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.