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 chō 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.