The Foundations of Japan

he acknowledgment that such a common purpose is possible, w

of festivity. In another village, the gunchō 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 us

ese 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 th

ed since its establishment, I asked for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no joro, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters

hist, 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

rent 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 c

lage 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 religiou

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 ric

lled, 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 busine

terns 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 mise

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

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short autobiography of a farmer

king 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 int

tements 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 as

ccepted 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, expend

oming 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

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

ust finished and the boys were beginning Swedish drill. Every

chopped straw faced with tarred boards. Some dwellings, however, were faced with s

I visited an irrigation installation where pumps (from London) were turning barren hill tops into paddy fields.[56] The work was being done

ing 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

general reader may skip here-some of the reasons set forth by a profes

cultivated per fa

diminishi

ng, as in England. No profitable secondary business but silkworm culture. Therefore the distribution of

agriculture has not bee

n 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 t

e is also an increase in taxation. A representative family which incurred a public expenditure, not including

of population, the size of the peasant family is increasing owing to the

ers from debts

d ability of the farmer ar

xistence. He had no great need of money. He must now sell

abits, for instance the two or three d

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 somet

. 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 o

ain 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 tha

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ACTING CROP