The Rising Tide in Japan
JAPAN, revisited after the interval of the war, seems at first glance less changed by its share in that experience than we might anticipate. To be sure, tall gantry cranes, straddling aloft from new shipyards, are the first objects to greet the eye of a person approaching Yokohama or Kobe from the sea. Motor-cars, which used to be sporadic, show signs of becoming conventionally epidemic. Spindly iron factory stacks are more numerous and more obtrusively smoky than a few years ago. Occidental and half-occidental buildings have multiplied, until one catches an occasional street vista that reveals hardly a suggestion of the Orient. But these changes were coming so rapidly before the war, — they repeat so exactly what occurred during previous periods of absence, — that they do not appear extraordinary.
It is the shock to the visitor’s purse that first reminds him of a real and unprecedented transformation. Prices have mounted faster than even in New York or London. No longer is Japan a land where our pleasure in the exotic is heightened by the impression that we are getting it at a bargain. Rickshaws now cost more than cabs used to cost in Europe. The better shops maintain Fifth Avenue prices. At the hotels Russian refugees, lucky enough to have escaped from their country with welllined pockets, Japanese millionaires and profiteers, and war-enriched spenders from every obscure corner of the Orient, compete for the best accommodations. The white race has ceased to be the sole plutocratic caste in public places. It is being elbowed out of its previous exclusive haunts by Oriental competitors, who can pay liberally for what they want, and who rejoice in their purse-power.
Yet in respect to prices Japan is merely copying the rest of the world. Like ourselves and like Europe, she is on the crest of a wave of currency inflation — in the heyday of greenback and shin-plaster prosperity. A brief chill shot through business circles with the Armistice; but this merely heightened the fever that followed, when it was found that peace hath its profits as well as war. Factories are still flooded with orders. Industrial earnings sometimes reach cent per cent upon the investment. But lust for gain outruns even this generosity of fortune. Promoters and speculators throng the exchanges, grasping at golden visions that spurn percentages. Everyone would dip his bucket into the stream of easy money that flows by so lightly, and draw out an immediate fortune.
A dispassionate stranger naturally asks, ‘Where is the physical wealth of which these millions and billions of stocks and bonds and bank-notes are the tokens?’ It is not displayed in Japan’s show-window. To be sure, the country emerged from the war with more ships, factories, industrial skill, and commercial experience than before. It has accumulated substantial credits abroad which strengthen its foreign exchange and which will eventually be paid in cotton, wool, and steel, and in machinery to manufacture them. These are real assets. But against them are such set-offs as depleted mines, worn machinery, and that maladjustment of factory equipment to peace needs that always follows war. Large as the credit balance is, moreover, paper titles to wealth have multiplied faster than wealth itself. Part of Japan’s apparent prosperity is fictitious. It is based upon capitalizing a state of mind — upon anticipation rather than attainment.
Nevertheless, fictions shape history — both economic and political. For the time being make-believe wealth exchanges for real luxuries and begets extravagance. It thus increases the actual scarcity created by the war. Even the workingman, whose two yen now buy less than one yen bought before, spends with a more liberal gesture.
These familiar phenomena — high prices, a class of newly rich, and a growing thirst for luxury — are accompanied, as they are in Western lands, by increasing social unrest and a sullen murmur from the proletariat. This is the most significant effect of the war upon Japan.
For several years occasional outbursts of local discontent have issued from the sombre army of industrial workers. But they were very local and very transitory, though sometimes briefly violent. In the past, also, educated enthusiasts from the middle classes now and then set up some idol of radical social theory, fished from the stream of Western learning, and worshiped it with the devotion of halfcomprehension. For even the educated Japanese have no historical background of native industrial history by which to interpret social conditions until recently peculiar to western Europe. In their country a ready-made factory system was thrust upon a feudal society unprepared to receive it. The peasants still look at life much as Europeans did in the twelfth century. Feudal loyalty, clan and guild bonds, the superstitions and prejudices and sentiments of an older era, dominate their thought. Indeed, Japan is full of just such contrasts as Mark Twain describes in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Nothing else could have disintegrated this society so rapidly as the factory system. It transferred millions of people from the unprogressive labor of the paddy-fields to hives of modern industry. It created almost over-night a new wage-earning class, recruited from peasants and fishermen. In 1887 there were just over 100,000 factory employees in Japan. Thirty years later their number had multiplied nearly fourteen-fold.
Rustic habits and traditions determined the customs and the standard of living of the first generation of industrial operatives. The only protest they knew against oppressive conditions of employment was a sudden flare of temper — a rural labor riot transferred to a factory. A very large proportion of these workers were young women and girls, brought by labor agents directly from the parental discipline of peasant homes to the still stricter discipline of mill boardinghouses. It took a full generation to transform these simple-minded, transplanted country folk into an urban industrial proletariat. Of recent years the population of Japan’s five largest manufacturing cities and their suburbs has grown thirteen times as rapidly as the population of the country as a whole. This is where the educated leaders of the working people now begin to get an intelligent hearing from the masses.
The individualist philosophy of modern capitalism was grasped sooner by the propertied classes than by the workingmen. During the interval the former took excess profits from the caste subordination of the latter. Excessively long hours and low pay were almost universal. These conditions begot a numerous progeny of social evils, which finally aroused the conscience of men of better instincts and alarmed patriots by the threat of national decadence. Many of the old landed aristocrats, who looked with scant favor upon the rising industrial plutocracy, patronized the new ideas thus engendered. So the vague aspirations of the masses were seconded by the good intentions of would-be benefactors. But aspirations and intentions are not remedies. Nor is there a visible limit to the present dispute and bewilderment as to what the remedies should be. Meanwhile the people want action.
Therefore the present speculative and industrial climax finds the field ploughed and harrowed for the seed of popular unrest. Indeed, such seed of an earlier sowing has long been silently germinating. Some ten years ago an earlier period of Socialist propaganda culminated in an alleged conspiracy against the government. Twelve leaders of the movement were executed, after a secret trial, and an equal number were sentenced to life imprisonment. As a result of these severe measures, peripheral symptoms of discontent ceased for a time, but the state of sentiment they disclosed seems to have made continuous headway beneath the surface of society. Quiet but bitter allusions to the ‘martyrs of 1910’ were recently heard on more than one occasion from intelligent Japanese.
Nor is this discontent confined to wage-earners. Inflation and mounting prices have imposed hardships upon salaried people — students, teachers, writers, clerks, and petty officials — quite as severe as in our own country; indeed, more severe. For before the war prices were rising more rapidly in the Orient than in the Western world, partly as a result of successful wars and a changing standard of living; so that the disparity between the cost of living and fixed incomes was already serious when the present sky-rocketing began. The effect upon the Japanese has been precisely the same as in Europe and America. The lower bourgeoisie and the intellectual proletariat have become radical-minded.
At the same time the sweep toward democracy — both political and industrial — which attended the war, is carrying with it both the laboring and the middle classes.
This trend is indicated by the recent multiplication of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and larger works devoted to social and labor questions. Standard periodicals are filled with articles on the same topics. It is not exceptional for two thousand laboring men and women to assemble, — and to pay an admission fee as large as would be demanded at a place of popular entertainment, — in order to hear these subjects discussed. Three separate translations of Karl Marx’s writings are announced for publication. A veteran university professor, long known as a scholarly exponent of academic Socialism, remarked in anything but a spirit of self-congratulation, ‘Many, many of our students, even in the Imperial University, sympathize with Bolshevism. Yes, some of them are secretly outright Bolshevists.’
This youthful radicalism may be but a passing fancy, inspired by the social upheaval of the war. But there is a deeper current of democratic sentiment, of which such surface eddies are only the transient and superficial symptoms. This current is carrying the working people into trade-unionism and a class-conscious labor movement, and the middle classes into a new liberalism, which may make their country a very different influence in awakening the Orient from that which we have hitherto contemplated.
Japan is still in great measure a military-bureaucratic autocracy, operating under constitutional parliamentary forms. Authority does not reside in the people or in their representatives. The franchise, though recently extended, is even now limited to a minority of adult male citizens. Agitation for universal suffrage forms part of the present liberal movement. But even were everyone allowed to vote, it is doubtful whether parliament would make its power effective over the well-intrenched ruling classes. The spirit of political self-assertion, like the spirit of labor self-assertion, is waxing stronger — but it is as yet rather a storm-warning than the storm itself.
Nevertheless, public sentiment already controls the course of government more than it ever did before. That sentiment is turning away from the military ideals which until recently held the place of honor in the hearts of the people. Last year the number of applicants for admission to the Academy for training army officers was 1000 less than in 1918, and 2600 less than in 1912; and of the 221 men accepted, 104 later abandoned their right in order to enter civilian institutions of higher learning. A Japanese paper says, ‘It is stated that such a manifestation of the unpopularity of the military profession is a phenomenon unprecedented in the annals of the army authorities.’ To be sure, the salaries of officers are not high, and this may account in part for the preference shown for civilian careers. But the incident accords with other indications that the army caste is losing favor. The people recently demanded that the new governors to be appointed in Korea and Formosa should be civilians. In the second instance they won their point. For the first time since the territorial expansion of Japan began, a man who does not wear an army or navy uniform has been appointed to the highest office in an important dependency. Commenting upon this innovation, a leading paper said, ‘The time may not be distant when the posts of Minister of War and Minister of the Navy will be held by civilians, as has long been advocated by some people in this country.’
If one may judge by the frequency and sharpness of public criticism, the bureaucracy is losing prestige even faster than the army. The disparagement of militarism may be inspired by the results of the war; but the depreciation of the bureaucracy is the outcome of practical exigencies of government. A widely read newspaper in Tokio recently voiced opinions that are heard on every hand: ‘Japan has outgrown her old bureaucratic régime. This is not a question of merit but a question of fact. The real interest of the country is shifting from Tokio to Osaka, from politics to business. The controlling influence is passing from the hands of officials to the hands of capitalists and landlords. Think how the city of Tokio is ruled and owned! This great political metropolis, the seat of bureaucratic culture, the influence which has made Japan what she is to-day, is not run by its numerous officials and its two million inhabitants. Its gas company, for example —’ And we have the beginning of the old familiar story.
So the breaking down of the former political structure, as well as the ancient social structure, under the stress of modern industrialism is turning Japan into paths that may lead to regions of radical experiment. The question now disturbing the country is not how to avoid change, but how to maintain the old authority until a suitable modern authority can take its place. The paper last quoted laments that ‘Japan may be entering an age of the general collapse of discipline.’
That self-determined discipline which is every individual’s voluntary habit of conduct is the most powerful stabilizer of existing institutions. But mass discipline imposed from above, whether by force or by dogma, has exhibited during the present world-crisis a dangerously narrow margin of safety as a stay to the existing order. No man of different nationality can presume to assert to which class the superficially remarkable discipline of the Japanese belongs. But the rice riots in 1918, and certain recent political disturbances, suggest that, during the interval between laying aside an old civilization and adopting a new one, — an interval by no means measured by the surface achievements upon which so many foreigners dilate, — the Japanese are more or less cast loose from all fixed moorings. The fear expressed in the last quotation is not entirely groundless. It is a reason for the spirit of pessimism widely current in Japan today. _
This pessimism betrays itself in every realm of expression, from education to art, — the centre of attraction at a recent exhibition of paintings was entitled ‘Hell,’ — and from public discussion to the intimacy of confidential intercourse. It contrasts like a black shadow with the rosy optimism of golddreaming speculators and promoters. At a recent school meeting a teacher touched a responsive chord among his colleagues by asserting: ‘The spiritual world of Japan is now in a state of unprecedented disorder. Japan is now at the cross-roads.’ The rising generation is out of sympathy with the institutions and ideals of the fathers. Its members look upon the old Japan as immigrant children in America look upon the oldworld customs and standards of their parents. A Japanese commentator upon present conditions says, ‘ It used to be the policy of the educational authorities to force old-fashioned morals upon the pupils, regardless of the spirit of the times. Can such a policy command the respect of the younger generation? It goes without saying that the pupils will no longer accept the imperative or compulsory morals hitherto dictated by the authorities.’ Right here we get a glimpse into the mechanism of Japan’s national discipline.
What is this new critical and disintegrating spirit that possesses Japanese youth? ‘They speak of the “emancipation of school-education,” of the “emancipation of sex,” and of “emancipation from the guardianship of the home.” The proposal to abolish examinations is a sort of emancipation of school-education; opening the doors of private universities to women is the emancipation of sex in education.’ The house shortage, which is acute throughout Japan, is said to be rendered worse by the increasing unwillingness of young married couples to live with the groom’s parents, where the bride is traditionally treated as a superior servant of the family.
Though the old mystic reverence for the Mikado survives, — possibly a little impaired, but not materially weakened, — no rank outside the imperial household is spared the attacks of current iconoclasm. A newspaper — radical, to be sure, but of wide and unchecked circulation — says, bluntly, ‘The peers and the rich are generally more corrupt than the lower classes. Quite true — they had able men among their forefathers. But most of the descendants of the third and fourth generation are mentally and morally inferior to ordinary persons.’
Suddenly acquired war-fortunes have given dramatic prominence to the inequality of wealth, and evidence is at hand of an almost amusing timidity lest the ‘brain proletariat,’ as the Japanese call it, may ponder on this theme too much. One newspaper goes so far as to recommend that the use of motor-cars in large cities be prohibited, because they incite hatred of the poor for the rich. Luxury taxes — though not yet levied — are strongly advocated. The authorities are told that, when one of the commonest books seen in the hands of students on the tram-cars is Das Kapital, it is no time to be dallying with a revenue system which favors the opulent at the expense of the needy.
Doubters and slow believers, wrapped in their preconception of the Japanese as a people who grow up from unvocal babyhood to a maturity spent in adoration of the Mikado and the banner of the rising sun, will naturally ask whether this is not a superficial and passing sentiment, or possibly the teacup fury of excited parlor Socialists, whose knack of getting access to the press enables them to megaphone what are in reality but weak and treble voices. The answer to this is that the hard-headed political and industrial leaders of Japan prove by their acts that they take a serious view of the present state of opinion among their countrymen.
Strikes are shown by government statistics to have multiplied during the past year beyond all precedent; and new labor demands go beyond the question of higher wages. A large factory between Kobe and Osaka displays a sign to the effect that its hands enjoy an eight-hour day. That is the working period already nominally in force in nearly all shipyards and engineering works, and in many factories. ‘Nominally’ means that most employees still voluntarily remain on duty two or three hours additional, tempted by the higher pay for overtime.
Prominent Japanese liberals, imbued with an ancient spirit of beneficent paternalism, have formed a ‘Harmonization Society’ to improve the relations between employers and employees. At their very first meeting they raised $665,000 (yen 1,330,000) for this object; and according to the latest information their subscriptions already exceed half of the proposed endowment of $5,000,000. Parlor Socialists do not frighten dollars into untried lines of service so rapidly as that.
Yet the Japanese labor movement is in its infancy. Such unions as exist, in defiance of the law prohibiting their activities, have no reserve funds, no corps of salaried officials, and no recognized status in wage-negotiations. Their energy is devoted to political agitation, academic discussion of general social problems, and teaching the rank and file of the working people their elementary rights and how to secure them. The usual strike weapon is what the Japanese call ‘sabotage,’ which is something different from the European practice of that name. Strikers keep possession of their place of employment by reporting regularly for duty and drawing wages; but they neither perform useful labor nor permit others to do so. Technically they are safe from police interference, since they commit no overt act of disorder; and they make the factory their lodge hall. They destroy no property, create no disturbance, but exhibit at the same time Quaker-like pacifism and unproductive quiescence. These tactics probably work better in Japan than they would with Western employers. They certainly have proved successful during the present intense industrial activity, high profits, and scarcity of skilled workers.
Equally characteristic of the Japanese is the method of protest they adopted when the government selected a delegate to represent the workers at the International Labor Conference in Washington without consulting the working people themselves. The day the delegate was to sail for America, more than one thousand members of the Yokohama labor organizations assembled at the Seamen’s Association office and formed a procession after the fashion of a funeral cortège, with all the necessary paraphernalia, including an ancestral tablet, incense, shakibi twigs, and the like, and marched to the quay, singing labor songs as they walked.’ Meanwhile large mass meetings to protest against the action of the government were held in Tokio and elsewhere. Some of these were addressed by speakers whose violent remarks landed them in prison.
The government will still resort to strong measures to repress labor agitation — and especially the Socialist movement. But it no longer acts with the old consistency and assurance. Intelligent Japanese, close to high official circles, say frankly that fear of revolution — or something akin to revolution — chills the heart and stays the hands of the authorities. This fear may be exaggerated. It certainly seems so to one who has moved about among the working people and attended their confidential meetings. The ignorant coolie laborers of Japan are still stolid — not people to start anything, or to stop where reason dictates if once started by others. Intelligent and educated workingmen, who are by no means a mere handful, are primarily seeking relief from the intolerable burden of exorbitantly rising prices; but in the course of this effort they are involuntarily acquiring more radical ideas and are learning to promote their interests in new directions. The labor movement is marching in Japan.
But above these people is the ‘ brain proletariat,’ restless, alert, dissatisfied, repressed. It has sympathizers and sentries in every government bureau, factory office, bank, and countinghouse in the Empire. Its sentiments creep into the organs of public opinion in innumerable covert as well as overt ways. It has the ear of the silent thousands who are doing the manual labor of Japan — whose very discipline may become one day a weapon against established institutions. The thought of this brain proletariat has many aspects, — from Buddhist passivism to Bolshevist activism, — but through them all runs the red thread of a new discontent, of criticism of everything that has been and is. It resents even its former prides and affections. An educated Japanese of liberal sympathies illustrated this by declaring, with his usually conventional English rendered picturesque by irritation, ‘These tourists who bubble at the mouth about our cherry-blossoms must have empty heads, or they would see more serious things in Japan to talk about.’