The Foundations of Japan Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL, p. 124.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE, p. 136]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS, p. 158]

The Inst.i.tute devotes itself to mulberries, silk-worms and silk manufacture. There are 200 students, as many as it will hold. The young men become teachers of sericulture, advisers in mills and experts of co-operative sericultural societies. The inst.i.tution, in addition to the fees it receives and its earnings from its own products, some 33,000 yen in all, has an annual Government subsidy of about 114,000 yen. There are other sericultural colleges doing similar work in Tokyo and Kyoto, and there is also in the capital the Imperial Sericultural Experiment Station (with a staff of 87), where I saw all sorts of research work in progress. This experiment station has half a dozen branches scattered up and down the silk districts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME OF THE SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA. p. 161]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLAGE a.s.sEMBLY-ROOM. p. 133]

At Ueda I went through corridors and rooms, sterilised thrice a year, to visit professors engaged in a variety of enquiries. One professor had turned into a kind of beef tea the pupae thrown away when the coc.o.o.ns are unwound; another had made from the residual oil two or three kinds of soap. The usual thing at a silk factory is for the pupae, which are exposed to view when the silk is unrolled from the scalded coc.o.o.ns, to lie about in horrid heaps until they are sold as manure or carp food. The professor declared that his product was equal to a third of the total weight of the pupae utilised, and was sure that it could be sold at a fifteenth of the price of Western beef essences.

The Director of the College had tried the product with his breakfast for a fortnight and avowed that during the experiment he was never so perky.

It was a pleasure to look into the well-kept dormitories of the students, where there was evidence, in books, pictures and athletic material, of a strenuous life. The young men are made fit not only by _judo_, fencing, archery, tennis and general athletics, but by being sent up the mountains on Sundays. The men are kept so hard that at the open fencing contest twice a year the visitors are usually beaten. The director quoted to me Roosevelt's "Sweat and be saved."

From men we went to machines and mulberries. I inspected all sorts of hot chambers for killing coc.o.o.ns. I saw, in rooms draped in black velvet like the pictured scenes at a beheading, silk testing for l.u.s.tre and colour. I gazed with respect on many kinds of winding and weaving machinery. Then, going out into the experiment fields, I strode through more varieties of mulberry than I had imagined to exist. There are supposed to be 500 sorts in the country but many are no doubt duplicates. The varieties differ so much in shape and texture of leaf that the novice would not take some of them for mulberries.

It was held that it would not be difficult to increase the mulberry area in j.a.pan by another quarter of a million acres. The yield of leaves might be raised by 3,300 lbs. per acre if the right sort of bushes were always grown and the right sort of treatment were given to them and to the soil. As to the additional labour needed for an extended sericulture, the annual increase in the population of j.a.pan would provide it. I was told that "the technics of sericulture are sure to improve." It would be easy to raise the yield 2 _kwan_ per egg card for the whole country. Within a seven-year period the production of coc.o.o.ns per egg card had become 20 per cent. better. The talk was of doubling the present yield of coc.o.o.ns. The "proper encouragement"

needed for doubling the production of coc.o.o.ns was more technical instruction and more co-operative societies. There had been a continual rise in the world's demand for silk and there was no need to fear "artificial silk." "People who buy it often come to appreciate natural silk." And I read in an official publication that "the climate of j.a.pan is suitable for the cultivation of mulberry trees from south-west Formosa to Hokkaido in the north."

FOOTNOTES:

[139] For statistics of sericulture, see Appendix x.x.xIX.

[140] She is examined microscopically in order to make sure that she was not affected by infectious disease.

CHAPTER XVIII

"GIRL COLLECTORS" AND FACTORIES

(NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

At your return show the truth.--FROISSART

I visited factories in more than one prefecture. At the first factory--it employed about 1,000 girls and 200 men--work began at 4.30 a.m., breakfast was at 5 and the next meal at 10.30. The stoppages for eating were for a few minutes only. A cake was handed to each girl at her machine at 3. Suppertime came after work was finished at 7.[141]

No money was paid the first year. The second year the wages might be 3 or 4 yen a month. The statement was made that at the end of her five years' term a girl might have 300 yen, but that this sum was not within the reach of all.[142] The girls were driven at top speed by a flag system in which one bay competed with another and was paid according to its earnings. Owing to the heat the flushed girls probably looked better in health than they really were. They were fat in the face, but this could not be regarded as an indication of their general well-being. It was admitted that some girls left through illness. Employees returned to their homes for January and February, when the factory was closed down; there was also three days' holiday in June. In the dormitory I noticed that each girl had the s.p.a.ce of one mat only (6 ft. by 3 ft.). Twenty-two girls slept in each dormitory. The men connected with this factory were low-looking and shifty-eyed.

An agricultural expert who was well acquainted with the conditions of silk manufacture and of the district and was in a disinterested position told me after my visit to this factory how the foremen scoured the country for girl labour during January and February. The success of the _kemban_ or girl collector was due to the poverty of the people, who were glad "to be relieved of the cost of a daughter's food." Occasionally the _kemban_ had sub-agents. The mill proprietors were in compet.i.tion for skilled girls, and money was given by a _kemban_ intent on stealing another factory's hand.

The novices had no contract. The contract of a skilled girl provided that she should serve at the factory for a specified period and that if she failed to do so, she should pay back twenty times the 5 yen or whatever sum had been advanced to her. Obviously 100 yen would be a prohibitive sum for a peasant's daughter to find. The amount of the workers' pay was not specified in the contract. The doc.u.ment was plainly one-sided and would be regarded in an English court as against public policy and unenforceable. Married women might take an infant with them to the factory. In more than one factory I saw several thin-faced babies.

The effect of factory life on girls, a man who knew the countryside well told me, was "not good." The girls had weakened const.i.tutions as the result of their factory life and when they married had fewer than the normal number of children. The general result of factory life was degeneration. The girls "corrupted their villages."

The custom was, I understood, that the girls were kept on the factory premises except when they could allege urgent business in town. But they were allowed out on the three nights of the _Bon_ festival. It was rare that priests visited the factories and there were no shrines there. The girls had sometimes "lessons" given them and occasionally story-tellers or gramophone owners amused them. The food supplied by some factories was not at all adequate and the girls had to spend their money at the factory tuck-shops. "Most proprietors," I was told, "endeavour to make part of their staff permanent by acting as middlemen to arrange marriages between female and male workers." The infants of married workers were "looked after by the youngest apprentices."

In another place I saw over a factory which employed about 160 girls, who were worked from 5:30 a.m. to 6:40 p.m. with twenty minutes for each meal. If a girl "broke her contract" it was the custom to send her name to other factories so that she could not get work again. The foremen at this establishment seemed decent men.

One who had no financial interest in the silk industry but knew the district in which this second factory stood said that "many girls"

came home in trouble. The peasants did not like "the spoiling of their daughters," but were "captured in their poverty by the idea of the money to be gained." Undoubtedly the factory life was pictured in glowing colours by the _kemban_.

In a third factory there were more than 200 girls and only 15 men. The proprietor and manager seemed good fellows. I was a.s.sured that it was forbidden for men workers to enter the women's quarters, but on entering the dormitory I came on a man and woman scuffling. The girls of this factory and in others had running below their feet an iron pipe which was filled with steam in cold weather. On some days in July, the month in which I visited this factory, I noticed from the temperature record sheet that the heat had reached 94 degrees in the steamy spinning bays, where, unless the weather be damp, it was impossible, because of spinning conditions, to admit fresh air. I saw a complaint box for the workers. As in other factories, there was a certain provision of boiled water and ample bathing accommodation. Hot baths were taken every night in summer and every other night in winter. Here, as elsewhere, though many of the girls were pale and anaemic, all were clean in their persons, which is more than can be said of all Western factory hands. Work began at 4 a.m. and went on until 7 p.m. From 10 to 15 minutes were allowed for meals. The winter hours were from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In this factory, as in others, there was a system of tallies, showing to all the workers the ranking of the girls for payment. The standard wage seemed to be 20 sen a day, and the average to which it was brought by good work 30 sen. There were thirty or more girls who had deductions from their 20 sen. Apprentices were shown as working at a loss. Once or twice a month a story-teller came to entertain the girls and every fortnight a teacher gave them instruction. When I asked if a priest came I was told that "in this district the families are not so religious, so the girls are not so pious." Two doctors visited the factory, one of them daily. Counting all causes, 5 per cent. of the girls returned home. The owner of the factory, a man in good physical training and with an alert and kindly face, said the industry succeeded in his district because the employers "exerted themselves"

and the girls "worked with the devotion of soldiers." I thought of a motto written by the Empress, which I had seen at Ueda, "It is my wish that the girls whose service it is to spin silk shall be always diligent." Behind the desk of this factory proprietor hung the motto, "Cultivate virtues and be righteous."

The fourth factory I saw seemed to be staffed entirely with apprentices who were turned over to other factories in their third year. The girls appeared to have to sleep three girls to two mats. In the event of fire the dormitory would be a death-trap. I was told that there was an entertainment or a "lecture on character" once a week.

The motto on the walls of this factory was, "Learning right ways means loving mankind."

I went over the factory which belonged to the largest concern in j.a.pan and had 10,000 hands. The girls were looked after in well-ventilated dormitories by ten old women who slept during the day and kept watch at night. There was a fire escape. All sorts of things were on sale at wholesale prices at the factory shop, but for any good reason an exit ticket was given to town. The dining-room was excellent. There was a hospital in this factory and the nurse in the dispensary summarised at my request the ailments of the 35 girls who were lying down comfortably: stomachic, 12; colds, 7; fingers hurt by the hot water of the coc.o.o.n-soaking basins, 5; female affections, 4; nervous, 2; eyes, rheumatism, nose, lungs and kidneys, 1 each. The average wages in this factory worked out at 60 yen for 9 months. The hour of beginning work was 4:30 at the earliest. The factory stopped at sunset, the latest hour being 6:30. I was a.s.sured that of the girls who did not get married 70 per cent. renewed their contracts. A large enclosed open s.p.a.ce was available in which the girls might stroll before going to bed. The motto of the establishment was, "I hear the voice of spring under the shadow of the trees." In reference to the new factory legislation the manager said that the hours of labour were so long that it would be some time before 10 hours a day would be initiated.[143] This factory and its branches were started thirty years ago by a man who was originally a factory worker. Although now very rich he had "always refused to be photographed and had not availed himself of an opportunity of entering the House of Peers."

I visited several factories the girls working at which did not live in dormitories but outside. At a winding and hanking factory which was airy and well lighted the hours were from 6 to 6. At a factory where the hours were from 4:30 to 7 some reelers had been fined. j.a.panese Christian pastors sometimes came to see the girls, and on the wall of the recreation room there were paper _gohei_ hung up by a Shinto priest.

I got the impression that the girls in the factories at Kofu in Yamanashi prefecture were not driven so hard as those at the factories in the Suwas in Nagano. Someone said: "However the Suwa people may exploit their girls, we are able, working shorter hours and giving more entertainments, to produce better silk, for the simple reason that the girls are in better condition. We can get from 5 to 10 per cent. more for our silk." A factory manager said that it would be better if the girls had a regular holiday once a week, but one firm could not act alone. (The factories are working seven days a week, except for festival days and public holidays.)

With regard to the _kemban_, I was told in Yamanashi that many girls went to the factories "unwillingly by the instructions of their parents." It was also stated that the money paid to girls or their parents on their engagement was not properly a gratuity but an advance. I heard that the police keep a special watch on _kemban_.

They would not do this without good reason.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] The times stated are those given to me in the factories. The question of overtime is referred to later in the Chapter.

[142] Again the reader must be reminded of the rise in wages and prices (estimated on p. xxv). During the recent period of inflation, silk rose to 3,000 yen per picul and fell to 1,300 or 1,400 yen. There have been great fluctuations in the wages of factory girls. At the most flourishing period as much as 25 yen per head was paid to recruiters of girls. In this Chapter, however, it is best to record exactly what I saw and heard.

[143] On the day on which I re-read this for the printers, I notice in an American paper that one of the largest employers of labour in the United States has just stated that he did not see his way to abolish the twelve-hours' day.

CHAPTER XIX

"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE

The psychology of behaviour teaches us that [a country's] failures and semi-failures are likely to continue until there is a far more widespread appreciation of the importance of studying the forces which govern behaviour.--SAXBY

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 pa.s.sing 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 Sat.u.r.day afternoon and her Sunday, her church or chapel, her societies and clubs, her amus.e.m.e.nts and her sweetheart. Her j.a.panese sister has none of this natural life and she has infinitely worse conditions of labour.

It is only fair to remember, however, that the j.a.panese 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.