.

In the great Shonai plain, which extends through three counties, there
are no fewer than 82,500 acres of rice and the unending crops were a
sight to see. A great deal of the paddy land has been adjusted. In one
county there is the largest adjusted area in Japan, 20,000 acres. When
one raises one's eyes from the waving fields of illimitable rice, the
dominating feature of the landscape is Mount Chokai with his August
snow cap.

The three-storey hotel at which we stayed had been taken to pieces and
transported twenty miles. Such removal of houses to a more convenient
or, in the case of an hotel, a more profitable site, is not uncommon.
I sometimes patronised at Omori a large hotel on a little hill halfway
between Yokohama and Tokyo, which had formerly been the prefectural
building at Kanagawa. In the hotel in which I was now staying I was
interested in the "Notice" in my room:

1. A spitting-pot is provided. [Usually of bamboo or porcelain.]

2. No towels are lent for fear of _trachoma_.[158] [The traveller in
Japan carries his own towels, but a towel is a common gift on a
guest's departure in acknowledgment of his tea money.]

3. There is a table of rates. Guests are requested to say in which
they desire to be reckoned. [To the hotel proprietor, landlord or
manager when the visit of courtesy is paid on the guest's arrival.
Otherwise a judgment is formed from the guest's clothes, demeanour and
baggage.]

4. Please lock up your valuables or let us keep them. [There are no
locks on Japanese doors.]

5. Railroad, _kuruma_, box-sledge or automobile charges on
application. [The box-sledge shows what the country is like in
winter.]

In conversations about local conditions I was told that "landowners of
the middle grade" were suffering from "trying to keep up their
position." I remembered the song which may be rendered:

        Would that my daughter
        Were married to a middle farmer.
        With two _cho_ of farm
        And a _tan_ in the wood.
        No borrowing; no lending;
        Both ends meeting.
        Visiting the temple by turns--
        Someone must stay at home.
        Going to Heaven sooner or later.
        What a happy life!
        What a happy life!

Tenants were rather well off because their standard of living was
lower than that of owners. Economic conditions were improving in
Yamagata, but in the adjoining prefecture of Miyagi on the eastern
coast of Japan "whole villages" had gone to Hokkaido. Some poor
farmers were spending only 5 sen a day on food, the rest of what they
ate coming entirely from their own holdings. Some farmers said, "If
you calculate our income, we are certainly unable to make a living,
but in some way or other we are able," which is what some small
holders in many countries would say.

I was told that a labourer's 5 _tan_ could be cultivated by working
half days. Generally more was earned by labouring than could be gained
from a small patch of land. But for half the year labourer's work was
not obtainable. My informant found small tenant labourers "well off"
if both husband and wife had wages: "they are able to buy a bottle of
_saké_ in the evening." Their position was better than that of a small
peasant proprietor.

One in a thousand of the families in a specified county slept in
straw. I heard of the payment of 20 to 25 per cent. to pawnbroker
lenders.

But there is another way of borrowing. The plan of the _ko_ may be
adopted. A _ko_--it is odd that it should so closely resemble our
abbreviation "Co."--is simple and effective. If a man is badly off or
wants to undertake something beyond his financial resources, and his
friends decide to help him, they may proceed by forming a _ko_. A _ko_
is composed of a number of people who agree to subscribe a certain sum
monthly and to divide the proceeds monthly by ballot, beginning by
giving the first month's receipts to the person to succour whom the
_ko_ was formed. Suppose that the subscription be fixed at a yen a
month and that there are fifty subscribers. Then the beneficiary--who
pays in his yen with the rest--gets 50 yen on the occasion of the
first ingathering. Every month afterwards a member who is lucky in the
ballot gets 50 yen. The monthly paying in and paying out continue for
fifty months and all the subscribers duly get their money back, with
the advantage of having had a little excitement and having done a
neighbourly action.

But the _ko_, or _tanomoshi_, as I ought to call it, is not always the
innocent organisation I have described. There is a _tanomoshi_ system
under which, after member A, the beneficiary, has received the first
month's subscriptions, the other members are open to receive bids for
their shares. That is to say that, when the time comes round for the
second paying out of 50 yen, member F, who happens to have become as
much in need of ready money as A was, offers, if the month's moneys be
handed over to him, to distribute among the members sums up to 20 yen.
July and December, when most people need ready money, are months in
which a hard-up member of a _tanomoshi_ may sometimes offer to
distribute as much as 50 per cent. of what he receives. The result of
such bidding for shares is that well-to-do members of a _tanomoshi_,
who are the last to draw their 50 yen, receive in addition to it all
the extra payments made by impoverished members who took their shares
earlier. Benevolence in a _tanomoshi_ is not seldom a mask for avarice
that the law against usury cannot touch. In truth, the only virtuous
part of a _tanomoshi_ may be the first sharing out to the person in
whose interest it was supposed to be started. It should be added,
however, that there is a sort of _tanomoshi_ which has no particular
beneficiary and is merely a kind of co-operative credit society. In
one place I heard of a _tanomoshi_ that maintained a large fund for
the relief of orphans and the sick.

In many villages there were private or co-operative godowns for the
storage of rice against fire, rats and damp. Though the farmer who
sends rice to such a store receives a receipt, it is not legally a
marketable document. Hence an improvement on this simple storage plan.
I visited the premises of a company that could store more than 500,000
bushels of rice, and I found purification by carbon bisulphide going
on. The receipts given by this company--"certificated" for large
quantities and "tickets" for small--certify not only the quantity but
the quality of the rice, and are readily cashed. The storehouse owners
work under a licence, and they have the advantage that the buyer of
the receipts of non-licensed stores is not protected by the courts.

In the office of the company were samples of eleven market qualities
of rice, and before them, by way of showing respect to the great food
staple, was set the _gohei_ of cut white paper seen in Shinto
shrines. Outside the office, girl porters carried the bales of rice to
and fro. Close to the store was a river in which some of the dusty,
perspiring porters were washing and cooling themselves with a
simplicity to which Western civilisation is not yet equal. Opposite
them men were fishing by casting in draw nets from the shore just as
in biblical pictures the apostles are represented as doing.

The company has a rice market where farmers were putting their
business in the dealers' hands. Each dealer has to deposit 5,000 yen
with the State. The dealer who buys rice from a farmer has better
polishing machinery than the farmer possesses. Therefore he can give
the rice a more uniform appearance. By decreasing the weight of the
rice during the polishing he gives it he is also able to lessen the
sum payable for carriage and he has the value of the offal.

In order to visit farmers I rode some distance into the country.[159]
The village, which was of the Zen sect, was at work cleaning out and
straightening the stream which, as is usual in many villages, ran
through the middle of it. I was impressed during my visit not only by
the readiness and intelligence with which my questions were answered
but by the good humour with which a stranger's inquiries concerning
personal matters was received. I had another thought, that I might not
have found a group of Western farmers so well informed about their
financial position as these simple, primitively clad men.

Our _kuruma_ route to and from the village had been through one great
tract of well-adjusted rice fields. Adjustment was not difficult in
this region because half the land belongs to the Homma family, which
has given much study to the art of land-holding. For two centuries the
clan by charging moderate rents and studying the interests of its
tenants has maintained happy relations with them.

For many years a plan has been in operation by which 200 one-_tan_
paddy-fields are cultivated by the agents or managers of the estate,
by tenants selected by their fellow tenants for merit, by tenants
chosen by the landlord for diligence and by others picked out because
of their interest in agriculture. In order to increase the zest of
competition the cultivators are divided into a black and a white
company. The names of those who raise the most and best rice are
published in the order of their success, farm implements are
distributed as prizes, the clever cultivators are invited to the
landlord's New Year entertainment to the agents and managers, and at
that feast "places of distinction are given."

There is also a system of rewarding the best five-years averages. A
competition takes place between what are called "dress fields" because
those who get the best results from them receive a ceremonial dress
bearing the inscription, "Prosperity and Welfare." The honour of
wearing these robes in the presence of their landlord at his annual
feast is valued by these simple countrymen.

Through the introduction by the landlord of horse labour and
ploughs--implements with which the farmers were formerly
unacquainted--second cropping of part of the paddies has become
possible. There is an elaborate system of "progressive reduction" and
"average reduction" of rents in a bad season, by which, it was
explained, "the industrious tenant enjoys a larger reduction than an
idle one." "Tenants are grouped in fives, which help one another in
their work and in cases of misfortune." In their agreement with their
landlord, tenants promise that "wrong-doing shall be mutually
reprimanded and counsel shall be given one to another." "Again, if a
tenant falls ill, has his house burnt or meets with misfortune,
assistance shall be given by his fellows." During the war with Russia
the following instructions were issued:

Those enlisted in the army shall render their service at the cost of
their lives.

Those who stay at home shall do their best, complying with the
principles laid down by the Minister of Agriculture.

Relatives of soldiers at the front shall be helped and sympathised
with.

All shall subscribe to war bonds as much as possible.

All shall practise thrift and economy in accordance with their social
standing.

Musical entertainments shall be given up for two years.

Methods proved to be effective in cultivation shall be reported.

In the warm, cloudy days insects multiply rapidly. Think of your
brothers at the front, struggling against one of the mighty military
powers of the world, and be ashamed to be vanquished by hordes of
insects or masses of vegetable growth in your fields. For the purpose
of destroying insects an ample supply of oil is to be had at the
experimental farm, as during last year; and payment therefor may be
deferred until after harvest.

A communication to agents and managers says: "Comport yourselves in a
way suitable to the dignity of an agent of the clan. Bear in mind the
privileges and favours you enjoy, and exert yourselves to requite
these favours. Respect the name and the coat-of-arms of the clan." In
the neighbourhood there are about a hundred families bearing the name
of Homma.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] In the three years 1916-18 the percentage of conscripts
suffering from trachoma was 15.8.

[159] For farmers' budgets, see Appendix XIII (end).




BACK AGAIN BY THE EAST COAST

CHAPTER XXII

"BON" SONGS AND THE SILENT PRIEST

(YAMAGATA, AKITA,[160] AOMORI, IWATE, MIYAGI, FUKUSHIMA
AND IBARAKI)

The worst of our education is that it looks askance, looks over its
shoulder at sex.--R.L.S.


A village headman, encountered in the train just as we were leaving
Yamagata prefecture, gave me some insight into the life of his little
community. The fathers of two-score families were shopkeepers and
tradesmen--- that is, tradesmen in the old meaning of the word. There
were also a few labourers. About two hundred and fifty families owned
land and some of them rented additional tracts. Another sixty were
simply tenants. The poorer farmers were also labourers or artisans.
Most of them were "comfortable enough." There were, however, half a
dozen people in the village who were helped from village funds. Of the
middle-grade farmers "it might be said that they do not become richer
or poorer."

The headman had formed a society which sent its members to visit
prefectures more developed agriculturally. This society had engaged an
instructor from without the prefecture and he had taught horse tillage
and the management of upland fields and had made model paddies. Five
stallions had been obtained and a simple adjustment of paddy-land had
been brought about. As a result the rice yield had risen.

This headman had also had addresses delivered in the village for the
first time. Further, after buying a number of books, he had visited
all the villagers in turn and shown them the books and had said to
each of them, "I wish you to buy a book and, after reading it, to give
it to the library." "And," he told me, "none of them objected." Soon a
valuable library came into existence.

This admirable functionary felt some satisfaction at having been able
to abate the custom according to which the young men, with the tacit
permission of their parents, had gone into the neighbouring town after
harvest "to visit the immoral women." "They used to spend as much as 5
yen," said our headman. He had started worthier forms of after-harvest
relaxation, and "the cost of the amusement days is now only 50 or 60
sen."

When we got on the main line again and pursued our way farther north,
it was through even stouter snow shelters and through many tunnels.
Not a few miserable dwellings were to be seen as we passed into Akita
prefecture. We broke our journey after some hours' travelling to stay
the night at a rather primitive hot spring inn four or five miles up
in the hills. A slight rain was falling. Four passengers at a time
made the ascent to the hotel, squatting on a mat in an old
contractor's wagon, pushed along roughly laid rails by two perspiring
youths in rain-cloaks of bark strips. At the inn, on going to the
bath, I found therein a miscellaneous collection of people of both
sexes from grandparents to grandchildren. One bather enlivened us by
performances on the flute, which, if a musical instrument must be
played in a bath, seems as suitable as any. In this rambling inn there
were many farmers who, by preparing their own food and doing for
themselves generally, were holiday-making at bedrock prices.

As it was the _Bon_ season, when the spirits of the dead are supposed
to return, I was a witness of the method adopted to help the ghosts to
find their old homes. At the top of a 30 or 40 ft. pole a lantern is
fixed with a pulley. Fastened up beside the lantern is a bunch of
green stuff, cryptomeria in many cases. The lantern is lighted each
evening for a week. Having heard a good deal about the suppression of
_Bon_ dances and songs I was interested when a fellow-guest began
talking about them. He had seen many _Bon_ dances and had heard many
_Bon_ songs. There can be no doubt that there has been some
unenlightened interference with the _Bon_ gathering. The country
people seem to be suffering from the determination of officialdom to
make an end of everything in country as well as town that may be
considered "uncivilised" by any foreigner, however ill instructed. In
towns the sexes are not accustomed to meet, but country people must
work together; therefore they find it natural to dance and sing
together. As to the _Bon_ songs, it is common sense that expressions
which may be regarded as outrageous and indecent in a drawing-room may
not be so terrible on a hilltop among rustics used to very plain
speech and to easy recognition of natural facts that are veiled from
townspeople. My chance acquaintance at the inn recited a number of
_Bon_ songs and next morning brought me some more that he had
remembered and had been kind enough to write down. They merely
established the fact that bucolic wit is as elemental in Japan as in
other lands. Most of the songs had a Rabelaisian touch, some were
nasty, but nearly all had wit. The following is an entirely harmless
example:

        Mr. Potato of the Countryside
        Got his new European suit.
        But a potato is still a potato.
        He took one and a half _rin_[161] out of his bag
        And bought _amé_[162] and licked at it.

Here are three others:

        Tip-toe, tip-toe,
        Creaks the floor.
        Girl made prayer,
        Dreading ghost.
        But 'twas her lover
        Who stealthily came.

        Dancer, dancer,
        Do not laugh at me.
        My dance is very bad,
        But I only began last year.

        How thin a thin-legged man may be
        If he does not take his _miso_ soup.[163]

The quality of these dramatic songs will be entirely missed if the
reader does not bear in mind the mimetic skill of the amateur Japanese
dancer and his power as a contortionist. Clever dancers often use
their powers in a humorous pretence of clumsiness. Of the freer sort
of songs I may quote two:

        Never buy vegetables in Third Street,[164]
        You'll lose 30 sen and your nose.

        Onions from a basket hanging in the _benjo_[165]
        Were cooked in _miso_[166] and given to a blind man,
        But that chap was greatly delighted.

Some of the other songs may be described, I suppose, as obscene, if
obscene be, as the dictionary says, "something which delicacy, purity
and decency forbid to be exposed"; but "delicacy, purity and decency"
must be considered in relation to climate, work and social usage. What
one feels about some critics of _Bon_ songs and dances is that they
need a course of _The Golden Bough_. Such an illustration as _Bon_
songs furnish of the moral and mental conditions from which country
folk must raise themselves is of value if rural sociology is a real
thing. There is far too much theorising about the countryman and the
countrywoman, far too much idealising of them and far too much rating
of them as clods. If country people of all lands are free-spoken let
us be neither hypercritical nor hypocritical. A big gap seems to yawn
between the paddy-field peasant in his breech clout and the immaculate
clubman, but what difference is there between the savour of the
average _Bon_ song and of many a smoking-room jest which is not to the
credit of the peasant? At an inn in Naganoken a Japanese artist on
holiday showed me his sketch book. Among his drawings was a
representation of a shrine festival which he had witnessed in a remote
village. A festival car was being pushed by a knot of youths and by
about an equal number of young women and all of them were nude. But no
enlightened person believes that either decency or morals depends on
clothing, or would expect to find more essential indecency and
immorality in that village than in a modern city. What one would
expect to find would be marriages between physically well-developed
men and women.

How the race moves on is shown in the famous tale of a saintly Zen
priest which I first heard in that little hill inn but was afterwards
to see in dramatic form on the stage of a Tokyo theatre. An unmarried
girl in the village in which the priest's temple was situated was
about to have a child. She would not confess to her angry father the
name of her lover. At last she attributed her condition to the greatly
honoured priest. Her father was astonished but he was also glad that
his daughter was in the favour of so eminent a man. So he went to the
priest and said that he brought him good tidings: the girl whom he had
deigned to notice was about to have a child. The father went on to
express at length his sense of obligation to the priest for the honour
done to his family. All the priest said in reply was, _So desuka_? (Is
that so?) Soon after the birth of the child the girl besought her
father to marry her to a certain young farmer. The father, proud of
the association with the priest, refused. Finally the girl told her
parent that it was not the priest but the young farmer who was the
father of her child. The parent was aghast and chagrined as he
recalled the terms in which he had addressed the saintly man. He
betook himself at once to the temple and expressed in many words his
feelings of shame and deep contrition. The priest heard him out, but
all he said was, _So desuka_?

Yamagata signifies "shape of a mountain" and Akita means "autumn rice
field." Although Akita prefecture is mountainous there is a greater
proportion of level land in it than in Yamagata. I find "Rice, rice,
rice" written in my notebook. An agricultural expert gave me to
understand that fifteen per cent. of the farmers were probably living
on rents or on the dividends of silk factories, that 55 or 60 per
cent. were of the middle grade with an annual income of 300 yen, that
25 or 30 per cent. had about 150 yen--the lowest sum on which a family
could be supported--and that there were 3 or 4 per cent. of farm
labourers who earned less than 150 yen. There had been much paddy
adjustment and the prefecture was spending 300,000 yen a year for the
encouragement of adjustment and the opening of new paddies. In the
case of newly opened fields, tenants had contracts, but ordinary
tenancies were by word of mouth generation after generation. A great
deal of agricultural instruction was given by the prefecture, the
counties and the villages, and in 30 years the rice crop had been
doubled although the area had remained about the same. In order to
secure help in the work of rural amelioration a gathering of Buddhist
priests and another of Shinto priests had been lectured to at the
prefectural office. Nearly 300,000 yen had been spent in twelve months
on afforestation. The following year a special effort was to be made
to spend 500,000 yen. A society raised young trees and sold them at
cheap rates to farmers. Every young men's association in the
prefecture had land and had planted trees. It was in Akita that I
first saw peat in Japan. There are said to be 7,000 acres of it in the
country.

The prefecture of Aomori forms the northern tip of the mainland. Apart
from its enormous forest area and the railroad stacks of sawn lumber,
what caught my eye were the apple orchards and the number of farmers
on horseback or seated in wagons. Who that has been in Japan has not a
memory of narrow winding roads along which men and women and young
people are pulling and pushing carts? Here many farming folk rode. I
was told that Akita produced apples and potatoes to the value of a
million yen each and that there were ten co-operative apple societies.
Much of the fruit went to Russia.

Having passed through the city of Aomori we started to come down the
east coast. An agricultural authority said that the net profit of a
dry farm, that is a farm without any paddy, was almost negligible.
Because of low prices, cattle keeping had decreased to half what it
used to be. (The only cattle I saw from the train were on the road
with harness on their backs.) Only 18 yen could be got for a
two-year-old; the Aomori cattle were indeed the cheapest in Japan. The
expert added, "There are no buyers; only robbers."

But the dealers were not the only robbers. Boats came from Hokkaido
and stole cattle from the prefecture to the number of a hundred a
year. Sometimes horses were taken too, but horse thefts were rare
"because you cannot kill a horse and sell it for meat." The average
price of a two-year-old not thus illicitly vended was 70 yen. (It was
a little less in the next prefecture of Iwate and in Hokkaido.) Half
of the stallions belonging to the "Bureau of Horse Politics" of the
Ministry of Agriculture were bought in Aomori.

The farmers by the lake that we passed on our way south were described
as "very poor," for their soil was barren and their climate bad. Their
crops were only a third of what could be raised in another part of the
prefecture. The agriculture of all the prefectures through which I now
journeyed south to Tokyo suffer from the cold temperature of the sea.
The east-coast temperature drops in winter to 7 degrees below
freezing.[167] "Living is more and more difficult," said someone to
me. "The number of tenants increases because farmers get into debt and
have to sell their land. Millet and buckwheat are much eaten. Although
the temperature is 5 per cent. colder in Hokkaido, the people do worse
here because our soil is barren and there is no profitable winter
occupation like lumbering. Only 10 per cent. of the rural population
save anything. In bad times 65 per cent. of the families get into
debt."

At Morioka in Iwate prefecture I visited the excellent higher
agricultural college, where there were 300 students. The competition
for places, as at every educational institution in Japan, was keen.
The number who sat at the last entrance examinations--the average age
was twenty--was 317, of whom only 80 got in. There were 15 professors
and 10 assistants. The charge to students was 300 yen for a year of
ten months. The annual cost of the college to the Government was
70,000 yen. Of the foreign volumes among the 20,000 books in the
library 50 per cent. were German, 30 per cent. English and 20 per
cent. American.

An apiary of a single skep in a roped-off enclosure was an
illustration of unfamiliarity with bees. It seemed strange to find
that in this up-to-date and efficient institution the biggest
implement for cutting grass which was in use, a sickle of course, had
a blade no longer than 8 inches. Hung up at the back of a shed I
noticed a rusty scythe. When I tried to show what it could do it was
suggested that the implement was "too heavy, too difficult and too
dangerous."

Iwate is the poorest of the northern prefectures, for bad weather so
often comes when the rice is in flower. As many as 40 per cent. of the
people were just making ends meet. Another 40 per cent. were always
dogged by poverty. Millet was the food of 10 per cent. of the farmers;
millet, salted vegetables and bean soup were the meagre diet of 5 per
cent; the staple food of the remainder was barley and rice. There are
few temples in Iwate compared with the rest of Japan. "Education is
more backward than in other prefectures," someone said. "The farmers
are not able. Too much _saké_ is drunk." Farmers come in to Morioka to
sell charcoal and wood and I saw some of them turning into the _saké_
shops.

There was talk in praise of millet. Though low socially in the dietary
of Japan, it has merits. It withstands cold and even salt spray. It
ripens earlier than rice and so may sometimes be harvested before a
spell of bad weather. It yields well, it will store for some time, its
taste is "little inferior to rice and better than that of barley" and
it contains more protein than rice. It is cooked after slight
polishing and the straw provides fodder. "In the north-east, where
millet is most eaten," I was told, "there are people who are 5 ft. 10
ins. to 6 ft. and there are many wrestlers." The seeds in the handsome
heavy ears of millet are about the size of the letter O in the
footnote type of this book.

In the train a farmer who knew the prefecture spoke of _Bon_ songs
and dances: "The result of the action against them was not good. The
meeting of young men and women at the _Bon_ gatherings was in their
minds half the year in prospect and half in retrospect. Bearing in
mind the condition of the people, even the worst _Bon_ songs are not
objectionable. But when the people become educated some songs will be
objectionable."

Visitors to a poor prefecture like Miyagi must be surprised to see so
much adjusted paddy. There is more adjusted paddy in Miyagi than in
any other prefecture. Some 90,000 acres have been taken in hand and a
large amount of money has been spent. The work has been carried out
largely by way of giving wages to farmers during famine. A new tunnel
brought water to 6,000 acres. "The bad climate of Miyagi cannot be
mended," I was told; "all that can be done is to seek for the earliest
varieties of rice, to sow early, to work as diligently as possible and
to deal with floods by embanking the rivers and by tree planting." As
many as 7,000 people go from Miyagi to Hokkaido in a year. It seems to
point to a certain amount of fecklessness that 15 per cent. of them
return.

One man I spoke with during my journey south gave a vivid impression
of the influence of young men's associations. "Before they started,"
said he, "the young men spent their time in singing indecent songs, in
gambling, in talking foolishly, and twice or thrice a year in
immorality. A young widow has sometimes been at fault; the
parents-in-law need her help and village sentiment is against her
remarriage. The suppression of _Bon_ dances has done more harm than
good by keeping out of sight what used to be said and done
openly[168]. Two or three priests are active in this prefecture. Where
the Shinshu sect is strong you will find little divorce. But the
influence of Buddhism has been stationary in recent years. There is
some action by missionaries of the Japanese Christian church, but the
number of Christians among real rustics is very small."

At Sendai it was pleasant to see a prefectural office--or most of
it--housed in a Japanese building instead of a dreadful edifice "in
Western style." In feudal times the building was a school. Portraits
of daimyos and famous scholars of the Sendai clan surround the
Governor's room, and adjoining it is the _tatami_-covered apartment in
which the daimyo used to sit when he was present at the examinations.
Among the portraits is one of a retainer which was painted in Rome,
where he had been sent on a mission of inquiry.

[Illustration: A SCARECROW.--A SKETCH BY PROFESSOR NASU.]

In his scarecrow-making the Japanese farmer seems to have great faith
in the Western-style cap, felt hat, or even umbrella, if he can get
hold of one. Ordinarily, the bogey man has a bow with the arrow
strung. Occasionally a farmer seeks to scare birds by means of
clappers which he places in the hands of a child or an old man who
sits in a rough shelter raised high enough to overtop the rice. Now
and then there is a clapper connected with a string to the farm-house.
I have also seen a row of bamboos carried across a paddy field with a
square piece of wood hanging loosely against each one. A rope
connecting all the bamboos with one another was carried to the
roadway, and now and then a passer-by of a benevolent disposition, or
with nothing better to do, or, it may be, standing in some degree of
relationship to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then
all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves
caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to
sparrow pillagers in several paddies.

On leaving Miyagi we were once more in Fukushima, with notes on which
this account of a trip to the north of Japan and back again began.
This time, instead of journeying by routes through the centre of the
prefecture, as in coming north, or as in the visit paid to Fukushima
in the Tokyo-to-Niigata journey, I travelled along the sea coast. When
we had passed through Fukushima we were in Ibaraki, a characteristic
feature of which is swamps. Drainage operations have been going on
since the time of the Shogunate. There is in this prefecture the
biggest production of beans in Japan, and we have come far enough
south to see tea frequently. In the lower half of the prefecture we
are in the great Kwanto plain, the prefectures in which are most
conveniently surveyed from Tokyo.

FOOTNOTES:

[160] Some Yamagata notes and those relating to Akita are conveniently
included in this Chapter, but these two prefectures are on the west
coast.

[161] A _rin_ is the tenth part of a sen, which in its turn is a
farthing.

[162] A kind of barley sugar.

[163] Bean soup.

[164] A street in Akita in which many prostitutes live.

[165] Closet.

[166] Bean paste.

[167] The warm black current from the south flows up the east and west
coasts. Some distance north of Tokyo, the east-coast current meets the
cold Oyashiro current from Kamchatka, and is turned off towards
America.

[168] See _A Free Farmer in a Free State_, pp. 173-4, for an account
of the custom in Zeeland by which peasants preserved themselves from
the calamity of childless marriage.




CHAPTER XXIII

A MIDNIGHT TALK

True religion is a relation, accordant with reason and knowledge, which
man establishes with the infinite life surrounding him, and it is such as
binds his life to that infinity, and guides his conduct.--TOLSTOY


One of the most instructive experiences I had during my rural journeys
occurred one night when I was staying at a country inn. At a late hour
I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead.
I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He
was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly
impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and
uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt
the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty
judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of another
race. I felt that I should like to know more about the man inside this
Excellency. No one had told me anything of his life.

Now that he was in the same inn with me it was Japanese good manners
to pay him a visit. So I went upstairs with my travelling companion,
telling him on the way that we should not remain more than five
minutes. We were wearing our bath kimonos. The Governor was also at
his ease in one of these garments. He was kneeling at a low table
reading. We knelt at the other side, spoke on general topics, asked
one or two questions and began to take our leave. On this the Governor
said that he would like very much to ask me in turn some questions. We
spoke together until one in the morning, his Excellency continually
expressing his unwillingness for us to go. He spoke rapidly and with
such earnestness that I was balked of understanding what he said
sentence by sentence. The next day my companion wrote out a summary
of what the Governor had said and I had tried to say in reply. As a
brief report of a talk of three hours' duration it is plainly
imperfect. The artless account is of some interest, however, because
it furnishes an impression at once of an engaging simplicity and
sincerity in the Japanese character and of the pressure of Western
ideas.

_Governor_: "There have died lately my mother, my wife and one of my
daughters. Some of my officials come to me and ask what consolation I
am getting. What do I feel at first when such things happen? Am I
content under such misfortune? I feel that I should be happy if I
could believe something and tell it to them. I am tormented by the
conflict of my scientific and religious feelings. How is the relation
of science and religion in your mind? Are you tormented or are you
composed and peaceful even when meeting such misfortune as mine?"

_Myself_: "It is certain that it is not well to torment ourselves, for
grief is loss.[169] As to science, it did not drive away religion.
Science seeks after truth in all matters, but there are truths which
are to be searched out through our feeling, conscience and instinct.
Religion has to do with these truths. It is quite good for religion if
all superstition, dogma and ignorance are cleared away by science.
Concerning a future life, we are hampered in our thinking by our
traditions, prejudices, deep ignorance and poor mental strength and
training; and much energy is needed in the world for present service.
Some have thought of an immortality which is that a man's sincere
influence, his unselfish manifestations, those things which are the
essence of a man's existence, will live on; in other words, that the
best of a life is immortal; but not in the way of ghosts. As to the
memory, example and achievement of the dead it is sure that we are
aided by them."

_Governor_: "If we sacrifice ourselves for the public good it is the
best that we can do in this world. But are you composed at the sad
news concerning the _Lusitania_? If you think that event was directed
by divine destiny then you can be composed and may not complain."

_Myself_: "Such an accident may only be by divine destiny in the sense
that everything in this world, the saddest misery, the greatest
misfortunes, are suffered in the development of mankind, so that even
this War is unquestionably for the final betterment of the whole
world."

_Governor_: "Please say what is God."

_Myself_: "'If I could tell you what God is, I should be God myself.'
Many of my own countrymen have been taught that God is 'Spirit,
infinite, eternal, unchangeable in His Being, wisdom, power, holiness,
justice, goodness and truth.' There are those who would say that God
may be the total developing or bettering energy, and that we are all
part of God. Some people have a more personal conception of God, the
sum of all goodness. May not his Excellency consider the peasant's
idea of a Governor of a prefecture? The peasant's idea of a Governor
is greater than that of any particular Governor. His Excellency's good
works are not done by himself alone, but by all the good energies
inherent in the Governorship. Those energies are unseen but real. The
Japanese army and navy triumphed by the virtue of the Emperor--by the
virtue of ideas."

_Governor_: "The thought of _Sensei_[170] is quite Oriental."

_Myself_: "All religions are from Asia."

_Governor_: "This world where stars move, flowers blossom and decay,
spring and autumn come, and people are born and die is too full of
mystery, but I can feel some intelligence working through it though
incomprehensible."

_Myself_: "Alas, people will try to explain that
incomprehensibleness."

_Governor_: "What you have said is what I have been accepting to this
day. It satisfies my reason, but I feel in my heart something lacking.
I seek for a warmer interpretation of the world, for a more heartfelt
relation with cosmos. Several of my officials themselves lost their
dear children recently. They cannot with heart and brain accept their
loss, and they ask my direction."

_Myself_: "In the New Testament one thing is taught, God is Love. We
can be composed if we feel that God is love. The Gospel of John is the
most tender story in the world."

_Governor_: "It may be difficult for all people to come to the same
point and agree altogether. We must solve a great problem by
ourselves."

_Myself_: "We have opportunities of doing some good works in this
life. Therefore we must go on till we die and we must be content at
being able to do something good, directly or indirectly, in however
small measure. 'Earth is not as thou ne'er hadst been,' wrote an
Englishwoman poet of great scientific ability[171] who died while yet
a young woman."

_Governor_: "I think of Napoleon dying tormented on St. Helena, and
the peaceful attitude of Socrates though being poisoned by enemies.
But Socrates had done many good things, yet he was poisoned."

_Myself_: "Socrates had done what he could for his country and the
world, yet by his brave death he could add one thing more."[172]

The Governor said that he "got comfort from our talk," but this did
not perfectly reassure me. The next evening, however, I found a
parboiled Governor alone in the bath and he greeted me very warmly.
Without our interpreter we could say nothing that mattered, but we
were glad of this further meeting in the friendly hot water. It seemed
that our midnight talk would be memorable to both of us.

It is convenient to copy out here the following dicta on religion and
morals which were delivered to me at various times during my journeys:

A. "The weakest deterrent influence among us is, 'It is wrong.' A
stronger deterrent influence is, 'Heaven will punish you.' The
strongest deterrent influence of all is, 'Everybody will laugh at
you.'"

B. "In Japan all religions have been turned into sentiment or
æstheticism."

C. (_after speaking appreciatively of the ideas animating many
Japanese Christians_): "All the same I do not feel quite safe about
trusting the future of Japan to those people."

D. "We Japanese have never been spiritually gifted. We are neither
meditative and reflective like the Hindus nor individualistic like the
Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, like all mankind we have spiritual
yearnings. They will be best stirred by impulses from without."

E. (_in answer to my enquiry whether a Quakerism which compromised on
war, as John Brights male descendants had done, might not gain many
adherents in Japan_): "Other sects may have a smaller ultimate chance
than Quakerism. One mistake made by the Quakers was in going to work
first among the poorer classes. The Quakers ought to have begun with
the intellectual classes, for every movement in Japan is from the
top."

F. "You will notice what a number of the gods of Japan are deified
men. There is a good side to the earth earthy, but many Japanese seem
unable to worship anything higher than human beings. The readiest key
to the religious feeling of the Japanese is the religious life of the
Greeks. The more I study the Greeks the more I see our resemblance to
them in many ways, in all ways, perhaps, except two, our lack of
philosophy and our lack of physical comeliness."

G. "As to uncomeliness there are several Japanese types. The refined
type is surely attractive. If many Japanese noses seem to be too
short, foreigners' noses seem to us to be too long. The results of
intermarriage between Western people and Japanese who are of equal
social and educational status and of good physique should be closely
watched."

H. "In our schools an hour or two a week is reserved for culture, but
the true spirit of culture is lacking. The Imperial Rescript on
education is very good moral doctrine, but the real life's aim of many
of us is to be well off, to have an automobile, to become a Baron or
to extend the Empire. We do not ask ourselves, 'For what reason?'"

I. "I conduct certain classes which the clerks of my bank must attend.
The teaching I give is based on Confucian, Christian and Buddhist
principles. I try to make the young men more manful. I constantly urge
upon them that 'you must be a man before you can be a clerk.'"

J. (_a septuagenarian ex-daimyo_): "Confucianism is the basis of my
life, but twice a month I serve at my Shinto shrine and I conduct a
Buddhist service in my house morning and evening. It is necessary to
make the profession that Buddha saves us. I do not believe in
paradise. It is paradise if when I die I have a peaceful mind due to a
feeling that I have done my duty in life and that my sons are not bad
men. Unless I am peaceful on my deathbed I cannot perish but must
struggle on. Therefore my sons must be good. I myself strove to be
filial and I have always said to my sons, 'Fathers may not be fathers
but sons must be sons.'"

K. (_the preceding speaker's son expressing his opinion on another
occasion_): "My father as a Confucian is kind to people negatively. We
want to be kind positively because it is right to be kind. As to
filial obedience, even fathers may err; we are righteous if we are
right. My father is a Shintoist because it is our national custom. He
wants to respect his ancestors in a wide sense and he desires that
Japan, his family and his crops may be protected."

L. "I wish foreigners had a juster idea about 'idols'. There is a
difference between frequenters of the temples believing the figures to
be holy and believing them to be gods. Every morning my mother serves
before her shrine of Buddha but she does not believe our Buddha to be
God. She would not soil or irreverently handle our Buddha, but it is
only holy as a symbol, as an image of a holy being. My mother has said
to me, 'Buddha is our father. He looks after us always; I cannot but
thank him. If there be after life Buddha will lead me to Paradise.
There is no reason to beg a favour.' My mother is composed and
peaceful. All through her life she has met calamities and troubles
serenely. I admire her very much. She is a good example of how
Buddha's influence makes one peaceful and spiritual. But such
religious experience may not be grasped from the outside by
foreigners."

M. "When I am in a temple or at a shrine I realise its value in
concentrating attention. The daily domestic service before the shrine
in the house also ensures some religious life daily. Many of my
countrymen no doubt regard religion as superstition; they know little
of spiritual life. For some of them patriotism or humanitarian
sentiments or eagerness to seek after scientific truth takes the place
of religion. Most men think that they can never comprehend the cosmos
and say, 'We may believe only what we can prove. Let us follow not
after preachers but after truth.' I believe with your Western
philosophers who say that the cosmos is not perfect but that it is
moving towards perfection. Many think that this War shows that the
cosmos is not perfect. Spiritual life is living according to one's
purest consciousness. But what is of first importance is our actions.
It is not enough merely to strive after moral development. One must
strive after economic and social development. Some religious people
think only of the spiritual life and have no sympathy with economics.
The labours of such religious people must be of small value."

In later Chapters the views of other thoughtful Japanese are noted
down as they were communicated to me.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] "The strength that is given at such times arises not from
ignoring loss or persuading oneself that the thing is not that _is_,
but from the resolute setting of the face to the East and the taking
of one step forwards. Anything that detaches one, that makes one turn
from the past and look simply at what one has to do, brings with it
new strength and new intensity of interest."--HALDANE.

[170] Teacher, instructor, master, or a polite way of saying
"You"--the usual title by which I was addressed.

[171] Constance Naden.

[172] "The _Phaedo_ was bought for us by the death of
Socrates."--QUILLER COUCH.

[Illustration: THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG. p. 229]

[Illustration: MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES. p. xv]

[Illustration: PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER. p. 216]

[Illustration: VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
p. 127]

[Illustration: RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER From which may be imagined
the power of the water in time of flood. p. 92]




THE ISLAND OF SHIKOKU

CHAPTER XXIV

LANDLORDS, PRIESTS AND "BASHA"
(TOKUSHIMA, KOCHI AND KAGAWA)

The most capital article, the character of the inhabitants.--TYTLER


In travelling southwards I noticed between Kyoto and Osaka that farms
were being irrigated from wells in the primitive way by means of the
weighted swinging pole and bucket. Along the coast to the south,
indeed as far as Hiroshima, there have been great gains from the sea,
and in the neighbourhood of Kobe there are three parallel roads which
mark successive recoveries of land. Before crossing the Inland Sea at
Okayama to Shikoku (area about 1,000 square miles) I visited one of
the new settlements on recovered land. The labour available from a
family was reckoned as equal to that of two men, and as much as 4 to 5
_cho_ was allotted to each house. It will be seen how much larger is
this area--5 _cho_ is 12-1/2 acres--than the average Japanese farming
family must be content with, a little less than 3 acres. The company
supplied houses, seeds, manures, etc., and after all expenses were met
the workers were allowed 25 per cent, of the net income of their
summer crop and 35 per cent, of the net income of their second crop.
The cultivation was directed by the company. There had been 300
applications for the last twenty houses built. An experiment station
was maintained, and a campaign against a rice borer had been of
benefit to the amount of about 10,000 yen. I found the company's
winnowing machine discharging its chaff into the furnace of the
rice-drying apparatus.

One of the experts of the company came with me for some distance in
the train in order to discuss some of his problems. He thought
agricultural work could be done in less back-breaking ways. He wanted
a small threshing machine which would be suitable not only for
threshing small quantities of rice or corn but for easy conveyance
along the narrow and easily damaged paths between the rice fields. If
he had such a machine he would like to improve it so that it would lay
out the threshed straw evenly, so making the straw more valuable for
the many uses to which it is put. He wished to see a machine invented
for planting out rice seedlings and another contrivance devised for
drying wheat. The company's rice-drying machine handled 200 _koku_ of
rice a day, but there were difficulties in drying wheat. (In many
places I noticed the farmers drying their corn by the primitive method
of singeing it and thus spoiling it.)[173]

On the Inland Sea, aboard the smart little steamer of the Government
Railways, my companion spoke of the extent to which sea-faring men, a
conservative class, had abandoned the use of the single square sail
which one sees in Japanese prints; the little vessels had been
re-rigged in Western fashion. But many superstitions had survived the
abolished square sails. The mother of my fellow-traveller once told
him that, when she crossed the Inland Sea in an old-style ship and a
storm arose, the shipmaster earnestly addressed the passengers in
these words, "Somebody here must be unclean; if so, please tell me
openly." The title of the book my companion was reading was _The
History of the Southern Savage_. Who was the "Southern Savage"? The
word is _namban_, the name given to the early Portuguese and Spanish
voyagers to Japan. (The Dutch were called _komojin_, red-haired men.)
In looking through the official railway guide on the boat I saw that
there was a list of specially favourable places for viewing the moon.
An M.P. passenger told me that the average cost of getting returned to
the Diet was 10,000 yen[174].

The difficulties of communication in Shikoku are so considerable that
I was compelled to leave the two prefectures of Tokushima and Kochi
unvisited. Kochi is without a yard of railway line. In the prefecture
of Ehime most of my journey had to be made by _kuruma_. Communication
between the four prefectures of Shikoku--the one in which I landed was
Kagawa--is largely conducted by coasting steamers and sailing craft.
An interesting thing in Kochi is the area by the sea in which two
crops of rice are grown in the year. Tokushima holds a leading place
in the production of indigo. At one place in the hills the adventurous
have the satisfaction of crossing a river by means of suspension
bridges made of vine branches.

The streets of Takamatsu, the capital of Kagawa, are many of them so
narrow that the shopkeepers on either side have joint sun screens
which they draw right across the thoroughfares. Here I found the carts
hauled by a smallish breed of cow. The placid animals are handier in a
narrow place and less expensive than horses. They are shod, like their
drivers, in _waraji_. In Shikoku the cow or ox is generally used in
the paddies instead of the horse. "It is slower but strong and can
plough deep," one agricultural expert said. "It eats cheaper food than
the horse, which moves too fast in a small paddy. Cows and oxen are
probably not working for more than seventy-five or eighty days in the
year."

At Takamatsu I had the opportunity of visiting a daimyo's castle. I
was impressed by its strength not only because of the wide moats but
because of the series of earthen fortifications faced with cyclopean
stonework through which an invading force must wind its way. There was
within the walls a surprisingly large drilling ground for troops and
also an extensive drug garden. The present owner of the castle
proposed to build here a library and a museum for the town. I was glad
of the opportunity to ascend one of the high pagoda-like towers so
familiar in Japanese paintings. I was disillusioned. Instead of
finding myself in beautiful rooms for the enjoyment of marvellous
views and sea breezes I had to clamber over the roughest cob-webbed
timbers. One storey was connected with another by a stair of rude
planking. Such pagodas were built only for their military value as
lookouts and for their delightful appearance from the outside.

The town now enjoyed as a park of more than ten acres the grounds of a
subsidiary residence of the daimyo. The magnificent trees, with lakes,
rivulets and hills fashioned with infinite art,[175] and the
background of natural hill and woodland, made in all a possession
which exhibited the delectable possibilities of Japanese gardening. An
occasional electric light amid the trees gave an effect in the evening
in which Japanese delight. Some of the old carp which dashed up to the
bridges when they heard our footsteps seemed to be not far short of 3
ft. long.

Except for a small patch of sugar cane in Shidzuoka--it is grown
practically on the sea beach where it is visible from the express--the
visitor to Japan may never see sugar cane until Shikoku is reached.
The value of the crop in the whole island is about 800,000 yen. The
tall cane is conspicuous alongside the more diminutive rice. In this
prefecture an experiment is being made in growing olives.

Kagawa is remarkable in having had until lately 30,000 pond reservoirs
for the irrigation of rice fields. Under the new system of rice-field
adjustment many of the ponds are joined together. Because in Shikoku
flat tracts of land or tracts that can be made flat are limited in
number the farmers have to be content with small pieces of land. The
average area of farm in Kagawa outside the mountainous region is less
than two acres. When the farms are near the sea, as they commonly are,
the agriculturists may also be fishermen.

The number of place names ending in _ji_ (temple) proclaims the former
flourishing condition of Buddhism. Shikoku is a great resort of
white-clothed pilgrims. Sometimes it is a solitary man whom one sees
on the road, sometimes a company of men, occasionally a family. Not
seldom the pilgrim or his companion is manifestly suffering from some
affection which the pilgrimage is to cure. In the old days it was not
unusual to send the victim of "the shameful disease" or of an
incurable ailment on a pilgrimage from shrine to shrine or temple to
temple. He was not expected to return. In Shikoku there are
eighty-eight temples to Buddha and the founder of the Shingon sect,
and it is estimated that it would mean a 760 miles' journey to visit
them all.

We went off our route at one point where my companion wished to visit
a gorgeous shrine. A guidebook said that people flocked there "by the
million," but what I was told was that last year's attendance was
80,000. The street leading to the approach to the shrine was in a
series of steps. On either side were the usual shops with piled-up
mementoes in great variety and of no little ingenuity, and also, on
spikes, little stacks of _rin_--the old copper coin with a square hole
through the middle--into which the economical devotee takes care to
exchange a few sen. We climbed to the shrine when twilight was coming
on. At the point where the series of street steps ended there began a
new series of about a thousand steps belonging to the shrine. A
thousand granite steps may be tiring after a hot day's travel in a
_kuruma_. All the way up to the shrine there were granite pillars
almost brand new, first short ones, then taller, then taller still,
and after these a few which topped the tallest. They were
conspicuously inscribed with the names of donors to the shrine. A
small pillar was priced at 10 yen. What the big, bigger and biggest
cost I do not know. I turned from the pillars to the stone lanterns.
"They burn cedar wood, I believe," said my companion. But soon
afterwards I saw a man working at them with a length of electric-light
wire.

The great shrine was impressive in the twilight. There was a platform
near, and from it we looked down from the tree-covered heights through
the growing darkness. Where the lights of the town twinkled there was
a subsidiary shrine. A bare-headed, kimono-clad sailor stepped forward
near us and bowed his head to some semblance of deity down there.
Various fishermen had brought the anchors of their ships and the oars
of their boats to show forth their thankfulness for safety at sea. In
the murkiness I was just able to pick out the outlines of a bronze
horse which stands at the shrine, "as a sort of scape-goat," my
companion explained. "It is probably Buddhist," he said; "but you can
never be sure; these priests embellish the history of their temples
so."

It was at the inn in the evening that someone told me that in the town
which is dependent on the shrine there were "a hundred prostitutes,
thirty geisha and some waitresses." Late at night I had a visit from a
man in a position of great responsibility in the prefecture. He was at
a loss to know what could be done for morality. "Religion is not
powerful," he said, "the schools do not reach grown-up people, the
young men's societies are weak, many sects and new moralities are
attacking our people, and there are many cheap books of a low class."

Next day I laid this view before a group of landlords. They did not
reply for a little and my skilful interpreter said, "they are thinking
deeply." At length one of them delivered himself to this effect:
"Landowners hereabouts are mostly of a base sort. They always consider
things from a material and personal point of view. But if they are
attacked and made to act more for the public good it may have an
effect on rural conditions which are now low."

I enquired about the new sects of Buddhism and Shintoism, for there
had been pointed out to me in some villages "houses of new religions."
"New religions in many varieties are coming into the villages," I was
told, "and extravagant though they may be are influencing people. The
adherents seem to be moral and modest, and they pay their taxes
promptly. There is a so-called Shinto sect which was started twenty
years ago by an ignorant woman. It has believers in every part of
Japan. It is rather communistic."[176] None of the landlords who
talked with me believed in the possibility of a "revival of Buddhism."
One of them noted that "people educated in the early part of Meiji are
most materialistic. It is a sorrowful circumstance that the officials
ask only materialistic questions of the villagers."

I asked one of the landlords about his tenants. He said that his
"largest tenant" had no more than 1.3 _tan_ of paddy. It was explained
that "tenants are obedient to the landowner in this prefecture." Under
the system of official rewards which exists in Japan, 1,086 persons in
the prefecture had been "rewarded" by a kind of certificate of merit
and nine with money--to the total value of 26 yen.

When I drew attention to the fact that the manufacture of _saké_ and
_soy_ seemed to be frequently in the hands of landowners it was
explained to me that formerly this was their industry exclusively.
Even now "whereas an ordinary shop-keeper is required by etiquette to
say 'Thank you' to his customer, a purchaser of _saké_ or _soy_ says
'Thank you' to the shop-keeper."

The flower arrangement in my room in the inn consisted of an effective
combination of _hagi_ (_Lespedeza bicolor_, a leguminous plant
which is grown for cattle and has been a favourite subject of Japanese
poetry), a cabbage, a rose, a begonia and leaf and a fir branch.

A landowner I chatted with in the train showed me that it was a
serious matter to receive the distinction of growing the millet for
use at the Coronation. One of his friends who was growing 5 _sh=o_,
the actual value of which might be 50 or 60 sen, was spending on it
first and last about 3,000 yen.

I enquired about the diversions of landowners. It is easy, of course,
to have an inaccurate impression of the extent of their leisure. Only
about 1 per cent, have more than 25 acres.[177] Therefore most of
these men are either farmers themselves or must spend a great deal of
time looking after their tenants. Still, some landowners are able to
take things rather easily. The landowners I interrogated marvelled at
the open-air habits of English landed proprietors. They were greatly
surprised when I told them of a countess who is a grandmother but
thinks nothing of a canter before breakfast. The mark of being well
off was often to stay indoors or at any rate within garden walls,
which necessarily enclose a very small area. (Hence the fact that one
object of Japanese gardening is to suggest a much larger space than
exists.) A good deal of time is spent "in appreciating fine arts."
Ceremonial tea drinking still claims no small amount of attention. (In
many gardens and in the grounds of hotels of any pretensions one comes
on the ostentatiously humble chamber for _Cha-no-yu_.) No doubt there
is among many landowners a considerable amount of drinking of
something stronger than tea, and not a few men sacrifice freely to
Venus. Perhaps the greatest claimant of all on the time of those who
have time to spare is the game of _go_, which is said to be more
difficult than chess. One cannot but remark the comparatively pale
faces of many landowners.

As we went along by the coast it was pointed out to me that it was
from this neighbourhood that some of the most indomitable of the
old-time pirates set sail on their expeditions to ravage the Chinese
coast. They visited that coast all the way from Vladivostock, now
Russian (and like to be Japanese), to Saigon, now French. There are
many Chinese books discussing effectual methods of repelling the
pirates. In an official Japanese work I once noticed, in the
enumeration of Japanese rights in Taiwan (Formosa), the naïve claim
that long ago it was visited by Japanese pirates! The Japanese
fisherman is still an intrepid person, and in villages which have an
admixture of fishing folk the seafarers, from their habit of following
old customs and taking their own way generally, are the constant
subject of rural reformers' laments.

I spent some time in a typical inland village. The very last available
yard of land was utilised. The cottages stood on plots buttressed by
stone, and only the well-to-do had a yard or garden; paddy came right
up to the foundations. Now that the rice was high no division showed
between the different paddy holdings. I noticed here that the round,
carefully concreted manure tank which each farmer possessed had a
reinforced concrete hood. I asked a landowner who was in a comfortable
position what societies there were in his village. He mentioned a
society "to console old people and reward virtue." Then there was the
society of householders, such as is mentioned in Confucius, which met
in the spring and autumn, and ate and drank and discussed local
topics "with open heart." There were sometimes quarrels due to
_saké_. Indeed, some villagers seemed to save up their differences
until the householders' meeting at its _saké_ stage. At householders'
meetings where there was no _saké_ peace appeared to prevail. The
householders' meeting was a kind of informal village assembly. That
assembly itself ordinarily met twice a year. There were in the
village, in addition to the householders' organisation, the usual
reservists' association, the young men's society and agricultural
association. As to _ko_, from philanthropic motives my informant was a
member of no fewer than ten.

My host told me that he spent a good deal of time in playing _go_, but
in the shooting season (October 15 to April 15) he made trips to the
hills and shot pheasants, hares, pigeons and deer. In the garden of
his house two gardeners were stretched along the branches of a pine
tree, nimbly and industriously picking out the shoots in order to get
that bare appearance which has no doubt puzzled many a Western student
of Japanese tree pictures. Each man's ladder--two lengths of bamboo
with rungs tied on with string--was carefully leant against a pole
laid from the ground through the branches. Many of the well-cared-for
trees in the gardens and public places of Japan pass the winter in
neat wrappings of straw.

I visited a farm-house and found the farmer making baskets. When I was
examining the winnowing machine my companion reminded me smilingly
that when he was a boy he was warned never to turn the wheel of the
winnowing machine when the contrivance had no grain in it or a demon
might come out. There was a properly protected tank of liquid manure
and a well-roofed manure house. The family bath in an open shed was of
a sort I had not seen before, a kind of copper with a step up to it.
Straw rope about three-quarters of an inch in diameter was being made
by the farmer's son, a day's work being 40 yds. At another farm a
woman showed me the working of a rough loom with which she could in a
day make a score of mats worth in all 60 sen. From the farmer's house
I went to the room of the young men's association and looked over its
library. I was impressed by the high level of civilisation which this
village seemed to exhibit in essentials.

When we continued our journey we saw two portable water wheels by
means of which water was being lifted into a paddy. Each wheel was
worked by a man who continually ascended the floats. The two men were
able to leave their wheels in turn for a rest, for a third man was
stretched on the ground in readiness for his spell. It seems that a
man can keep on the water tread-mill for an hour. The two wheels
together were lifting an amazing amount of water at a great rate. When
the pumping is finished one of these light water wheels is easily
carried home on a man's shoulders.

Farther on I saw in a dry river bed a man sieving gravel in an
ingenious way. The trouble in sieving gravel is that if the sieve be
filled to its capacity the shaking soon becomes tiring. This man had a
square sieve which when lying on the ground was attached at one side
by two ropes to a firmly fixed tripod of poles. When the sieve was
filled the labourer lifted it far enough away from the tripod for it
to be swinging on one side. Therefore when he shook the sieve he
sustained a portion only of its weight.

As we rode along I was told that the largest taxpayer in the county
"does not live in idleness but does many good works." The next largest
taxpayer "labours every day in the field." When I enquired as to the
recreations of moneyed men I was told "travelling, _go_ and poem
writing."

As we rode by the sea a trustworthy informant pointed out to me an
islet where he said the young men have the young women in common and
"give permission for them to marry." There is a house in which the
girls live together at a particular time and are then free from the
attentions of the youths. Children born are brought up in the families
of the mothers but there is some infanticide. In another little island
off the coast there are only two classes of people, the seniors and
the juniors. Any person senior to any other "may give him orders and
call him by his second name." (The surname comes first in Japanese
names.)

Our route led us along the track of the new railway line which was
penetrating from Kagawa into Ehime. Not for the first time on my
journeys was I told of the corrupting influence exerted on the
countryside by the imported "navvies," if our Western name may be
applied to men who in figure and dress look so little like the big
fellows who do the same kind of work in England. Although these
navvies were a rough lot and our ancient _basha_ (a kind of
four-wheeled covered carriage) was a thing for mirth, we met with no
incivility as we picked our way among them for a mile or two. I was a
witness indeed of a creditable incident. A handcart full of earth was
being taken along the edge of the roadway, with one man in the shafts
and another pushing behind. Suddenly a wheel slipped over the side of
the roadway, the cart was canted on its axle, the man in the shafts
received a jolt and the cargo was shot out. Had our sort of navvies
been concerned there would have been words of heat and colour. The
Japanese laughed.

The reference to our venerable _basha_ reminds me of a well-known
story which was once told me by a Japanese as a specimen of Japanese
humour. A _basha_, I may explain, has rather the appearance of a
vehicle which was evolved by a Japanese of an economical turn after
hearing a description of an omnibus from a foreigner who spoke very
little Japanese and had not been home for forty years. The body of the
vehicle is just high enough and the seats just wide enough for
Japanese. So the foreigner continually bumps the roof, and when he is
not bumping the roof he has much too narrow a seat to sit on.
Sometimes the _basha_ has springs of a sort and sometimes it has none.
But springs would avail little on the rural roads by which many
_basha_ travel. The only tolerable place for Mr. Foreigner in a
_basha_ is one of the top corner seats behind the driver, for the
traveller may there throw an arm round one of the uprights which
support the roof. If at an unusually hard bump he should lose his hold
he is saved from being cast on the floor by the responsive bodies of
his polite and sympathetic fellow-travellers who are embedded between
him and the door. The tale goes that a tourist who was serving his
term in a _basha_ was perplexed to find that the passengers were
charged, some first-, some second-and some third-class fare. While he
clung to his upright and shook with every lurch of the conveyance this
problem of unequal fares obsessed him. It was like the persistent
"punch-in-the-presence-of-the-passengare." What possible advantage, he
pondered, could he as first class be getting over the second and the
second class over the third? At length at a steep part of the road the
vehicle stopped. The driver came round, opened the door, and bowing
politely said: "Honourable first-class passengers will graciously
condescend to keep their seats. Second-class passengers will be good
enough to favour us by walking. Third-class passengers will kindly
come out and push." And push they did, no doubt, kimonos rolled up
thighwards, with good humour, sprightliness and cheerful grunts, as is
the way with willing workers in Japan.

FOOTNOTES:

[173] At Anjo agricultural experiment station I saw eighteen kinds of
small threshing machines at from 13 to 18 yen. There were husking
machines of three sorts. A rice thresher was equal to dealing with the
crop of one _tan_, estimated at 2 _koku_ 4 _to_, in three hours.

[174] See Appendix XLVI.

[175] It is quite possible that the trees had also come into their
positions artificially. There are no more skilful tree movers than the
Japanese.

[176] It has recently come into collision with the authorities.
Another sect with Shinto ideas was also started by a woman.

[177] See Appendix XLVII.




CHAPTER XXV

"SPECIAL TRIBES"

(EHIME)

A frank basis of reality.--Meredith


In the prefecture of Ehime our journey was still by _basha_ or
_kuruma_ and near the sea. The first man we talked with was a _guncho_
who said that "more than half the villages contained a strong
character who can lead." He told us of one of the new religions which
taught its adherents to do some good deed secretly. The people who
accepted this religion mended roads, cleaned out ponds and made
offerings at the graves of persons whose names were forgotten. I think
it was this man who used the phrase, "There is a shortage of
religions."

I had not before noticed wax trees. They are slighter than apple
trees, but often occupy about the same space as the old-fashioned
standard apple. The clusters of berries have some resemblance to
elderberries and would turn black if they were not picked green.[178]
Occasionally we saw fine camphor trees. Alas, owing to the high price
of camphor, some beautiful specimens near shrines, where they were as
imposing as cryptomeria, had been sacrificed.

I began to observe the dreadful destruction wrought in the early ear
stage of rice not by cold but by wind. The wind knocks the plants
against one another and the friction generates enough heat to arrest
further development. The crops affected in this way were grey in
patches and looked as if hot water had been sprayed over them. In one
county the loss was put as high as 90 per cent. Happily farmers
generally sow several sorts of rice. Therefore paddies come into ear
at different times.

The heads of millet and the threshed grain of other upland crops were
drying on mats by the roadside, for in the areas where land is so much
in demand there is no other space available. Sesame, not unlike
snapdragon gone to seed, only stronger in build, was set against the
houses. On the growing crops on the uplands dead stalks and chopped
straw were being used as mulch.

I noticed that implements seemed always to be well housed and to be
put away clean. Handcarts, boats and the stacks of poles used in
making frameworks for drying rice were protected from the weather by
being thatched over.

We continued to see many white-clad pilgrims and everywhere touring
students, as often afoot as on bicycles. I noted from the registers at
many village offices that the number of young men who married before
performing their military service seemed to be decreasing. In one
community, where there were two priests, one Tendai and the other
Shingon, neither seemed to count for much. One was very poor, and
cultivated a small patch near his temple; the other had a little more
than a _cho_. The custom was for the farmers to present to their
temple from 5 to 10 _sho_ of rice from the harvest.

In connection with the question of improved implements I noticed that
a reasonably efficient winnowing machine in use by a comfortably-off
tenant was forty-nine years old--that is, that it dated back to the
time of the Shogun. The secondary industry of this farmer was
dwarf-plant growing. He had also a loom for cotton-cloth making. There
were in his house, in addition to a Buddhist shrine, two Shinto
shrines. After leaving this man I visited an ex-teacher who had lost
his post at fifty, no doubt through being unable to keep step with
modern educational requirements. He had on his wall the lithograph of
Pestalozzi and the children which I saw in many school-houses.

On taking the road again I was told that the local landlords had held
a meeting in view of the losses of tenants through wind. Most had
agreed to forgo rents and to help with artificial manure for next
year. I found taro being grown in paddies or under irrigation. Not
only the tubers of the taro but its finer stalks are eaten. I saw
gourds cut into long lengths narrower than apple rings and put out to
dry. I also noticed orange trees a century old which were still
producing fruit. Boys were driving iron hoops--the native hoop was of
bamboo--and one of the hoop drivers wore a piece of red cloth stitched
on his shoulder, which indicated that he was head of his class. One
missed a dog bounding and barking after the hoop drivers. Sometimes at
the doors of houses I noticed dogs of the lap-dog type which one sees
in paintings or of the wolf type to which the native outdoor dog
belongs. The cats were as ugly as the dogs and no plumper or happier
looking. When I patted a dog or stroked a cat the act attracted
attention.

We saw a good deal of _hinoki_ (ground cypress), the wood of which is
still used at Shinto festivals for making fire by friction.

We were able to visit an Eta village or rather _oaza_. Whether the Eta
are largely the descendants of captives of an early era or of a low
class of people who on the introduction of Buddhism in the seventh or
eighth century were ostracised because of their association with
animal eating, animal slaughter, working in leather and grave digging
is in dispute. No doubt they have absorbed a certain number of
fugitives from higher grades of the population, broken samurai,
ne'er-do-weels and criminals. The situation as the foreigner discovers
it is that all over Japan there are hamlets of what are called
"special tribes." In 1876, when distinctions between them and Japanese
generally were officially abolished, the total number was given as
about a million. Most of these peculiar people, perhaps three-quarters
of them, are known as Eta. But whether they are known as Eta or Shuku,
or by some other name, ordinary Japanese do not care to eat with them,
marry with them or even talk with them. In the past Eta have often
been prosperous, and many are prosperous to-day, but a large number
are still restricted to earning a living as butchers and skin and
leather workers, and grave diggers. The members of these "special
tribes," believing themselves to be despised without cause, usually
make some effort to hide the fact that they are Eta.

Shuku seem to be living principally in hamlets of a score or so of
houses in the vicinity of Osaka, Kyoto and Nara, and are often
travelling players, or, like some Eta, skilled in making tools and
musical instruments. There seems to be a half Shuku or intermarried
class. Many prostitutes are said to be Shuku or Eta. I was told that
most of the girls in the prostitutes' houses of Shimane prefecture are
from "special tribes," and that they are "preferred by the
proprietors" because, as I was gravely informed, "they do not weary of
their profession and are therefore more acceptable to customers." As
prostitutes are frequently married by their patrons, it is believed
that not a few women from "special villages" are taken to wife without
their origin being known. Unwitting marriage with an Eta woman has
long been a common motif in fiction and folk story. Many members of
the "special tribes" go to Hokkaido and there pass into the general
body of the population. The folk of this class are "despised," I was
told by a responsible Japanese, "not so much for themselves as for
what their fathers and grandfathers did." The country people
undoubtedly treat them more harshly than the townspeople, but a man of
the "special tribes" is often employed as a watchman of fields or
forests. I was warned that it was judicious to avoid using the word
Eta or Shuku in the presence of common people lest one might be
addressing by chance a member of the "special tribes."

Except that the houses of the village we were visiting looked possibly
a trifle more primitive than those of the non-Eta population outside
the _oaza_, I did not discern anything different from what I saw
elsewhere. The people were of the Shinshu sect; there was no Shinto
shrine. At the public room I noticed the gymnastic apparatus of the
"fire defenders." The hamlet was traditionally 300 years old and one
family was still recognised as chief. According to the constable, who
eagerly imparted the information, the crops were larger than those of
neighbouring villages "because the people, male and female, are always
diligent."

The man who was brought forward as the representative of the village
was an ex-soldier and seemed a quiet, able and self-respecting but sad
human being. His house and holding were in excellent order. None of
his neighbours smiled on us. Some I thought went indoors needlessly; a
few came as near to glowering as can be expected in Japan. I got the
impression that the people were cared for but were conscious of being
"hauden doon" or kept at arm's length.[179]

Our next stop was for a rest in a fine garden, the effect of which was
spoilt in one place by a distressing life-size statue of the owner's
father. When we took to our _kuruma_ again we passed through a village
at the approaches to which thick straw ropes such as are seen at
shrines had been stretched across the road. Charms were attached. The
object was to keep off an epidemic.

The indigo leaves drying on mats in front of some of the cottages were
a delight to the eye. There were also mats covered with cotton which
looked like fluffy cocoons. On the telegraph wires, the poles of which
all over Japan take short cuts through the paddies, swallows clustered
as in England, but it is to the South Seas, not to Africa, that the
Japanese swallow migrates. When the telegraph was a newer feature of
the Japanese landscape than it is now swallows on the wires were a
favourite subject for young painters.

We crossed a dry river bed of considerable width at a place where the
current had made an excavation in the gravel, rocks and earth several
yards deep. It was an impressive illustration of the power of a heavy
flood.

I found in one mountainous county that only about a sixth of the area
was under cultivation. A responsible man said: "This is a county of
the biggest landlords and the smallest tenants. Too many landowners
are thinking of themselves, so there arise sometimes severe conflicts.
Some 4,000 tenants have gone to Hokkaido." The conversation got round
to the young men's societies and I was told a story of how an Eta
village threatened by floods had been saved by the young men of the
neighbouring non-Eta village working all night at a weakened
embankment. Some days later an Eta deputation came to the village and
"with tears in their eyes gave thanks for what had been done." The
comment of a Japanese friend was: "In the present state of Japan
hypocrisy may be valuable. The boys and the Eta were at least
exercising themselves in virtue."

Four villages in this county have among them eight fish nurseries, the
area of salt water enclosed being roughly 120 acres. I looked into
several cottages where paper making was going on.[180]

I also went into two cotton mills. In both there were girls who were
not more than eleven or twelve. "They are exempted from school by
national regulation because of the poverty of their parents,"[181] I
was told.

As we passed the open shop fronts of the village barbers I saw that as
often as not a woman was shaving the customer or using the patent
clippers on him.

We looked at a big dam which an enterprising landowner was
constructing. Three hundred women were consolidating the earthwork by
means of round, flat blocks of granite about twice the size of a
curling stone. Round each block was a groove in which was a leather
belt with a number of rings threaded on it. To each ring a rope was
attached. When these ropes were extended the granite block became the
hub of a wheel of which the ropes were the spokes. A number of women
and girls took ropes apiece and jerked them simultaneously, whereupon
the granite block rose in the air to the level of the rope pullers'
heads. It was then allowed to fall with a thud. After each thud the
pullers moved along a foot so that the block should drop on a fresh
spot. The gangs hauling at the rammers worked to the tune of a
plaintive ditty which went slowly so as to give them plenty of
breathing time. It was something like this:

        Weep not,
        Do not lament,
        This world is as the wheel of a car.
        If we live long,
        We may meet again on the road.

None of the sturdy earth thumpers seemed to be overworked in the
bracing air of the dam top, and they certainly looked picturesque with
their white and blue towels round their heads. Indeed, with all the
singing and movement, not to speak of the refreshment stalls, the
scene was not unlike a fair. When we got back to the road again we
passed through a well-watered rice district which was equal to the
production of heavy crops. Only three years before it had been covered
by a thick forest in which it was not uncommon for robbers to lurk.
The transformation had been brought about by the construction of a dam
in the hills somewhat similar to the one we had just visited.

I could not but notice in this district the considerable areas given
up to grave-plots. No crematoria seemed to be in use. There had been a
newspaper proposal that in areas where the population was very large
in proportion to the land available for cultivation the dead should be
taken out to sea. Where land is scarce one sees various expedients
practised so that every square foot shall be cropped. I repeatedly
found stacks of straw or sticks standing not on the land but on a
rough bridge thrown for the purpose over a drainage ditch. In this
district land had been recovered from the sea.

FOOTNOTES:

[178] For an account of a vegetable wax factory, see Appendix XLVIII.

[179] For further particulars of Eta in Japan and America, see
Appendix XLIX.

[180] See Appendix L.

[181] In 1918 net profits of 33 million yen were made by cotton
factories. The factories are anticipating sharp competition from
China.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN

(EHIME)

The thing to do is to rise humorously above one's body which is the
veritable rebel, not one's mind.--MEREDITH


It is delightful to find so many things made of copper. Copper, not
iron, is in Japan the most valuable mineral product after coal.[182]
But there are drawbacks to a successful copper industry. Several times
as I came along by the coast I heard how the farmers' crops had been
damaged by the fumes of a copper refinery. "There are four copper
refineries in Japan, who fighted very much with the farmers," it was
explained. The Department of Agriculture is also the Department of
Commerce and "it was embarrassed by those battles." The upshot was
that one refinery moved to an island, another rebuilt its chimney and
the two others agreed to pay compensation because it was cheaper than
to install a new system. The refinery which had removed to an island
seven miles off the coast I had been traversing had had to pay
compensation as well as remove. I saw an apparatus that it had put up
among rice fields to aid it in determining how often the wind was
carrying its fumes there. The compensation which this refinery was
paying yearly amounted to as much as 75,000 yen. It had also been
compelled to buy up 500 _cho_ of the complaining farmers' land. When
we ascended by _basha_ into the mountains we looked down on a copper
mine in a ravine through which the river tumbled. The man who had
opened the original road over the pass had had the beautiful idea of
planting cherry trees along it so that the traveller might enjoy the
beauty of their blossoms in spring and their foliage and outlines the
rest of the year. The trees had attained noble proportions when the
refinery started work and very soon killed most of them. They looked
as if they had been struck by lightning.

Some miles farther on, wherever on the mountain-side a little tract
could be held up by walling, the chance of getting land for
cultivation had been eagerly seized. It would be difficult to give an
impression of the patient endeavour and skilful culture represented by
the farming on these isolated terraces held up by Galloway dykes.
Elsewhere the heights were tree-clad. In places, where the trees had
been destroyed by forest fires or had been cleared, amazingly large
areas had been closely cut over for forage. One great eminence was a
wonderful sight with its whole side smoothed by the sickles of
indomitable forage collectors. In some spots "fire farming" had been
or was still being practised. Here and there the cultivation of the
shrubs grown for the production of paper-making bark had displaced
"fire farming." I saw patches of millet and sweet potato which from
the road seemed almost inaccessible.

On the admirable main road we passed many pack ponies carrying immense
pieces of timber. Speaking of timber, the economical method of
preserving wood by charring is widely practised in Japan. The
palisades around houses and gardens and even the boards of which the
walls or the lower part of the walls of dwellings are constructed are
often charred. The effect is not cheerful. What does have a cheerful
and trim effect is a thing constantly under one's notice, the habit of
keeping carefully swept the unpaved earth enclosed by a house and
buildings as well as the path or roadway to them. This careful
sweeping is usually regarded as the special work of old people. Even
old ladies in families of rank in Tokyo take pleasure in their daily
task of sweeping.

When we had crossed the pass and descended on the other side and taken
_kuruma_ we soon came to a wide but absolutely dry river bed. The high
embankments on either side and the width of the river bed, which,
walking behind our _kuruma_, it took us exactly four minutes to
cross, afforded yet another object lesson in the severity of the
floods that afflict the country. The rock-and rubble-choked condition
of the rivers inclines the traveller to severe judgments on the State
and the prefectures for not getting on faster with the work of
afforestation; but it is only fair to note that in many places
hillsides were pointed out to me which, bare a generation ago, are now
covered with trees. Within a distance of twenty-five miles hill
plantations were producing fruit to a yearly value of half a million
yen. As for the cultivation on either side of the roadway, along which
our _kurumaya_ were trotting us, I could not see a weed anywhere.

A favourite rural recreation in Ehime, as in Shimane on the mainland,
is bull fighting. It is not, however, fighting with bulls but between
bulls: the sport has the redeeming feature that the animals are not
turned loose on one another but are held all the time by their owners
by means of the rope attached to the nose ring. The rope is gripped
quite close to the bull's head. The result of this measure of control
is, it was averred, that a contest resolves itself into a struggle to
decide not which bull can fight better but which animal can push
harder with his head. That the bulls are occasionally injured there
can be no doubt. The contests are said to last from fifteen to twenty
minutes and are decided by one of the combatants turning tail. There
is a good deal of gambling on the issue. In another prefecture of
Shikoku the rustics enjoy struggles between muzzled dogs. A taste for
this sport is also cultivated in Akita. A certain amount of dog and
cock fighting goes on in Tokyo.

At an inn there was an evident desire to do us honour by providing a
special dinner. One bowl contained transparent fish soup. Lying at the
bottom was a glassy eye staring up balefully at me. (The head,
especially the eye, of a fish is reckoned the daintiest morsel.) There
was a relish consisting of grapes in mustard. A third dish presented
an entire squid. I passed honourable dishes numbers two and three and
drank the fish soup through clenched teeth and with averted gaze.

I interrogated several chief constables on the absence of assaults on
women from the lists of crimes in the rural statistics I had
collected. Various explanations were offered to me: if there were
cases of assault they were kept secret for the credit of the woman's
family; no prosecution could be instituted except at the instance of
the woman, or, if married, the woman's husband; women did not go out
much alone; the number of cases was not in fact as large as might be
imagined, because the people were well behaved. An official who had
had police experience in the north of Japan declared that the south
was more "moral and more civilised and had higher tastes." In Ehime,
for example, there was very little illegitimacy and fewer children
still-born than in any other prefecture. Nevertheless four offences
against women had occurred in villages in Ehime within the preceding
twelve months.

One of the most interesting stories of rural regeneration I heard was
told me by a blind man who had become headman of his village at the
time of the war with Russia. His life had been indecorous and he had
gradually lost his sight, and he took the headmanship with the wish to
make some atonement for his careless years. This is his story:

"Although I thought it important to advance the economic condition of
the village it was still more important to promote friendship. As the
interests of landowners and tenants was the same it was necessary to
bring about an understanding. I began by asking landowners to
contribute a proportion of the crops to make a fund. I was blamed by
only fourteen out of two hundred. But the landowners who did blame me
blamed me severely, so much so that my family[183] were uneasy. I went
from door to door with a bag collecting rice as the priests do. My
eccentric behaviour was reported in the papers. The anxiety of my
household and relatives grew. My children were told at the school that
their father was a beggar. During the first harvest in which I
collected I gathered about 40 _koku_ (about 200 bushels). In the
fourth year a hundred tenants came in a deputation to me. They said:
'This gathering of rice is for our benefit. But you gather from the
landowners only. So please let us contribute every year. Some of us
will collect among ourselves and bring the rice to you, so giving you
no trouble.' I was very pleased with that. But I did not express my
pleasure. I scolded them. I said: 'Your plan is good but you think
only of yourselves. You do not give the landowners their due. When you
bring your rent to them you choose inferior rice. It is a bad custom.'
I advised them to treat their landowners with justice and achieve
independence in the relation of tenant and landowner. They were moved
by my earnestness.

"In the next year the tenants exerted themselves and the landowners
were pleased with them. Thus the relation of landlord and tenant
became better. The landowners in their turn became desirous of showing
a friendly feeling toward the tenants. Some landlords came to me and
said, 'If you wish for any money in order to be of service to the
tenants we will lend it to you without interest.' I received some
money. I lent money to tenants to buy manure and cattle, to attack
insect pests, to provide protection against wind and flood and to help
to build new dwellings nearer their work. By these means the tenants
were encouraged and their welfare was promoted. The landlords were
also happier, for the rice was better and the land improved. The
landlords found that their happiness came from the tenants. There was
good feeling between them. The landlords began to help the tenants
directly and indirectly. Roads and bridges and many aids to
cultivation were furnished by the landlords. A body of landlords was
constituted for these purposes and it collected money. My idea was
realised that the way of teaching the villages is to let landlords and
tenants realise that their interests agree and they will become more
friendly."

The co-operative credit society which the blind headman established
not only buys and sells for its members in the ordinary way but hires
land for division among the humbler cultivators. One of the
departments of the society's work is the collection of villagers'
savings. They are gathered every Sunday by school-children. One lad, I
found from his book, had collected on a particular Sunday 5 sen
each--5 sen is a penny--from two houses and 10 sen each from another
two dwellings. The next Sunday he had received 5 sen from one house,
10 sen from two houses, 30 sen and 50 sen from others and a whole yen
from the last house on his list. The subscriber gets no receipt but
sees the lad enter in his book the amount handed over to him, and the
next Sunday he sees the stamp of the bank against the sum. Some 390
householders out of the 497 in the village hand over savings to the
boy and girl collectors, whose energy is stimulated with 1 per cent.
on the sums they gather. In five years the Sunday collections have
amassed 60,000 yen. The previous year had been marked by a bad harvest
and large sums had been drawn out of the bank, but there was still a
sum of 14,000 yen in hand.

In this village there had been issued one of the economic and moral
diaries mentioned in an earlier chapter. The diary of this village has
two spaces for every day--that is, the economic space and the moral
space. The owner of this book had to do two good deeds daily, one
economic and the other moral, and he had to enter them up. Further, he
had to hand in the book at the end of the year to the earnest village
agricultural and moral expert who devised the diary and carefully
tabulates the results of twelve months' economic and moral endeavour.
One might think that the scheme would break down at the handing in of
the diary stage, but I was assured that there were good reasons for
believing that a considerable proportion of the 440 persons who had
taken out diaries would return them.

There is an old custom by which Buddhist believers, in companies of a
dozen or so, meet to eat and drink together. As a good deal is eaten
and drunk the gatherings are costly. Our blind headman met the
difficulty of expense in his village by getting the companies of
believers to cultivate together in their spare time about three acres
of land. His object was to associate religion and agriculture and so
to dignify farming in the eyes of young men. He also wished to provide
an object lesson in the results of good cultivation. The profits
proved to be, as he anticipated, so considerable as to leave a balance
after defraying the cost of the social gathering. The headman
prevailed on the cultivators to keep accurate accounts and they made
plain some unexpected truths: as for example, that a _tan_ of paddy
did not need the labour of a man for more than twenty-three days of
ten hours, and that the net income from such an area was a little more
than 16 yen, and that thus the return for a day's labour was 73 sen.
It was demonstrated, therefore, that labour was recompensed very well,
and that instead of farming being "the most unprofitable of
industries"--for in Japan as in the West there are sinners against the
light who say this--it was reasonably profitable.

But if rice called for only twenty-three days' labour per
_tan_--nearly all the farmers' land was paddy--and the whole holding
numbered only a few _tan_, it was also plain that there were many days
in the year when the farmer was not fully employed. From this it was
easy to proceed to the conviction that the available time should be
utilised either in secondary employments, or in, say, draining, which
would reduce the quantity of manure needed on the land. So the farmers
began to think about drainage and the means of economising labour.
They began to realise how time was wasted owing to most farmers
working not only scattered, but irregularly shaped pieces of land. So
the rice lands were adjusted, and everybody was found to have a trifle
more land than he held before, and the fields were better watered and
more easily cultivated. Only from sixteen to seventeen days' labour
instead of twenty-three were now needed per _tan_[184] and the crops
were increased. There is now no exodus from this progressive village.

Concerning his blindness the headman said that it was more profitable
for him to hear than to see, for by sight "energy might be diverted."
He had recited in every prefecture his personal experience of rural
reform. He asserted that while conditions varied in every prefecture,
there was, generally speaking, labour on the land for no more than 200
days in the year. He deplored the disappearance of some home
employments. He did not approve of the condition of things in the
north where women worked as much in the fields as their husbands and
brothers. Women were "so backward and conservative." The biggest
obstacles to agricultural progress were old women. To introduce a
secondary industry was to take women from the fields.

I spoke with an agricultural expert, one of whose dicta was that
"students at normal schools who come from town families are not so
clever as students from farmers' families." He told me that 10,000
young men in his county had sworn "to act in the way most fitting to
youths of a military state [sic], to buy and use national products as
far as possible and so to promote national industry."

What was wrong with some farming, according to an official of a county
agricultural association whom I met later, was that the farmers
cultivated too intensively. They used too much "artificial." A
prefectural official, speaking of the possibility of extending the
cultivated area in Japan, said that in Ehime there were 6,000 _cho_
which might be made into paddies if money were available. As to
afforestation, 100,000 yen a year, exclusive of salaries, was spent in
the prefecture. As a final piece of statistics he mentioned that
whereas ten years before pears were grown only in a certain island of
the prefecture, the production of a single county was now valued at
half a million yen yearly.

I spent a night at a hot spring. It is said that the volume of water
is decreasing. What a situation for a town which lives on a hot spring
if the hot-water supply should suddenly stop! I heard of another
hot-spring resort at which the water is gradually cooling: it is
warmed up by secret piping.

I have not troubled my readers with many stories of the jostling of
past and present, but I noticed in an electric street car at Matsuyama
a peasant trying to light his pipe with flint and tinder. As he did
not succeed a fellow-passenger offered him a match. He was so inexpert
with it that he still failed to get a light and he had to be handed a
cigarette stump.

In riding down to the port in the street car I borrowed for a few
moments a schoolboy's English reader. It seemed rather mawkish. A book
of Japanese history which I was also allowed to look at was full of
reproductions of autographs of distinguished men. "They make the
impression very strong," I was told.

FOOTNOTES:

[182] See Appendix XXXVIII.

[183] That is, not only his household but his relatives.

[184] Adding to the 17 days' labour for the rice crop, 13 days' labour
for the succeeding barley crop, the total was 30 days' labour per
_tan_ against the general Japan average of 39 days per _tan_.




THE SOUTH-WEST OF JAPAN

CHAPTER XXVII

UP-COUNTRY ORATORY

(YAMAGUCHI)

I have confidence, which began with hope and strengthens with
experience, that humanity is gaining in the stores of mind.--MEREDITH


The main street of an Inland Sea island we visited was 4 ft. wide.
Because it was the eve of a festival the old folk were at home
"observing their taboo." The islander who had been the first among the
inhabitants to visit a foreign country was only fifty. The local
policeman made us a gift of pears when we left.

At another primitive island querns were in use and "ordinary families"
were "only beginning to indulge in tombstones." In contrast with this,
the constable told us that a small condensed-milk factory had been
started. (This constable was a fine, dignified-looking fellow, but so
poor that his toes were showing through his blue cloth _tabi_.) The
condensed-milk factory must have been responsible for some surprises
to the cows when they were first milked in its interests. I heard a
tale of the first milking of an elderly cow. She had ploughed paddies,
carried hay and other things and had drawn a cart. But it took five
men and a woman to persuade her that to be milked into a clay pot was
a reasonable thing.

The third island we explored lies in such a situation in the Inland
Sea that sailing ships used to be glad to shelter under it while
waiting for a favourable wind. Someone had the evil thought of
providing it with prostitutes, and, until steam began to take the
place of sails, the number of these women established in the island
was large. Even now, although the whole population numbers only a
hundred families, there are thirty women of bad character. These poor
creatures were conspicuous because of their bright clothing and
dewomanised look. A scrutiny of the islanders old and young yielded
the impression that the whole place was suffering from its peculiar
traffic. There were two houses, one for registering the women and the
other for investigating their state of health, and the purpose of the
buildings was bluntly proclaimed on the nameboards at their doors.

When we got out to sea again the newest Japanese battleship doing her
trials was pointed out to me, but I was more interested in a large
fishing boat running before the wind. A sturdy woman was at the helm
and her naked young family was sprawling about the craft.

Someone spoke of villagers of the mainland "failing to realise that
they now possessed the privilege of self-government." I was reminded
of the pleasant way of the headman of a village assembly in the
Loochoos, Japan's oldest outlying possession. He assembles or used to
assemble his colleagues in his courtyard and appear there with a draft
of proposed legislation. They bowed and departed and the Bill had
become an Act.

Although we were already within the territorial waters of Hiroshima
prefecture, we determined not to make the mainland at once but to stay
the night at the famous island which is called both Miyajima (shrine
island) and Itsukushima (taboo island), and is considered to be one of
the three most noteworthy sights in Japan. Photographs and drawings of
the shrine with its red colonnades on piles by the shore and its big
red _torii_ standing in the sea are as familiar as representations of
Fuji. It used to be the custom to prevent as far as possible births
and deaths occurring on the island. Even now, funerals, dogs and
kuruma are prohibited. The iron lanterns of the shrine and galleries
and a hundred more in the pine tree-studded approaches are undoubtedly
"a most magnificent spectacle at full tide on a moonless night"; but
what of the subservience to the profitable foreign tourist seen in
this shrine notice?--

_Zori_ (straw sandals), _geta_ (wooden pattens) and all footgear
_except shoes and boots_ are forbidden.

One is attracted by the idea of listening to music and watching dances
which came from afar in the seventh or eighth centuries, but the
business-like tariff,

  Ordinary mus