[ HEIGHT AND WEIGHT OF WRESTLERS [LXII].] In a list of ten famous wrestlers the tallest is stated to be 6.30 shaku (a shaku is 11.93 inches) and the heaviest as 33.2 kwan (a kwan is 8.267 lbs.). The average height and weight of these men work out at 5.84 shaku and 28.4 kwan. By way of comparison it may be mentioned that the percentage of conscripts in 1918 over 5.5 shaku was 2.58 per cent. The average weight of Japanese is recorded as 13 kwan 830 momme.
[ EXEMPTION FROM AND AVOIDANCE OF CONSCRIPTION [LXIII].] The age is 20 and the service two years (with four years in reserve and ten years depot service). The only son of a parent over 60 unable to support himself or herself is released. Middle school boys' service is postponed till they are 25. Students at higher schools and universities need not serve till 26 or 27. The service of young men abroad (i.e. elsewhere than China) is similarly postponed. (If still abroad at 37, they are entered in territorial army list and exempted.) Young men of education equal to that of middle-school graduates can volunteer for a year and pay 100 yen barracks expenses and be passed out with the rank of non-commissioned officers and be liable thereafter for only two terms of three months in territorial army. There are about half a million youths liable to conscription annually. To this number is to be added about 100,000 postponed cases. (In 1917, 47,324 students, 32,263 abroad, 15,920 whereabouts unknown, 5,069 ill, 3,147 criminal causes, 2,477 absentees, family reasons or crime.) Evasions in 1917: convicted, 234; suspected, 1,582. There are two conscription insurance companies with policies issued for 69 million yen. In one place charms against being conscripted are sold—at a shrine. Desertions in 1916 (7 per cent, officers) 956, of which 258 received more than "light punishment." The conscripts suffering from trachoma were 15.3 per cent. and from venereal diseases 2.2 per cent. Heights (1918): under 5 shaku, 10.95 per cent.; 5-5.3 shaku, 53.34 per cent.; 5.3-5.5 shaku, 33.13 per cent.; above 5.5 shaku, 2.58 per cent. In these four classes there was a decrease in height in the first two of .39 per cent. and .57 per cent. respectively and an increase in the second two of .80 per cent. and 15 per cent. respectively.
[ HOKKAIDO HOLDINGS [LXIV].] There are only 28 holdings of more than 1,000 chō, 62 of over 500 chō, 161 over 100 chō and 80 over 50 chō. These large holdings are used for cattle breeding alone. There are no more than 620 holdings over 20 chō and only 6,756 over 10. The number over 5 chō is 51,877, and over 2 chō 62,015. Under the area of 2 chō there are as many as 40,928. Few of the largest holdings are worked as single farms. They are let in sections to tenants.
[ CLAUSES IN A TENANT'S CONTRACT [LXV].] (1) The tenant must make at least 1 chō of paddy every year. (2) Rent rice must be the best of the harvest, but the tenant may pay in money. (3) In the following cases the owner will give orders to the tenants: (a) If tenants do not use enough manure, (b) If there is disease of plants or insect pests, (c) If the tenant neglects to mend the road or other necessary work is neglected. (4) The owner will dismiss a tenant: (a) If the tenant does not pay his rent without reason, (b) If the tenant is neglectful of his work or is idle, (c) If the tenant is not obedient to the owner and does not keep this contract faithfully. (d) If the tenant is punished by the law. (5) When tenants leave without permission of absence more than twenty days the owner can treat as he will crops or buildings. (6) In the following cases the tenant must provide two labourers to the owner: mending road, drainage canal or bridges; mending water gate and irrigation canal; when necessary public works must be undertaken.
[ CULTIVATED AREA AND LIVESTOCK [LXVI].] The area of cultivated land in Japan (counting paddy and arable) was, in 1919, 15,179,721 acres (6,071,888 chō). The number of animals kept for tillage purposes was 1,199,970 horses and 1,036,020 homed cattle. The total number of horses in the country was only 1,510,626 and of horned cattle, excluding 207,891 returned as "calving" and 12,761 as "deaths," 1,307,120. Sheep, 4,546; goats, 91,777; swine, 398,155. The number of horned cattle slaughtered in the year was 226,108. Some 86,800 horses were also slaughtered. In Great Britain (arable, pasture and grazing area, 63 million acres) there were, in 1919, 11 million cattle, 25 million sheep, 3 million pigs and 1¾ million horses.
[ EGGS AND POULTRY [LXVII].] Even with the assistance of a tariff on Chinese eggs and of a Government poultry yard, which distributes birds and sittings at cost price, there were in 1919 14,105,085 fowls and 11,278,783 chickens. There was an importation of 3½ million "fresh" eggs.
[ MEAT CONSUMPTION [LXVIII].] The present meat consumption by Japanese is uncertain, for there were in 1920 [a][A]] 3,579 foreign residents and 22,104 visitors, and there is an exportation of ham and tinned and potted foods. The number of animals slaughtered in 1918 was: cattle and calves, 226,108; horses, 86,800; sheep and goats, 9,587; swine, 327,074. Someone said to me that "the nutritious flesh of the horse should not be neglected, for the farmer is able to digest tough food."
[A] In 1921 as many as 24,000 foreigners landed in nine months.
[ TUBERCULOSIS IN THE MILLS [LXIX].] When we remember early and mid-Victorian conditions in English mills and the conditions of the sweat shops in New York and other American cities (vide "Susan Lenox"), we shall be less inclined to take a harsh view of industrial Japan during a period of transition. But it is to the interest of the woollen industry no less than that of its workers that the fact should be stated that a competent authority has alleged that 50 per cent. of the employees in the mills suffer from consumption and that many girls sleep ten in a room of only ten-mat size. Improvements have been made lately under the influence of legislation and enlightened self-interest—the president of the largest company is a man of foresight and public spirit—but when I was in Japan, as I recorded in the New East at the time, girls of 13 and 14 were working 11-hour day and night shifts in some mills.
[ WOOLLEN FACTORIES [LXX].] In the Japanese woollen factory the cost of the hands is low individually, but expensive collectively. An expert suggested that it takes half a dozen of the unskilled girls to do the work of an English mill-girl. It is much the same with male labour. "An English worker may be expected to produce work equal to the output of four Japanese hands." Labour for heads of departments is also difficult to get. There are textile schools and probably a hundred men are graduated yearly. But the men are not all fitted for the jobs which are vacant. Therefore, one finds a man acting as an engineer who, because of his lack of technical experience, is unable to exercise sufficient control over the men in his charge. A curiosity of the industry is the high wages which many men of this sort command. They are really being paid better for inferior work than skilled men in England. The capital of the factories in 1918 was 46½ million yen with 32¾ million paid up. Before the War the companies made 8 per cent, as against the 2½ per cent, which contents the English manufacturer, who has often side lines to help his profits. There was more than 100 million yen invested in the woollen textile business, manufacturing and retail. The industry did well during the War by supplies of cloth to Russia and of yarn and muslin to countries which ordinarily are able to supply themselves. In 1918 the production (woollen fabrics and mixtures) was valued at 85 million yen (muslin, 32; cloth, 21; serges, 19; blankets, 3; flannel, 1; others, 8). The imports of wool were 60 million and of yarn 251,000. In 1919 the figures were 61 million and 710,000 respectively. In 1920 the exports were: woollen or worsted yarns, 1,437,926 yen; woollen cloth and serges, 3,019,382 yen; blankets, 1,024,540 yen; other woollens, 548,922 yen. The Nippon Wool Weaving Company, which in 1921 distributed a 20 per cent, ordinary and 20 per cent. extraordinary dividend, has 15 foreign experts.