The governor says in his message: "I was early convinced that the establishment of licensed quarters in the city was harmful to the public interest. It has been a subject of discussion in Wakayama now for many years, and I have investigated the question thoroughly from the standpoint of public morals, health, and economics, at places with and without licensed quarters, and find that the existence of such institutions is distinctly harmful. The standard of morals is lowered, the public health impaired, disease made rampant, the young are sent into wrong channels, homes are broken up, and extravagance is encouraged. The state of affairs in Shingu, in this prefecture of Wakayama, where licensed houses have been established, clearly shows that the existence of such places is extremely harmful to public interest. The majority representation to the authorities urged the establishment of licensed quarters on the ground that the quarters would promote the prosperity of that section of the city in which they were situated. It is true they may benefit a section of the city in one way, but the benefit so obtained would be offset by many other evils. The military authorities are strongly opposed to the establishment of licensed quarters, and their views are very reasonable. For these reasons I have decided to refuse permission for the establishment of licensed quarters in Wakayama city."[7]
[7] ] As translated by the Japan Chronicle, May 13, 1911.
In passing, it is worthy of record that the prefecture of Joshu has for over thirty years, by ceaseless vigilance, prevented government sanction of prostitution. Repeatedly has the battle been fought and repeatedly have the anti-brothel forces won. In this respect Joshu stands alone among the forty-eight prefectures of the Japanese empire.
As illustrating the low moral ideals prevailing among a certain class of men, Professor Abe of Waseda University, in a recent brothel-abolition speech, told of a certain politician who, though a fast liver, was praised because he never debauched the wives and daughters of his friends, but always confined himself to those women whose services he fully paid for in hard cash! Colonel Yamamuro, the highest Japanese officer in the Salvation Army, on the same evening, speaking of the low moral ideals of the classes from which prostitutes are drawn, said that in connection with the Salvation Army he had had opportunity to know of twelve hundred girls who had been aided in the two rescue homes of the Army. Of these twelve hundred about one half had been prostitutes. The reasons given by them for leaving were various, such as ill health, cruelty, lovers, but not one said she left the business because it was wrong. The evidence is full and convincing that a considerable section of the Japanese people do not regard loose sexual relations as particularly immoral.
In regard to the statistics of prostitutes, the figures given by Mr. Murphy are probably the most accurate available, and are substantially official. Between 1887 and 1897 the number of prostitutes increased from 27,559 to 47,055, reaching their maximum in 1899, when there were 52,410. Then, following up the work of Mr. Murphy and the Salvation Army, came the "cessation movement," reducing the number to 40,195 in 1901, and the following year to 38,676. Since that date the number has grown. In two years four thousand fresh girls were bought up, and a thousand more the following year. The latest statistics are those for 1906, when the number of prostitutes was reported as 44,542. It is safe to say that at the present time the number is near, if it has not passed, the fifty thousand mark.
It would be natural to suppose that recruits for the geisha and shogi occupations would be found largely among the poorest farmers, but both my outdoor man and also my cook assert that such is not the fact. "Farmers would never sell their daughters for such vile purposes, however poor they might become. Parents who do such things are only the degenerate creatures who live in cities," is the scornful remark of my gardener. My cook asserts the same thing, and adds that farmers' daughters have not the genteel features and figures nor the light complexion essential to girls seeking such occupations. Other investigations confirm these assertions. The great cities of Nagoya and Niigata, and indeed the whole of Echigo, are famous for the supply of girls they send to the brothels of Tokyo. A poor man with several daughters has a pretty good investment, and rejoices more at the birth of a girl than of a boy, because it means an early and definite income.
I found at one time in Matsuyama that all the girls of sixteen to eighteen years of age in a certain poor quarter had, in the course of one year, been sold off to the brothels. About that time a man came to me with a pitiful story of poverty; he had five children, but unfortunately they were all boys; had they been girls, he said, he might have sold some of them and so not have needed to ask my aid!
The word used in connection with both geisha and prostitutes is perfectly frank; no effort is made to conceal by terms the nature of the transaction. The girls are "bought" and "sold." They employ the same words as those used in buying and selling animals, food, clothing—anything. Their purchase and sale is a regular business in which men and women openly engage, traveling the country over in search of girls, and conducting them in small groups to the keepers of brothels, who pay so much a head. And this takes place in civilized Japan! Moreover, in spite of the fact that girls may thus be bought, it is true that they are also occasionally stolen. I have known of a pitiful instance where the girl, a member of a respectable family, was boxed and shipped on a steamer as freight, to elude the police, and taken to Siam. In five years she has succeeded in getting one letter to her home, but the parents dare not put the matter into the hands of Japanese officials, as that would make the situation hopeless.
But Occidentals may not forget how terrible a scourge is commercialized vice in civilized and so-called "Christian" Europe, and who has not heard of the "white slavery" of America, with its stealing of girls and young women for purposes of prostitution? The institution of comparisons between nations and individuals is alike odious,—but unavoidable. A fair comparison would seem to be that, whereas in the West the moral sense of a large proportion of the people is very strongly against the social evil and seeks to abolish it, in Japan the moral sense of the mass of the population acquiesces in the situation, so that the government and a vast majority of the influential people of the land unite to make the business safe, legal, and remunerative; and that, while in Occidental Christian lands no girl can voluntarily enter this sphere of life without being conscious of its shame and immorality, many of the girls of Japan may have no adequate knowledge of these inevitable consequences until their fate has been sealed.