The Foundations of Japan Part 4

_Oct_. 10.--Some plants suffering from bacillus.

It was further noted that the soil was sandy, that cold spring water was percolating through the bottom of the paddy field, that the aeration of the soil was bad and that some plants were laid by wind.

The young farmer appended to his report an excellent plan. He received marks as follows: Method of planting, 15; levelling, 20; provision against insects, 5; general attention, 25; total, 65. Some boys got as many as 99 marks.

A word concerning a Village a.s.sociation for Promoting Morality. One of the things it does is to a.s.semble yearly the whole population, old and young, "in order to get friendly." The police meanwhile keep an eye open for strangers who might take it into their heads to visit the village on that day and help themselves from the houses. I may quote three poems in rough translations from a speech made by a priest at the annual meeting:

The legs of a horse, the rudder of a boat, the pin of a fan, and the sincerity of a man.

Let your heart be pure and true and you need not pray for the protection of the G.o.ds.

The bride brings many things with her to her new home, but one thing more, the spirit of sincerity, will not enc.u.mber her.

After these varied accounts of rural merit, I could not but listen with attention to a tale of village gamblers, the offence of gambling having been "introduced by the excavators on the new railway." First the headman fined a dozen young men. Then he made a raid and found among the village sinners several members of his own council. "The salaried officials were at a loss to know what to do, and proposed to resign. But the headman brought the prisoners together before the whole body of officials. He spoke of the sufferings of the troops in Manchuria and the heroic deaths among them. (It was the time of the Russian war.) 'Lest your offences should come to be known by our soldiers and discourage them,' said the headman, 'I cannot but overlook your conduct.' It is thought that gambling practically ceased from that time."

Local officials have a way of making the most of historic events in order to touch the imagination of their villagers. Many original undertakings were begun, for example, under the inspiration of the Coronation. One village set about raising a fund by a system of taxation under which inhabitants contribute according to the following tariff:

Birth of a child, 10 sen (that is, 2-1/2 d. or 5 cents).

Wedding, 15 sen.

Adoption, 15 sen.

Graduation from the primary school, 10 sen; advanced school, 20 sen.

Teacher or official on appointment, 2 per cent. of salary; when salary is increased, 10 per cent. of increase.

When an official receives a prize of money from his superior, 5 per cent.

Every villager to pay every quarter, 1 sen.

On the basis of this a.s.sessment it is expected that fifty-seven years after the Coronation such a sum will have been acc.u.mulated as will enable the villagers to live rate free. Some villages have thanksgiving a.s.sociations in connection with Shinto shrines. Aged villagers are "respected by being blessed before the shrine and by being given a present." Worthy villagers who are not aged "receive prizes and honour."

More than once when I went to a village I was welcomed first by a parade of the Y.M.A., then by the school children in rows, and finally in the school grounds by two lines of venerable members of an Ex-Public Servants' a.s.sociation. The object of an E.P.S.A. is to strengthen the hands of the present officials and to give honour to their predecessors. A headman explained to me: "If ex-officials fell into poverty or lacked public respect, people would not be inclined to work for the public good. A former clerk in the village office whom everybody had forgotten was working as a labourer. But as a member of the a.s.sociation he was seen to be treated with honour, so the children were impressed. The funeral of such a man is apt to be lonely, but when this man died all the members of the a.s.sociation attended his funeral in ceremonial dress and offered some money to his memory.[23]

His honour is great and the villagers say, 'We may well work for the public benefit.'"

Every village in j.a.pan has a Village Agricultural a.s.sociation. One V.A.A., which belongs to a village of less than 6,000 people, sees the fruit of its labours in the existence of "322 good manure houses." The gift of a plan and the grant of a yen had prompted the building of most of them. Then the organisation incites its members to cement the ground below their dwellings. This is not so much for the benefit of the farmer and his family as for the welfare of their silkworms. A fly harmful to silkworms winters in the soil, but it cannot find a resting-place in concrete.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WIDE EXPANSE OF ADJUSTED RICE-FIELDS. p. 71]

A word may also be said about the way in which silkworm rearers have been induced by the V.A.A. to keep the same breed of caterpillar, so facilitating bulking of coc.o.o.ns at the a.s.sociation's co-operative sales. A small library of silkworm-culture books has been started in the village, and there is a special pamphlet for young men which they are urged to keep in "their pockets and to study ten minutes each day." A general library has 2,400 volumes divided into eight circulating libraries. The cost of the building which provides the library in chief, a meeting hall and also a storehouse for coc.o.o.ns has been defrayed by the commissions charged for the co-operative sale of coc.o.o.ns.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIBRARY AND WORKSHED OF A YOUNG MEN'S a.s.sOCIATION. p. 15]

Again, there used to be no cattle in the village, but now, thanks to the purchase of young animals by the a.s.sociation, and thanks to village shows, there are 103.

There is a compet.i.tion to get the biggest yield of rice, and there is also "an exhibition of crops." This exhibition incidentally aims at ending trouble between landlord and tenants due to complaints of the inferiority of the rice brought in as rent. (Paddy-field rent is invariably paid in rice.) These complaints are more directly dealt with by the V.A.A. arbitrating between landlords and tenants who are at issue. In addition to rice crop and cattle shows in the village, there is a yearly exhibition of the prod ucts of secondary industries, such as mats, sandals and hats.

The V.A.A. is also working to secure the planting of hill-side waste.

Some 300,000 tree seedlings have been distributed to members of the Y.M.A., who "grow them on," and, after examination and criticism, plant them out. I must not omit to speak of the V.A.A.s' distribution of moral and economic diaries of the type already referred to. The villagers, in the spirit of boy-scoutism, are "advised to do one good thing in a day." I saw several of these diaries, well thumbed by their authors after having been laboured at for a year. One young farmer noted down on the s.p.a.ce for January 2 that he said his prayers and then went _daikon_[24] pulling, and that _daikon_ pulling (like our mangold pulling) is a cold job.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] There are, however, 11,000 members of Y.M.C.A. in j.a.pan. There is also a Y.W.C.A. with a considerable membership.

[19] See Appendix II.

[20] For official action in regard to the Y.M.A.s, see later.

[21] The damage done by insects is estimated at 10 million yen a year.

In some parts locusts are roasted and eaten.

[22] For an account of the processes of rice cultivation, see Chapter IX.

[23] It is the practical j.a.panese custom to make a gift of money to a family on the occasion of a death. The Emperor makes a present to the family of a deceased statesman.

[24] The giant white radish which reaches 2 or 3 ft. in length and 3 in. or more in diameter. There is also a correspondingly large turnip-shaped sort.

CHAPTER IV

"THE SIGHT OF A GOOD MAN IS ENOUGH"

It has been said that we should emulate rather than imitate them.

All I say is, Let us study them.--MATTHEW ARNOLD

For seven years in succession the men, old, middle-aged and young, who had done the most remarkable things in the agriculture of the prefecture had been invited to gather in conference. I went to this annual "meeting of skilful farmers." Among the speakers were the local governor and chiefs of departments who had been sent down by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Home Office. According to our ideas, everybody but the unpractised speakers--the expert farmers who were called from time to time to the platform--spoke too long. But the kneeling audience found no fault. Indeed, a third of it was taking notes. It was an audience of seeking souls.

One of the impromptu speakers, a white-haired, toil-marked farmer, told how forty years before he had gone to the next prefecture and opened new land. "With his spectacles and moustache," explained the chairman--if the man who takes the initiative from time to time at a j.a.panese meeting may be properly called a chairman--"he looks like a gentleman; but he works hard." And the man showed his hands as a testimony to the severity of his labours.

"It was in the winter," he said, "that I went away from my home and obtained a certain tract of waste. I had no acquaintance near. I brought some food, but when I fell short I had no more. I had gone with my third boy. We lived in a small hut and were in a miserable condition. Then a fierce wind took off the roof. It was at four in the morning when the roof blew off. In February I began to open a rice field. Gradually we got a _cho_. At length I opened another _cho_, but there was much gravel. Some of my newly opened fields are very high up the hill. If you chance to pa.s.s my house please come to see me. The maple leaves are very beautiful and you can enjoy the sight of many birds."

The early meetings of the expert farmers used to last not one day but two, for the men delighted in narrating their experiences to one another. Some of the audience used to weep as the older men told their tales. The farmers would sit up late round a farmer or a professor who was talking about some subject that interested them. The originator of these gatherings, Mr. Yamasaki, told me that he was "more than once moved to tears by the merits and pure hearts of the farmer speakers."

Of the regard and respect which the farmers had for this man I had many indications. Like not a few agricultural authorities, he is a samurai.[25] He is exceptionally tall for a j.a.panese, looks indeed rather like a Highland gillie, and when one evening I prevailed on him to put on armour, thrust two swords in his _obi_ and take a long bow in his hand, he was an imposing figure. He carries the ideals of _bushido_ into his rural work. He does not sleep more than five hours, and he is up every morning at five.

But I am getting away from the meeting. There was a priest who spoke, a man curiously like Tolstoy. (He had, no doubt, Ainu blood in him.) He wore the stiff b.u.t.toned-up jacket of the primary school teacher and spoke modestly. "Formerly the rice fields of my village suffered very much from bad irrigation," he said, "but when that was put right the soil became excellent. In the days when the soil was bad the people were good and no man suspected another of stealing his seal.[26] But when the soil became good the disposition of the people was influenced in a bad way, and they brought their seals to the temple to be kept safe.

"At that time the organiser of this meeting came and made a speech in my village. On hearing his speech I thought it an easy task to make my village good. At once I began to do good things. I formed several men's and women's a.s.sociations, all at once, as if I were Buddha. But the real condition of the people was not much improved. There came many troubles upon me, and our friend wrote a letter. I was very thankful, and I have been keeping that letter in the temple and bowing there morning and evening.

"I began to ask many distinguished persons to help me. They influenced the farmers. The sight of a good man is enough. Speech is unnecessary.

The villagers were not educated enough to understand moralisings or thinking, but the kind face of a good man has efficacy. There was a man in the village who was demoralised, and when I told of him to a distinguished man who lives near our village he sympathised very much.

That distinguished man is eighty-four years old, but he accompanied that demoralised man for three days, giving no instruction but simply living the same life, and the demoralised man was an entirely changed man and ever thankful.

"I am a sinful man. Sometimes it happens that after I have been working for the public benefit I am glad that I am offered thanks. I know it is not a good thing when people express grat.i.tude to me, for I ought not to accept it. When I know I am doing a good thing and expecting thanks, I am not doing a good thing. My thanks must not come from men but from Buddha. I am trying to cast out my sinful feelings.

It must not be supposed that I am leading these people. You skilful farmers kindly come to my village if you pa.s.s. You need not give any speech. Your good faces will do."

But the two speeches I have reported are hardly a fair sample of the discourses which were delivered. The addresses of the earnest Tokyo officials and the Governor were directed towards urging on the farmers increased production and increased labour, and the duty was pressed upon them, as I understood, in the name of the highest patriotism and of devotion to their ancestors. This talk was excellent in its way, but when I got up I hazarded a few words on different lines. If I venture to summarise my somewhat elementary address it is because it furnishes a key to some of the enquiries I was to make during my journeys. I was told the next day that the local daily had declared that my "tongue was tipped with fire," which was a compliment to my kind and clever interpreter, who, when he let himself go, seemed to be able to make two or three sentences out of every one of mine:

I said that my j.a.panese friends kept asking me my impressions, and one thing I had to say to them was that I had got an impression in many quarters of spiritual dryness. I dared to think that some responsibility for a materialistic outlook must be shared by the admirable officials and experts who moved about among the farmers.

They were always talking about crop yields and the amount of money made, and they unconsciously pressed home the idea that rural progress was a material thing.

But the rural problem was not only a problem of better crops and of greater production. Man did not live by food alone. Tolstoy wrote a book called _What Men Live By_, and there was nothing in it about food. Men lived not by the number of bales of rice they raised, but by the development of their minds and hearts. It might be asked if it was not the business of rural experts to teach agriculture. But a poet of my country had said that it took a soul to move a pig into a cleaner sty. It was necessary for a man who was to teach agriculture well to know something higher than agriculture. The teacher must be more advanced than his pupils. There must be a source from which the energy of the rural teacher must be again and again renewed. There must be a well from which he must be continually refreshed and stimulated. Some called that well by the name of religion, unity with G.o.d. Some called it faith in mankind, faith in the destiny of the world, that faith in man which is faith in G.o.d. But it must be a real belief, not a half-hearted, shivering faith.

Agriculture was not only the oldest and the most serviceable calling, it was the foundation of everything. But the fact must not be lost sight of that agriculture, important and vital though it was, was only a means to an end. The object in view was to have in the rural districts better men, women and children. The highest aim of rural progress was to develop the minds and hearts of the rural population, and in all discussion of the rural problems it was necessary not to lose in technology a clear view of the final object.