It is worthy of special notice that the Japanese have become quite skilful in ship-building, so that they now construct vessels of various kinds, not only for themselves but for other nations. The Mitsu Bishi Company, Nagasaki, has constructed for the Oriental Steamship Company three fine passenger steamers of 13,000 tons each. At the Uraga Dockyard large American men-of-war have been satisfactorily repaired; and on October 15, 1902, a small United States gunboat was launched,—“the first instance in which Japan has got an order of shipbuilding from a Western country.”[26]
Among the minor miscellaneous industries which can only be mentioned are sugar-raising, paper-making (there are a number of mills which are paying well), dyeing, glass-blowing, lumber, horse-breeding, poultry, pisciculture, ice, brick, fan, match, button, handkerchief, pottery, lacquer, weaving, embroidery, sake and beer brewing, soy, etc. The extent and variety of the industries of Modern Japan are also clearly evidenced in a short article about “The Ōsaka Exhibition” of 1903 in the Appendix.
In what we style “the mechanical arts” the Japanese excel, and have a world-wide reputation. With their innate æsthetic instincts they make the most commonplace beautiful. It is a trite saying that a globe-trotter, picking up in a native shop a very pretty little article, and admiring it for its simplicity and exquisite taste, is likely to find it an ordinary household utensil. Japanese lacquer work is distinctive and remarkable for its beauty and strength; lacquered utensils, such as bowls, trays, etc., are not damaged by boiling soups, hot water, or even cigar ashes. In porcelain and pottery, the Japanese are celebrated for the artistic skill displayed in manufacture and ornamentation. “The bronze and inlaid metal work of Japan is highly esteemed.” Japanese swords, too, are remarkable weapons with “astonishing cleaving power.” To summarize this paragraph, it may be said that the Japanese have turned what we call mechanical industries into fine arts, which display a magnificent triumph of æstheticism even in little things.[27]
This chapter would be incomplete without a paragraph concerning Japanese shops, or retail stores, which are among the first curiosities to attract and rivet a foreigner’s attention. The building is, perhaps, a small, low, frame structure, crowded among its fellows on a narrow lane. The floor is raised a foot or so above the ground, and is covered, as usual, with thick matting. Spread out on the floor or on wooden tiers or on shelves are the goods for sale. The shopkeeper sits on his feet on the floor, and calmly smokes his pipelet, or fans himself, or in winter warms his hands over the hibachi (fire-bowl). He greets you with a profound bow and most respectful words of welcome, but makes no attempt to effect a sale, or even to show an article unless you ask to see it. He is imperturbably indifferent whether or not you make a purchase; either way, it is all right. He will politely display anything you want to see; and, even if, after making him much trouble, you buy nothing or only an insignificant and cheap article, he sends you away with as profound a bow and as polite expressions as if you had bought out the shop. Whether you buy little or much or even nothing, you are always dismissed with “Arigatō gozaimasu” and “Mata irasshai,” which are very respectful phrases for “Thank you” and “Come again.” Having dropped into “a veritable shoppers’ paradise,” you will quickly “find yourself the prey of an acute case of shopping fever before you know it!” It is, indeed, true, to quote further from this same writer, that “to stroll down the Broadway [known as the Ginza] of Tokio of an evening is a liberal education in every-day art.”[28]
From what has already been written, it is easily noticeable that wages and incomes, like so many things in petite Japan, are insignificant. It may be added that ordinary mechanics earn on an average over 50 sen a day, and the most skilful seldom get more than double that amount; that carpenters earn from 70 to 100 sen a day; that street-car drivers and conductors receive 12 or 15 yen per month, and other workmen of the common people about the same. Even an official who receives 1,000 yen per year is considered to have a snug income. It will be inferred from this that the cost of living is proportionately cheaper, whether for provisions or for shelter or for clothes, and that the wants, the absolute necessities, of the people are few and simple. Literally true it is, that a Japanese man “wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.” With rice, barley, sweet potatoes, other vegetables, fish, eggs, tea, and even sweetmeats in abundance and very cheap, a Japanese can subsist on little and be contented and happy with enough, or even less than that. But, unfortunately, the new civilization of the West has carried into Japan the itch for gold and the desire for more numerous and more expensive luxuries, and has increased the cost of living without increasing proportionately the amount of income or wages.[29]
Industrial Japan has already become more or less modified by features of Occidental industrialism, such as guilds, trade unions, strikes, co-operative stores. It is true that feudal Japan also had guilds, which are, however, now run rather on modern lines. One of the oldest, strongest, and most compact is that of the dock coolies, who without many written rules are yet so well organized that they have almost an absolute monopoly, with frequent strikes, which are always successful. Others of the guilds are those of the sawyers, the plasterers, the stonemasons, the bricklayers, the carpenters, the barbers, the coolies (who can travel all over the empire without a penny and live on their fellows), the wrestlers, the actors, the gamblers, the pickpockets, etc. The beggars’ guild is now defunct. The labor unions of modern days include the iron-workers, the ship-carpenters, the railway engineers, the railway workmen, the printers, and the European-style cooks. The last-mentioned is one in which foreigners resident in Japan necessarily take a practical interest! The only unions which have become absolute masters of the situation are those of the dock coolies, the railway laborers, and the railway engineers. As for co-operative stores, there are a dozen or more in Tōkyō, Yokohama, and Northern Japan.
The perfect organization of these modern unions is due largely to the efforts of a young man named Sen Katayama, who is the champion of the rights of the laboring man in Japan. He spent ten years in America and made a special study of social problems. He is the head of Kingsley Hall, a social settlement of varied activity in the heart of Tōkyō, and editor of the “Labor World,” the organ of the working classes. That the changes rapidly taking place in the industrial life of Japan will raise up serious problems, there is no doubt; what phases they will assume cannot be foreseen. But “socialistic” ideas are carefully repressed in modern Japan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
“Japan and its Trade” and “Advance Japan” (Morris); “The Yankees of the East” (Curtis); “Japan in Transition” (Ransome), chap. x.; “The Awakening of the East” (Leroy-Beaulieu), chaps. iv. and v.; “Dai Nippon” (Dyer), chaps. viii. and xi.; and especially Rein’s “Industries of Japan,” in which the subject is treated in great detail with German thoroughness. But to keep pace with the rapid progress along industrial and commercial lines, one really needs current English newspapers and magazines, such as are mentioned in the chapter on “Language and Literature.” The reports of the British and United States consular officials are also very useful in this respect.
“The Japan Year Book,” issued annually, is a veritable cyclopedia of important facts and figures.