·※※
तमसो माज्योतिर्गमय
SANTINIKETAN
VISWA BHARATI
LIBRARY
95.3
L15
※※※

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·MY
IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN
TARAPQREVAL,
VEL
AOMB

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·ADDRESSING THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

·MY
IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN
BY
SIR LALUBHAI SAMALDAS, KT., C.L.E.
BOMBAY:
D. B. TARAPOREVALA SONS & CO.
HORNBY ROAD, FORT

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·First Edition : 1933
Printed by M. N. Kulkarni, at the Karnatak Printing Press,
318-A Thakurdwar, Bombay 2;
and
Published by Jal H. D. Taraporevala for D. B. Tarapnrevala Sons & Co
"Kitab Mahal," Hornby Road, Fort, Bombay.

·CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 . 5 CHAPTER 1-National Characteristics II_Education 22 III—Industries 49 IV-Agriculture and Sericulture 79 + V-Civics 86 90 VI-Hot Spring Research Hospital VII- Religion VIII-Some Cities and Towns of Japan 96 106 IX-Individuals and Associations . 130 . X-Visit to Other Countries 142 + . APPENDIX A-Indian Labour in Ceylon, 153 .

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·INTRODUCTION
and a
SOME globe-trotters have set the precedent
of publishing their impressions of the
country or countries visited by them. Paget
M. P. was the term invented by Anglo-Indian
publicists to throw ridicule on those Members of
Parliament who visited India fo. two or three
months and criticized the administration of
the country by an irresponsible Government
a bureaucracy composed of Civilians
and others. Such ridicule has not deterred
Several Labour leaders headed by Mr.
Ramsay Macdonald,
the present
Prime
Minister of England, from not only strongly
criticizing the existing Government but from
suggesting reforms in the administration,
based on the British model or in accordance
with the ideals of the Labour Party.
These precedents embolden me to put on
-1-

·INTRODUCTION some paper and give to the English-knowing public of India the impressions I have gathered during my short trip to Japan of the educational, industrial, social and political conditions of that beautiful and progressive country. I am comparing some of them with similar problems in India. If readers feel that on occasions I am extravagant in my praises of the country, I would like I would like to say in defence that according to an English writer on Japan, Mr. Petro Watson, who had stayed in the country for three years : One sees Japan for six weeks and writes a panegyric; one worships the most hideous of the graven images." Another factor which strengthened me in my resolve to write my impressions of Japan was the fact that during my short stay I was granted facilities by Prefectural Governments, city municipalities, chambers of commerce and industry and industrial associations to the working of all institutions or factories that I wanted to visit. On some occasions, their representatives were good enough to accompany me to explain to me any point on which I needed information. At the time, I had opportunities of meeting members of several see same - 2 - ·INTRODUCTION chambers of commerce and other bodies and of discussing with them problems of industrial development, and specially those relating to the abrogation by the Government of India of the Commercial Treaty with Japan and the repercussions such action would have on the existing trade relations between Japan and India. I also tried to know the views of the Indians residing in Japan and doing business with Japanese merchants, regarding the treatment accorded to them in the business-world as well as by the people of Japin in general. Most of these Indians confine their activities to trade and commerce, while there a few individuals who are not strictly businessmen, but are also carrying on some political propaganda to acquaint the Japanese people with the political and economic aspirations of Indians. On the whole, I believe I have been able to understand something of the factors that have contributed to the Nation's industrial and economic progress and have to appreciate their view-point about the present abrogation of the Treaty of Commerce ; and in giving my impressions to the public I shall try to be as fair as it is possible for a foreigner to be in expressing my are also come - 3 -

·INTRODUCTION
analysis of the wonderful progress of that
country within the last sixty years and
in presenting a sketch of the future lines of
its developments.
In conclusion, I desire to take this
opportunity of expressing my very sincere
thanks to all associations and individuals that
rendered me assistance in my visits to various
public institutions and industrial factories.

·CHAPTER I NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS HE cleanliness of men and women and THE specially of the latter, the vast majority of whom still continue to wear their beautiful Kim nos, is sure to attract the attention of any visitor to Japan. Nagasaki was the frst Japanese port that the boat by which I journeyed to Japan touched, and as I had read about its shrine and commercial college I went on shore to see these institutions. I also wanted to see what• impression the first sight of a fairly large Japanese town would have on my mind. As I passed through the somewhat narrow streets of the city, I was agreeably surprised to see each and every woman or girl dressed in clean clothes whose colouring was wellmatched. Even the poorer class of women when carrying their children or their house- -5- ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS or hold requirements wore clean and decent, though sombre coloured dresses. What I first saw of the cleanliness and the artistic temperament of the Japanese women at Nagasaki I also saw in other and larger towns to a greater extent. When I dined at the houses of several Indian friends, the plates were served by a Japanese woman, both a cook and butler at the same time and never have I seen in private Hindu houses cleaner more decently dressed cooks or butlers. The first time that I undertook a long journey in Japan (long for Japan, not at all so for India) was from Kyoto to Tokyo by the Fuji Express. The first class corridor carriages had three or four spittoons fixed on the floor, so that passengers might spit there and throw cigar ends or other paper therein. In addition to these precautions, at the end of two hours man dusted the floor carefully and thew out dirt on to the truck. During a journey of some nine hours another man came in at half the interval to sprinkle water mixed with a disinfectant on the floor. He was followed by another servant to scrub the floor. These acts showed that the authorities wanted the floors of the railway carriages to be clean from a sanitary point of view also. ΟΙ SO one ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS a a At the entrance to all hospitals, schools, dormitories or Japanese restaurants visitors have to take off their shoes at the gates and put on slippers which are kept ready for them. These slippers are also quite clean. In a few institutions visitors are asked to pull on rubber goloshes on their shoes; as result of this arrangement the wooden floors of the institutions or Japanese restaurants art quite clean and without a speck of dirt. We in India, specially the Brahmins, bathe two or three times a day and yet the persons of vast majority of our people do not appear half as clean as those of the Japanese. "The reason for this is probably that a Japanese bathes to remove dirt from the body to make it and keep it clean, while the Brahmin bathes merely to follow the orders of scriptures custom and traditions. Similarly, when entering Hindu temples and in some old Muslim mosques people have to take off their shoes and in some cases stockings too, but this act is done not with the idea of preserving the cleanliness of the inner floors, but because leather shoes would desecrate the sanctity of the place. Very often on coming out of some temples we find our feet or stockings dirtier than when we entered or ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS the sacred place. Many of us speak of cleanliness being next to godliness, but the Japanese act according to that proverb. The artistic temperament of the Japanese is well-known all over the world. Probably the cleanliness mentioned above is but an outward sign of the artistic temperament. The Japanese have kept up the tradition of the past so far as art is concerned. There is a delicacy in their art which perhaps even the students of the Bombay or the Bengal school of art cannot fully appreciate. A long continued stay in Japan and constant touch with their artistic home life will enable an Indian to appraize Japan's art at its correct value. In the work of preservation of artistic tradition, women naturally take the lead, as they are by temperament more artistic than men, and as they do not come so much in touch with the culture and art of the West as the men do, their regard and ' almost reverence for the old traditional art remains unabated till now. While most of the men have discarded the Kimonos as their daily dress during the last 25 years, the women have stuck to their Kimonos and Obis and take very great pains to see that the colour of the one matches with that of the other. -8- ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS own The women either of their accord or under the instructions of the male members of the family, have to learn the details of the tea ceremony which though artistic and charming by itself conveys no meaning to an outsider but which is as necessary for a good housewife's accomplishment as knowledge of music would be considered essential, either in the west or in certain parts of India. A knowledge of correct arrangement of flowers and small twigs is also considered to be a necessary qualification for a good cultured wife. So long as women stick to the old traditional art, men will have to follow suit and art in Japan will continue to hold the same prominent position amongst the nation's distinguishing characterestic that it does at present. As regards politeness of manners, it would be very difficult, I fear, to beat the Japanese. Their low bowing for many times to to one another compares favourably with the salaaming to Indian Princes and to their nobles and high officials. In a book on Japan, I had read that these bowings made a foreigner feel tired after a time. On making enquiries of proper authorities in Bombay I was told that a foreigner need not follow that practice and that in his case ordinary bowing in the ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS English manner would suffice. On coming to the boat and seeing the passengers including ladies bowing to officers and to one another, I felt that I should try to bow in the same manner. After practising it for a few days I had to give it up as I could not bend myself as low, and when I succeeded in doing so I realized that I could not do it half as gracefully as the Japanese and specially the ladies did it. These bowings are, I think, but the outward signs of their innate politeness and should not be taken as mere formal bows. A man who bends himself lower than the other and bows for a greater number of times is considered to be more polite than the other. This may, to our prosaic mentality, appear ridiculous; yet there is no doubt that there is touch of genuineness in this action and there is art also. The Japanese are also, as a rule, or until their fighting passions are awakened, kind at heart. All Indian residents in Japan with whom I came in contact were speaking highly of the kindness and politeness of the Japanese. They also spoke equally highly of the honesty of the masses. Ordinary theft was unknown till the slump in business led to unemployment and even now, as many Indians told me, they could safely sleep without locking the a - 10 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS a doors from inside. The honesty of the servants is of a very high standard. As regards business morality, there was not unanimity amongst my informants, though a very large majority were of opinion that the businessmen were very honest and that if they made contract even by word of mouth they were prepared to stand by it even if it led them into a loss. There was a small minority that disagreed with this point of view. Speaking for myself I can say that from the time I came on the boat at Coloinbo till I left it at Bombay on my return voyage I received uniform kindness from all with whom I came contact. received hospitality from several individuals and associations on whom I had no claim. I feei doubtful if I would be able to extend similar hospitality to them if any of my hosts came to Bombay. It is not that I am by nature less hospitable, but we in India are inferior to the Japanese in methods of extending hospitality. At three hotels I had forgotten something or other. Two hotels sent the articles to my next halt without my having written to them. On the third occasion, (when I had forgotten my through ticket on the table, ) on my speaking to the hotel porter at the station in I our -11- ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS about it the article was sent in such a way that it reached me before I left the next place of my halt. This is a result not of religious or moral instruction given in schools, but because at home and later at schools it is being dinned into the ears of the young Japanese that a true Japanese must have these and other similar qualifications and that one who was found lacking in them was not a true son of the country. The young man has before him living examples of persons who follow these precepts. To be told that he was not a true Japanese was a greater punishment to a person than to be abused or even beaten. That any action of theirs should bring disgrace to their country is in the eyes of the Japanese a greater sin or a greater crime than anything else. As a result of this feeling, whatever work is entrusted to a Japanese is likely to be done honestly and thoroughly. How long this kind of regard for their country's name and reputation will continue in the ordinary citizen's mind God only knows. One can but wish that it will continue for a long long time to come. Japan is nationalist first, nationalist second and nationalist last. Internationalism would, I fear, be considered in Japan to be a crime - 12 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS against the country's interests. The State has also accepted the policy of instilling in the minds of their subjects from their young age, the spirit of deep nationalism and it has had ample justification for doing so. A reference to past history in this connection will not be considered out of place. In the early sixties of the last century, there were two big factions in the State, the Emperor being respected as a nominal head, but practically ignored by both of these parties. As has often happened in the East, each party was supported by one great continental power. There was a possibility of the Indian drama being re-enacted on the Japanese stage. Dr. Nitobe describes the then existing situacion in these words:" Asiatic history teems with examples of foreign aid in internal feuds and of its fatal effect. The Japanese were not familiar with those examples, but the least inkling of an alien shadow would draw the bitterest opponents close together. They perceived at once the White Peril, hanging like the sword of Damocles over their head. Once again did the ominous presence of European powers serve a catalytic purpose in bringing out of an amorphous mass a 'crystalized state.' Fortunately, for Japan, the two fighting sec- - 13 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS tions united in one object, that of the "elevation of the Emperor to the dignity commensurate with his restored status without raising him, as was so often done in the East, above the condition of mortals." The new regime allowed free entry to foreigners, that is the Europeans, but realizing the danger of keeping up the old feudal system in the presence of alien powers, the new Government decided to do away with that system altogether and to nationalize both land and men. In the same way, as the Suoghn had been persuaded to surrender his dominions and troops, the feudal leaders had to be asked to give up their rights and privileges. Be it said to the credit of the nation that "a few of the more prominent feudatories led the way in the work of self-abrogation by voluntarily surrendering their fiefs with the expected result that the rest followed their example.” To consolidate the Empire and to prevent its again being disrupted on account of alien influence, the State had to lay stress on educating the youth in the principles of nationalism. The Charter Oath lays down the object of acquiring knowledge through education as being “to establish on a firm foundation the principle of the nation's Sovereignty.” The - 14 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS education to be given in the schools was not to be for the development of the individual's mind and character in the wider sense of the term, but was to be national education in the narrower sense. “It was to be nation-wide in execution but restricted in ideal." In spite of these definite instructions having been issued in 1872, it was found that the youths on receiving even this kind of education were becoming radical in their views, and so after eighteen years it was deemed necessary for the Emperor in person to issue a Rescript on Education. According to the principle of National Ethics as laid down in the Rescript, "the value of human conduct being gauged by its utility and subservience to the well-being of the Siate, man is viewed the instrument of organized body and hence patriotism and loyalty head the list of virtues.” A man has to be honest not because it is the right thing to do, nor even because it is the best policy, but because it is likely to prove beneficial to the State in the long run. As women are destined to be merely good house-wives and wise mothers they have to be subservient to their fathers to their husbands so that they also may also may indirectly indirectly serve the national cause. Men have developed their as an or - 15 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS men. intellectuality and their capacity for industrialism. They have come in contact with the best brains in industry, commerce and politics, but their women have not had the same opportunities as the The Japanese family life is not modelled on Western ideals and the men do not find in their wives helpers or guides. Though there is nothing like the Purdah, the wives do not mix with their husbands' male friends and as a result the husbands and their friends when they want to have a good time of it or when they want to entertain guests invite them to a Japanese restaurant where Geisha girls act not only as waitresses but as entertainers. This state of things appears anomalous even to Indian; it must be appearing much more so to the Westerner. We in India grant full facilities to girls to receive high an education as the boys, and the number of girl graduates specially in the Arts (fiterature) faculty is increasing year by year. Many of these girls marry after graduation and prove good companions, friends and helpmates to their husbands. Even in less advanced and orthodox Hindu households (I am talking of non-Purdah provinces like Bombay, Madras, and the Maharashtra division of the Central an as - 16 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS one Provinces and Berar) the women are more respected and take greater part in their husbands' social activities than women seem to do in Japan. I had the good fortune of meeting a few Japanese ladies of high social status, most of them being Buddhist, and a very few Christian. I found the girls, both Buddhists and Christians, very decorous in their manners and intellectually on a fairly high status and speaking correct English. The mother cf of the Buddhist girls who did not speak Enguish was very polite and dignified. She compared very well in deporíment to the best orthodox Hindu ladies in India, and was much more polite. The Japanese are thorough in whatever work or activity they undertake. Superficiality is not their vices, thoroughness might be. Whether it is to stamp out man's individuality rather to mould it in accordance with the needs of the Empire, or whether it is to capture the trade and commerce of another country, or whether it is to devciop their agriculture or fisheries, or lastly if it is to advertise the scenic beauties or historical sights of the country, the Japanese show a thoroughseldom noticeable in other nations. olle of Overa or ness - 17 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS me They probably learnt the art of advertising from America and they have carried it to such lengths that foreigners after visiting some of the advertised sights, at times return disappointed. Far be it for to say that this is often the case, but I must say that I have come back rather disillusioned after visits to two or three out of some two dozen places of natural beauty and historic sights. The Japanese also understand the advantages of large combines and they know how to sink their personal interests in the larger interests of the combine which in its turn is working for national ends. They are not easily disheartened by early failurcs but try to find out the causes of the failure and also the means to convert the failure into a success; and if they are satisfied about the efficaciousness of the remedy they are prepired to risk further capital to put matters right. It will suffice to mention one instance in support of this statement. years back, a company under the presidentship of Mr. I. Kabayashi constructed a tramway from Kobe to Osaka. As the number of passengers who took advantage of this tramway was small, the tramway did not pay the cost Some years - 18 - ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS of construction. The proprietors thought that it would be better to have a large place of amusement somewhere between Kote and Osaka so that the inhabitants of both cities might be attracted there as in doing so they would have to pay the fare for travelling to this centre of amusement and thus add to the income of the tramway. They also built a large department stores just near the Osaka terminus of the tramvay and issued season tickets to people in Kobe and other neighbouring towns to enable them to go to the stores as often as they liked to do their shopping. Both these ventures proved so attractive that a very large number of people began to travci by that tramway and now the place of amusement, Takarazan, has become the most popular and modern place of amusement not only in Japan, but in all Asia and one of the best in the world. Both the amusement hills and the stores have proved profitable investment and indirectly they have increased the income of the tramway to such an extent that two more tramlines were constructed between Kobe and Osaka during the last few years. be mentioned that taking into consideration the comfortable cars provided for passengers, which as It may com- -13- ·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS on a pare not unfavourably with the first class carriages the suburban electric line between Bombay and Borivli, the fares are very low being a little higher than the third class fares on the suburban line. Though this indomitable spirit must have come to the modern Japanese as heritage of the past, there is no doubt that the example of the British nation which reſuses to accept defeat from nature or men must have strengthened the innate spirit of the Japanese. In this, as in many other matters, the Japanese have forged ahead of the people from whom they learn their lessons in the beginning. While the Britons take a sort of pride in making mistakes and then somehow or other finding the way to success, the Japanese give greater importance to the necessity of previous thinking out of measures to surmount the difficulties that they might have to face and then go forward well-planned path. Even in becoming more and more imperialistic, Japan is following the example of the other island Empire whosc prosperity naturally acts as a spur to Japan's ambitions. If imitation is the best form of flattery, England should feel on the -20-

·NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
gratified at Japan's trying to follow her
imperialistic policy at perhaps a much more
rapid pace.
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·CHAPTER II
EDUCATION
IN
modern times, the progress of a country's
civilization is gauged by the literacy
of its peoples. The percentage of literacy
in Japan is 99 23 of the total population,
there being a slight difference between the
percentage of men which is 99.32 and
that of women which is 99.15. According to
the above-mentioned test, Japan is in the very
forefront of civilized nations. This result
has been achieved by carrying out in a loyal
spirit the orders contained in the Code of
Education promulgated in 1872, soon after the
emergence of the New Japan in 1868. Within
four years of its coming into existence the new
Government of Japan realised the importance
of introducing compulsory education in the
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·等 GEISHA GIRLS' DANCE

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·EDUCATION Empire and after studying the condition of education in European countries framed the Code of Education on the French model. According to that Code, every child, male and female, irrespective of its social status was obliged to attend school for four years from the age of six to ten. The period was later lengthened to six years ", and when I visited an elementary school at Kobe, I learnt that laicly the period had heen increased to seven years, so that a boy or a girl had to be in an elementary school from the age of six to thirteen years. While the Code of Compulsory Education was introduced in Japan only four years after he beginning of the Meaji regime, Lord Hardinge's Government thougnt it fit to throw out my friend, Mr. G. K. Gokhale's Bill, introduced in the Imperial Legislative Council of the Government of India, over fifty years after the time that the late Queen Empress Victoria took over the administration of the Government of India from the hands of the East India Company. That the representatives of Great Britain which believes in compulsory primary education and that has adopted that system for her own children, should not themselves have adopted the system in the country which was according to the Procla- -23- ·EDUCATION was a a as mation of 1858 to be governed in the interests of Her Majesty's subjects scarcely creditable to the ruling class. It meant that these representatives of the British Government practically ignored the generous meaning of the Proclamation. Their motive in actually opposing Bill brought forward by non-official educationist a representative of the people, cannot be understood by laymen. Uncharitable critics have said that the Government of India feared that by granting compulsory education and by educating the masses, the actions of Government subjects would be liable to examination and criticism, and their authority to rule the country in the way they liked would be seriously questioned and challenged. Even now, some thirty years after Gokhale's Bill was thrown out the condition of primary education, inspite of several Provincial Governments having put on the statute book Compulsory Education Acts, is not satisfactory and the percentage of illiteracy though a little less than before is very high in British India, much. higher than in the advanced Indian States of Cochin, Travancore, Mysore and Baroda. - 24 - ·EDUCATION me one corner. When during my visit to elementary schools at Kobe, I was asked by the Municipal Official who accompanied if we had in the City of Bombay similar buildings and similar teaching, I felt small and humiliated ; and all that I could say was that we had a large number of primary schools in the city under the control of the Schools Committee. The building of the Kobe elementary school that I visited was a decent stone one having two stories and large commodious rooms, and a large compound for games with a small gymnasium in Vhen I went to went to the school, the boys of one class were being photographed and explained the working of the camera. One of the rooms inside the building that drew my special attention was that in which practical lessons in tooth-cleaning were being given to lads of nine or ten years. On one wall there was a set of mirrors fixed so low that the boys could see their faces. Opposite the mirrors were standing the boys with toothbrushes in their hands while on one side was standing the class teacher also with a toothbrush. He then brushed his teeth up, down and sideways saying one, two, three. At first sight, - 25 - ·EDUCATION the whole thing appeared ludicrous, but when I watched the proceedings and saw how seriously the boys were imitating the class teacher, I realised the advantages of giving such practical training in personal cleanliness. The school is meant primarily for boys and though girls are allowed to attend this and similar schools for two or three years, thereafter, they have to go to the girls' elementary schools. Though Japan is very modernized and advanced in industrial and scientific work, she holds orthodox conservative views regarding co-education. When I discussed this question with Dr. Nitobe whom the Right Hon'ble H. A. L. Fisher calls a devoted son of his own country and who also has experience of Western educational systems in America and Europe, he seemed to be doubtful about the advantages of co-education and he added that eminent educationalists in America weie seriously thinking of reconsidering the whole question, as they were not satisfied satisfied with the results so far achieved. For the girls there are elementary schools conducted on lines similar to those of the boys' schools, and there are also girls' high schools, somewhat like our advanced middle schools, where instruction is given chiefly with the object of train- - 26 - ·EDUCATION ing the girls to be good housewives and wise mothers. Domesticity is the ideal held out before girls. Even in the syllabus of education for girls working in mills, the ideal of training them as future housewives, efficient in the management of their husbands and their homes, is always kept in view. Incidentally, I may mention that this education is given free of charge by the mills and includes music, drawing and flower arrangement which to the Japanese is the most necessary part of a girl's education. In one of the so-called girls' high schools which I visited at Kobe, the girls were being taught not only higher arithmetic ind history but were taught painting in water colour on one side and were taught kitchen and laundry work on the other. The kitchen and the washing rooms were quite clean and the girls were given education in steam laundry as well ordinary washing and similarly they were taught cooking with gas stoves and with ordinary stoves. The building of that school substantial one and fitted up with all necessary furniture and was quite clean. That school has a large play ground, where the girls of fourteen and fifteen who appeared much as was а. - 27- ·EDUCATION as bigger than girls of similar age in India were skipping and romping about. They were being taught Japanese dances, and at my request the girls and the teacher showed me their favourite Japanese dance. Both in the elementary boys' schools and the girls' high school I had to take off my shoes at the entrance where clean slippers are kept ready to be worn on taking off the shoes. The floors are wooden ones and are as clean and smooth the floor of a dancing hall. Although school buildings in small towns and villages are not of course as large and commodious nor are they made of stone and mortar, they are, however, usually the finest buildings in that particular town or village and superior to the houses of the residents of these places. This is the result of a praiseworthy desire on the part of each local body to possess a really fine building for its schools. The cost of giving this compulsory education for seven years modern and advanced lines is necessarily very heavy. In the larger cities and towns, the total cost of providing compulsory elementary education comes to eighth of their total revenue, while in the smaller towns and villages it comes to half of the on onerevenue. - 28 - ·EDUCATION In spite of this large expenditure and the earnest desire of the authorities to impart a sound cducation in the three R's, about 10 per cent. of the candidates appearing for the examination at the time of enlistment to the army under conscription, were found to be practically illiterate and this result after six years' training was considered disappointing by the educational authorities. They did not, however, conden.n the system as the authorities do in India when they find that a large percentage of pupils of primary schools forget their alphabets within a few years after leaving schools where they have had four years training of some sort as against the six years efficient teaching in Japan. The educational authorities in Japan desire to rectify the defects of the existing system by starting continuation adult classes. If there is an earnest desire on the part of Government and the people in India to educate the population there must, in the first place, be an increase in the number of years of training in a primary school from four to six years. It must also be laid down that the education given in these primary schools is not to be given only in the three R's but also in other practical subjects which might be of use to the students in after-life. - 29 - ·EDUCATION . few years I am, In some of the primary schools here, a course in working the spinning wheel has been introduced. This ought to be made compulsory in boys' and girls' schools in rural areas, whereever cotton is easily obtainable. Other useful subjects, might be added to make the six years' course attractive. Japan had till recently a six years' course and has within a added one year more. however, suggesting that we in India should begin with a six years' course such as Japan had for a number of years. Whenever we talk of lengthening the period for giving primary education or making it compulsory in all areas, we are told that there is no money for such extension. I cannot help re-iterating what I have often said before elsewhere that a large portion of the income collected from the Kyot should go to them through the nation-building departments. Instead of co-operating for such a patriotic object, our provincial governments and local bodies go on fighting with each other regarding the share of the total expenses to be borne by each and more than that about the control that each authority should have over educational institutions. They should try to follow the Emperor of Japan's rescript for encouraging education which runs as under : - 30 - ·EDUCATION no an on “ Hereafter education should be so diffused that there shall be no ignorant family in the land and family with ignorant member.” The amount spent on primary education in Japan is £ 225,00,000 while the total expenditure education is £ 550,00,000 equivalent 10 about 40 per cent. of the national revenue. As a result of getting seven years' compulsory euucation, the average intelligence of the boys and girls has evidently increased, and their interest in life widened ; they look more cheerful than boys and girls of the same age do in India. In smaller towns and villages, after completion of their primary education, the boys and girls either assist their fathers in their business or if they are attracted to the larger cities they work in a factory as apprentices or seek service in hotels. The girls employed in cotton mills or in hotels are the products of these primary schools and they do credit to the education that they have received. Those boys and girls wno desire further to continue their studies join the high schools and on the completion of their course the girls usually marry and carry out the nation's ideal of domesticity. The boys who cannot - 31 - ·EDUCATION as Is it any proceed further take up some employment, while for those who can afford to do SO there are available vocational schools such techincal, agricultural, commercial mercantile marine, acquatic products and industrial craft schools. The total number of these institutions is 798, of which there are 330 agricultural, 229 commercial and 12 merchant marine schools. wonder that Japan is in the front rank as regards both agriculture and industry and has a powerful mercantile marine ? If we in India had proceeded on similar lines both as regards compulsory primary education and in the opening of other fields fields for the activities of our young boys and young girls, India would not be as backward as she is to-day in industry, agriculture, shipping and banking. A very great authority on international law explains (George G. Nelson, The Family of Nations Idea and Japan"), in the following words, why Japan has won her place in the front rank of civilized nations: not as the result of war, not by the sundering of political relations which had bound colony to mother country, not the compromise thrown to appease international jealousy, not even as a matter as - 32 - ·EDUCATION won as а of political expediency, was the Empire of Japan admitted to the international circle, but as a recognition that a State, separated far from Western nations in latitude, language and customs had its place by the development of a worthy civilization an equal among equals in the family of nations. Although these sentences have been quoted by Dr. Nitobe who is a Christian belonging to the Friends Society and is very cosmopolitan in his in his views with seeming approval, the idea conveyed there about the superiority of Western nations is resented by him. Writing a little later regarding the ex-Kaiser William's propaganda against the so called Yellow Peril, Dr. Nitobe says "a brown people and that a smail one, beating one of the great white nations-- the idea was preposterous and the fact ominous ! Never did it enter the head of a white man that more than half ot mankind had been the victim of the White Peril .... Monsieur Le Bon had expounded the doctrine that the Japanese could never steer a gunboat or manipulate a machine gun in time of action ... England and America with their practical acumen and was - 33 - ·EDUCATION 27 common sense, saw on which side lay justice and courage, but even they could not escape the virus of an anti-Japanese propaganda which utilized Japan's victory as a sign of coming danger. I have quoted this long extract as I feel that history is repeating itself though in a different sphere of activity. It is not now the fear of a military peril but of an economic peril that seems to be a nightmare to western nations as Japan aspires not only to be equal but superior to the industrially most advanced nation. No one can say whether she will succeed in her ambitious effort or not, but the fact remains that Great Britain is adopting measures to keep Japan's products out of countries where she has an effective voice in the determination of fiscal matters. Coming back to the educational activities in Japan, it has to be noted that the Government there have not remained satisfied by starting vocational schools comparable to high schools on the literary side; they have in the country 55 higher vocational schools teaching upto a higher standard for three years 23,000 students take advantage of these higher vocational schools of which 22, are higher more. - 34 - ·EDUCATION soon as technical, 17 higher commercial, 14 higher agricultural and 2 higher mercantile marine schools. If Japan is doing so much to train up her subjects in different subjects and to fit them for future future citizenship, India should have in proportion to her population about five times the number of such training institutions. But as we in India talk of having more schools for higher technical, agricultural and commercial training, we are told there is no money for conducting such institutions, and secondly, that there are not sufficient industrial and commercial concerns to give employment to the fully trained students and to absorb them. The incustrialists as a class have very little faith in the graduates of technical institutes or commercial colleges. Something has been done latterly to bring these institutions into touch with bodies and individuals who likely to give employment to the graduates of these colleges and schools, but much more remains to be done in that direction if at all anxious to have a still larger number of similar institutions. But we in India have got a knack of grumbling and then sitting quiet, throwing the blame are we are - 35 - .

·EDUCATION on or nor own to an providence Government; do the Government raise their little finger on their account carry the nation forward on the path of commercial and industrial progress. There is not the necessary co-operation between Government, commercial and industrial magnates and technical and commercial institutes, as they have in Japan. That country has ambition not mearly to be in line with the industrially advanced nations but to go ahead of them, and it has a national Government anxious to carry the people forward. There is a striking unity among the people and its previous traditions to support all such activities. In Japan, the industrialists and business firms show their confidences in these educational institutions by employing their graduates in their business concerns. Our country is unfortunately deficient in almost all these respects and naturally takes a very low place amongst industrially and commercially advanced countries. The higher education of girls in Japan is not paid the same attention as is paid to the higher education of boys. As a rule, girls' education stops their completing the course of the girls' high school which on 011 - 36 - ·EDUCATION Wise as the literary side is equivalent to the fifth standard of high schools in schools in the Bombay Presidency. Over and above literary instruction, the students are taught painting, cooking, laundry work and flower arrangement. As said above, the ideal kept by Government for women's education is that of domesticity, that is of preparing the girls for being good housewives and mothers, capable of looking after their children's physical and mental growth. The ideal of women's education is not to give the same full opportunities to the girl to develop her individuality, are given to the boys. As the State does not believe in co-education, it does not believe in the higher education of women, although the fact that there are about 850 so-called girls' high schools, one in each town of ordinary size, and that the popularity of these institutions is attested by the fact that some 80,000 girls take advantage of the same ought to have been an eye opener to the educational authorities as regards the necessity for providing facilities to girls for higher education. The Imperial Universities, except one, do not admit lady students to their regular course and even in the University that does admit girls, the number - 37 - ·EDUCATION of lady graduates is still small. It is surprising that both the State and the public which are anxious about the country's being in the front rank as regards the higher and technical education of boys, should be so conservative and almost orthodox about the higher education of their girls. As a natural concomitant of this conservativism is the absence of the same freedom to woman as is granted to them not only in the West, but in the provinces of Bombay and Madras in India. This state of things cannot and ought not to continue if Japan wants to have the regard and respect of intellectually advanced countries. Of the large number of girls that receive secondary education, a growing percentage will ask for still higher education and will knock at the doors of the Education Minister and the Universities for obtaining facilities for higher education and for admission into the portals of the Universities. Once these facilities for higher education are granted, greater freedom will be demanded by women who have received higher education and this will lead to the building up of social relations between Japanese women and the women of other nationalities, and as men will have to participate in these social functions they will not be obliged to - 38 - ·EDUCATION take their friends and their male guests alone to Japanese restaurants and provide amusements for them through Geisha girls. The level of social life will be raised by giving higher education to women and by giving them greater social freedom. As a matter of fact, girls who have received education in English at mission schools and who speak English correctly have imbibed ideals of social freedoni also; and they say frankly that they do not want to marry at all or marry only if they find a suitable person whom they love and to whom they are prepared to join in wedlock. While these mission schools and colleges are doing very useful educational work, the teaching of Christianity in these institutio's leads some of the young girls whose minds are not fully developed to give up their own religion and to become Christians. It is for the State to consider how far these results of compulsory teaching of the Bible and of the principles of Christianity in mission schools are in consonance with their ideals of nationalism. Believing as I do in the intellectual equality of the sexes, I earnestly hope that the portals of all the State Imperial Universities will be opened to girl students and that the ladies of Japanese households will come out in society - 39 - ·EDUCATION more and that by coming into social contact with intellectual, practical and spiritual persons keep themselves in touch with all that is going on in the outer world and then act as helpers to their husbands and other male relatives and friends. One of the immediate effects of such a move would be to make the men folk better social beings. The influence of the gentler sex will also mellow the ultra-nationalism of the people which is sure to run otherwise, if it has not done so already, into ultra-imperialism which in its turn leads a nation to its ultimate wreck and ruin. It is interesting to note that the University Act of 1928 lays down that the object of the University is to teach the principles and applications of science essential to the State and to carry on their research, without neg. lecting the cultivation of national consciousness and the elevation of personal character.” It is not, therefore, surprising to find that with this ideal before them, the University curriculum was mainly adapted to the demands of Civil Service examiners and of industrial employers. In the early days of the Bombay University and all the older Universities in India, the ideal kept in view by the founders - 40 - ·EDUCATION was the attainment of culture and consequently the curriculum was mostly of the humanistic type. Even in those early days, law and medicine and later civil engineering were accepted as within the purview of a University ; but practical science, agriculture or commerce were barred. Till now, the Arts course is purely on a humanistic basis, and as the number of admissions in other colleges is restricted on account of the financial position of the Presidency, most of the Matricula es rush to the Arts colleges to go in foi the B.A. or B.Sc. courses. Whatever the ultimate aim of the University may be, the chief object in the minds of the students while obtaining a degree is only as a stepping stone to a career. Even in Japan this is the object of most of the students, as a University diploma is more important in the eyes of the employee than the knowledge that the University imparts; as Doctor Nitobe humorously puts it, “An ass with a degree gets better hay than a steed without one". As a University degree is the passport to employment and as Government Universities cannot find room for all entrants, a large number of private Universities with one or two faculties have been established in Japan, in the same way as a large number of ·EDUCATION private colleges are being started in our Presidency, There is, however, one difference between these two kinds of institutions. Here the private colleges have to adopt the curriculum laid down by the affiliating University and as the University Syndicate is very particular in insisting on the appointment of capable professors and on the college applying for recognition having a commodious building with a properly equipped laboratory and with a suitable library the standard of teaching in most of these private colleges is as good as in Government Colleges which are only four in number. In Japan, out of the 32 private Universities there are only two having more or less all the faculties, namely, literature, law, medicine, engineering, agriculture and economics. The Government Universities have all these faculties and have nearly 20,000 students on their rolls. The private Universities have 38,000 students, while special colleges of the same grade as the Government Universities have 4,000, the total number coming to 62,000 or in round figures one per thousand of the population, not a mean achievement so far as numbers concerned. As regards the effects of this kind of University education on Japanese boys, seven - 42 - ·EDUCATION names Dr. Nitobe says, “Respecting the highest and most difficult aim of the University--namely, the elevation of personal character--no provision of any kind is made in our institutions. The atmosphere is as dry as science, never warm with passion. There are minds working, but no soul stirring. In an institution where merely secular education is given and where more attention is paid to scientific and utilitarian side and less to humanities and where there is no background of long-standir.g reputation of the institution and where there are no great historic connected with the institutions such results are natural, but the question that the State will have to face is whether this kind of educatic will will not extinguish the Divine Spark altogether and lower men to the level of thinking animals." Dr. Nitobe is a Christian and a religious man and he naturally is doubtful of purely secular education. I claim to be a religious man also, but I have such bitter experience of religious quarrels and fights and of priestly interference in every day affairs on so called religious grounds that I am not afraid of the results of secular education of the type given in Japan. Who can say whether the success of Japan as a military and naval power and also as an - 43 - ·EDUCATION industrialist country is not chiefly due to the narrow nationalist and utilitarian education that is imparted in schools and colleges ? The Imperial University at Tokyo is the largest amongst the seven official Universities. During the great devastating earthquake of 1923, all the University buildings were destroyed partly by the shock of the earthquake and partly by fire. The Government and University authorities did not sit with folded hands and say this is God's punishment for past Karmas and that they could do nothing against His decree. They began to remove the debris and prepare plans for constructing new University buildings on a grander scale ; and within eight years they have succeeded in putting up five solid buildings for each faculty with a separate building for a library, and a grand auditorium facing a stately dias. The auditorium has comfortable plush chairs and its capacity is to accommodate some two thousand persons. The efforts made by the University authorities to rebuild the demolished University buildings evoked the admiration of that philanthropist American millionaire, Mr. Rockefeller, Junior, who sent a cheque of four million yen for building the library, which in those days would have been equal to about sixty lakhs ·EDUCATION of Rupees. A facsimile of Mr. Rockefeller's letter is kept in a prominent place in the University buildings. It speaks volumes for the generous temperament of the donor that he did not attach any condition to the gift and also for the great courage of the nation which faced the calamity with an indomitable spirit. To keep up the martial spirit of the nation as a whole and 10 teach military and general discipline to boys before they attain majority and begin to think and act for themselves a military officer is attached to each boy's middle school (comparable to the Anglo-vernacular schools in Bombay) to give elementary military training to the boys. In the Bombay University, a motion to introduce compulsory military training in schools and colleges brought forward by a well known educationalist was thrown out, many Government nominated members, including a Minister of Government, voting against it. While Japan wants each of her citizens to be ready to take up arms in defence of the country and at times even for attacking other countries, we in India hardly give any thought to the necessity of being prepared for self-defence. Japan is well known for her love of the - 45 - ·EDUCATION Fine Arts and true to that love the State has established a School of Fine Arts and an Academy of Music at Tokyo. When I asked the Director of the Academy of Music, Mr. Kaza Narisugi whether his Academy was affiliated to the Tokyo Imperial University, he said that it was not so affiliated and added that he did not desire such an affiliation as the objects of both bodies were divergent, for while the University students' objective was to get more knowledge the students of the Academy had to put in execution their knowledge of the Art of Music. The main Academy of music, however, is not for teaching Japanese music, but for teaching Western music. When the Academy was first established the leaders of 'the country were under foreign influence, and the national spirit was not as wide-awake as it is to-day. Gerinan music was very popular in those days and the Academy of Music was instituted mainly to teach Western music to boys and girls. When I visited the Academy, they were having a rehearsal for a big musical concert, one of the Academy's annual functions; and the Director kindly took me to the Hall where the rehearsal was in progress. is big enough to accommodate an orchestra of over two hundred musicians, while the auditorium The stage - 46 - ·EDUCATION is large enough to accommodate about one thousand persons, and is in the centre of the building. At the time of rehearsal the students were keenly absorbed in what was going on. On enquiry from the Director, I learnt that with the growth of the national spirit, a branch of the Aca. demy was opened at Kanda in the city of Tokyo proper, where pure Japanese music was taught. At my request, arrangements were made for my seeing the work done in that institution. The building of the branch is in the old Japanese style and is not as big nor as impressive looking as the building of the Western Academy of Music. The number of students also is not very large. This is bound to be the case as in the indigenous academy only one student is taught at a time and there is nothing like an orchestra where a large number of students can participate to produce the desired effect. To me, however, this Japanese music played on Senson or Koto, the favourite musical instruments of the people, by Japanese girl students dressed in their kimonos and looking demure and yet graceful appeared more melodious, and delightful than the of the Western orchestra. The principal of the institution gave sweet music on the Koto which was, a real treat. Japan has not music -47 - ·EDUCATION use struck to the old orthodox tunes and is modernizing music by incorporating some exciting and popular Western tunes and thus is creating new modern Japanese music. The School of Arts where water colour painting and wood sculpture are taught is also located in a fine building. Portrait painting is not taught there nor is that subject considered a fine art, as according to the Japanese artists it means merely copying from life. The artist according to them has to create, and for this, it is necessary for him to his imagination while doing painting work. This school cannot be said to agree with the realistic school of Bombay, nor with the Bengal school. Japan has a school of its own, and as an Indian artist told me at Nagoya, one must live for a long time in the country and study its works of Art before is able to appreciate fully the Japanese ideal of art. Marble sculpture is not taught in the Tokyo School of Art and very seldom taught in other schools. In conclusion, it may be said that Japan's educational system comprises almost all branches of knowledge except religion and that it is being worked in a very efficient progressive manner. - 48 - ·CHAPTER III INDUSTRIES UNDER this heading, I shall refer only to factory industries, as that is the meaning usually assigned to that term in India. Although agriculture is the main industry in this country, maintaining about 80 per cent. of the population, writers on "Industries” in India seldom include the agricultural industry in that term. In Japan, on the other hand, the annual publications issued by Government such as “The Industry of Japan" or even the Financial and Economic Annual of Japan issued by the Department of Finance give great importance to the agricultural industry, though the proportion of those whose chief occupation is agriculture is only 47 per cent. In this chapter, I am referring to factory industries only, as - 49 ·INDUSTRIES a on account of an unnecessary importance given to my visit to Japan which was meant chiefly for having rest and sea-voyage, and incidentally for seeing an industrially advanced country in the East, I was asked by several Chambers of Commerce and some industrialists to give them some information about the existing industrial situation in India. As a result of these interviews, facilities were granted at my request by these bodies and individuals for visits to any cotton or woollen manufacturing mills or cement factories or other industrial concerns that I liked. I cannot be sufficiently thankful to these institutions for the arrangements made for these visits, very often at short notice, and for supplying me with all statistical information that I required, excepting that relating to the salaries of their high officials which I wanted to know for the purpose of comparison with the salaries paid in India to officers doing the same kind of work. I visited five cotton mills, one at Kobe, three near Osaka and one at Nagoya. I saw the inside working of the mills and while there, made inquiries of workers through an Indian interpreter as to their present condition and future intentions. I went round the dormitories of girls as well as of bachelor workers, including - 50 - ·INDUSTRIES special bathing arrangen.ents made for them, as also the family quarters of workmen. I was taken to the dining room within the mill prernises to be used during the recess hour and to the hospital and the amusement hall and buildings, the schools, the playground for male workers etc. In one mill, the first of the five I visited there is a small beautiful theatre within the mill area where free cinema shows are arranged for the workers. When I visited the theatre I was shown a film depicting an excursion party of the girls paying a visit to a neighbouring hill. Many of the girls who were not on the shift and were free came with us to the theatre, squatted on the clean floor and enjoyed the film and talked amongst themselves and laughingly jabbered with a freedom seldom noticeable amongst Dadar or Parel workers whom insult by calling them millhands. At another, but a smaller mill where working families are living on the mill premises, I found their quarters (two storied wooden houses) and surrounding lanes quite clean. The accommodation provided is two rooms-small ones with a verandah. Just inside the entrance was the amusement hall having a billiard table at which two workers our we even now - 51 - ·INDUSTRIES even а. man. were playing. I do not think that the mills doing labour welfare work in India have ever thought of presenting a billiard table to the workers. There There were other indoor games on tables which were played by workers sitting on chairs. The hospitals are nice, commodious buildings, where both outdoor and indoor patients are attended to by a qualified medical The in-patient wards in most of these mill hospitals were empty, and the management referred to this fact with pride. The management of the first class mill referred to above have built outside these mill premises but in their vicinity a public hospital for the use of the people living in that locality at the cost of cost of 3,00,000 yen. While I saw the school buildings in almost all schools, I was able to see the working of the school in one mill. The subjects taught were higher arithmetic, higher Japanese literature, sewing, tailoring, and flower arrangement. The knowledge of the last subject is essential for a good housewife. I have been told that the artistic arrangement of the flowers and stems and twigs convey a message of goodwill. To my prosaic mind it conveyed no such message and I felt that the time spent in music 52 - ·INDUSTRIES see learning with great precision these flower arrangements could be more usefully spent in learning other practical subjects. While it was a pleasure to see all these branches of labour welfare work the most delightful thing to was the dormitory. Not only the bed rooms but the passages are kept as clean as would be the rooms of high class English or Indian families, who can afford to employ a large number of servants to keep the rooms and furniture clean and free of dust. In the dormitories there is practically no furniture. The floor is covered with clean mats. In one corner, there usually is a square wcoden stool with a flower-vase and flowers, and in one of the rooms, used as a prayer rocm, is a small statue of Bhagwan Buddha kept in a decent glass case. The beddings of the girls are kept in drawers in the room where they sleep. Under a special statute these beds are to be carefully cleaned every morning and have to be sun-dried once a week. All the dormitories are provided with very decent baths, special arrangements being made for washing the long hair of the girls. The dormitories have a plinth of two to three feet and to prevent the feet of the girls from being spoilt by having to walk for a few feet - 53 - ·INDUSTRIES on the ground intervening between the bath and the school or dormitory building, wooden planks are put connecting the verandahs of both buildings so that the girls may be able to walk with clean feet from the bathroom side of building to the other side. Visitors are asked at the entrance of the building to remove their shoes and put on clean slippers provided there, so that no dirt from outside may be carried on to the passage. When I walked through these dormitories and schools and other buildings and saw the clean bright cheerful girls, walking or running or studying or reading newspapers in the common dining room, I was naturally reminded of the physical condition of the workers in India and the dingy condition of their living rooms and the crowded condition of the environments; and I felt that if the mill agents of these companies had made real earnest efforts to improve the economic and intellectual conditions of the workers and had provided them with cheap clean houses and places of amusement, the men would have worked with the same zeal as the girls in Japan do. The wages of these girls can be said to be nominal as no rent is charged for living in dormitories. Three meals are provided at half the cost- - 54 - ·INDUSTRIES the remaining half being borne by the mills, and free educational facilities are given to workers, to make them better and more qualified men and women. Most of our mill agents seem to think more of the dividends to be paid to the shareholders and the commission to be earned by theinselves, than of improving and strengthening the financial position of the company by writing down the plant, removing old and putting in most modern and up-to-date machinery and keeping their latour not only contented but happy. Alti'ough there may be some truth in the oft-repeated statement of the mill agents that their labour is made restive on account of the incitement of labour leaders, yet it has to be admitted thit they themselves have failed to realize the fact that if there had been a greater human link between them and their labourers and that if they had made honest attempts to help the labourers to improve their social, economic and intellectual condition there would have been very little occasion for outside agitators to create trouble. During recess time, the girls go to the mess and dining room in the mill area, where some tiffin is served to them at half the usual price. On the day of my visit to one of the mills they were going to have a vegetarian tiffin. I, - 55 - ·INDUSTRIES therefore, partook of some of it and found that it tasted well and had been carefully cooked. The girls sit on benches and read newspapers while tiffin is being served. The men workers in the larger mills have big playgrounds where they play base-ball (now a very popular game with the Japanese) or some other outdoor game. In one mill, the men were so keen on having a decent base-ball ground that during their nonworking time, they cleaned and levelled the ground with their free labour. If approached in a proper manner, the workers are sure to co-operate with the employer in any object that would make their lives more cheerful. It has been said that the Japanese mills exact such hard work from the girls attending to their spinning and weaving machinery that at the end of four or five years their health breaks down and that as a result they have to be discharged and new girls recruited from villages. From what I have seen and from the personal inquiries made of some of the girls through an independent interpreter, I am satisfied that there is no justification for such allegations. The girls finish their compulsory elementary education at the age of thirteen after which they stay at home with their parents for two or three years, and then seek - 56 - ·INDUSTRIES employment in mills, other industries or hotels, so that they cannot only maintain themselves during the period prior to to marriage,-the marriageable age is now rising and may at present be put at nineteen to twenty-one-but save some money and use it as a sort of dowry at the time of the marriage. If they go to a cotton spinning and weaving mill, they are taken, in the first instance, as apprentices and taught, with the help of models, the theoretical side of the work they would have to do in the mills. Regular classes with the necessary apparatus are being held; and as these girls have had sound elementary education they are able to foliow easily the instructions given in these ciasses. When they have been sufficiently trained they go to the spinning or weaving department and are able to attend to more looms and more spindles than workers in our mills are accustomed to handle. As they are well housed and fed, they attend to their work with a zeal not usually noticeable amongst our workers. Not having seen the health statistics of these girls (if any are kept) I cannot assert with the certainty of a statistician what have been the effects of the apparently heavy work on the health of the girls, but if I may generalize from what I have seen in five mills, I can say that - 57 - ·INDUSTRIES these girls looked as healthy, cheerful and sprightly as strong built school-girls appear in our country. These girls have a strong constitution and are well-built. After three or four years' work when they have saved sufficient money, they go back to the villages in a sound physical condition and marry with boys selected for them by their parents, for even now the old custom of parents selecting husbands for their daughters is followed in a large part of the country. The gross wages paid to these girls would be at the present exchange rate of the yen a little lower than the wages paid to workers in our mills, but if allowance is made for the free services and services at reduced cost the net wage will be higher than the net wage of our workers. In the first class mills, the spinning and weaving rooms are entirely free from dust. The floors are being kept as clean, as for instance, the floors of the soap factory of Lever Brothers at Birkenhead. Although I was not given the actual figures of the salaries paid to the higher staff, I was able to gather from casual talks that the salaries of the manager, spinning or weaving master are much lower than those paid to the officers doing the same kind of work in - 58 - ·INDUSTRIES our mills. There is not the great gap between the salaries of these officers and their assistants as is the case with us. Over and above all these advantages, the Japanese mills have the further advantage of the personal supervision of one of the directors in each department. As there are no managing agerts there is a saving of the agency commission as the remuneration paid to the working directors is low compared to the managing agency commission. The management in inost mills usually write down the block account and spend a large sum in keeping the machinery up-to-date. Taken all in all, the management of the cotton spinning and weaving n.ills appeared to me to be far more efficient and economical and modernised than the management of most of the Bombay mills and better even than that in many of the Ahmedabad mills. There are exceptionally good mills, several in Ahmedabad and a few in Bombay, which may come upto the Japanese standard, but there will be very few to bear comparison with one of their largest and best managed mills, the Kanegafuchi Mills. Almost all the mills get electric power from the adjacent electric companies, there - 59 - ·INDUSTRIES combeing 7,096 electric plants, including 311 Government plants, generating 65,23,815 kilowatts. The rates charged by these panies to mills per unit were, on the basis of the undepreciated yen, nearly as high as the rates charged by the Tata Hydro-electric group. With the depreciation of the yen, the rates will be lower than the Bombay rates. The rates are fixed by mutual agreement between the mills and the electric companies. The gross and net freight on cotton bought in India and taken to Japan is fixed by the Cotton Spinners' Association with the Conference of Steamship Companies, Japanese, British, and others plying between India and Japan. The difference between the two freights is put down as rebate. As the percentage of the rebate to the gross freight appeared to me to be high, I requested the Secretary of the Cotton Spinners' Association to tell me why this was He handed me a copy of the Agreement between the Association and the Conference of the Steamship Companies, and added that as the Association had a large tonnage to offer as cargo, the authorities or the Association carried on negotiations with a single steamship line or with a group and as a rule the steamship companies combined and finally settled the net SO. - 60 ·INDUSTRIES can freight. The Association is not concerned with what figure the Conference puts for its own purposes as gross freight and what amount is deducted as rebate. As the Conference consists of steamship lines of different nationalities, there be no question of the Government of Japan giving subsidies to shipping companies to enable them to give heavy rebates, as the companies of other nationalities would not keep secret any such arrangement nor would the Government of Japan be foolish enough to give subsidies to foreign shipping companies. As most of the mills have been making profits and declaring dividends and in several instances large dividends, there is no likelihood of the Government giving subsidies to profit-earning companies. After these visits to the mills, and after discussing the details with the officials of the Association and the managing directors of individual mills, the impression left on my mind is that the low working costs of the cotton piece-goods during the period before the depreciation of the yen are due chiefly due chiefly to efficient and economical management and to the intelligent co-operation of the workers. They are also partly due to the harmonious spirit in which a large number of companies that are members - 61 -

·INDUSTRIES
of the Cotton Spinners' Association work when
arranging matters of common interest such
as freights and to their strong financial position
which enables them to buy cotton at the best
time. Most of these mills work as a combine
of several mills and are thus able to employ
competent persons to go out to India and to
other cotton growing areas and make their
purchases of the required quality at the proper
time. So far as I was able to inquire and
collect information, Government do not give
any subsidies to the mills, nor is there any
necessity for their doing so as the mills are
working at a profit.
I have till now spoken of cotton mills in
general. Special mention ought, however, to
be made about the working of the Toyoda
Automatic Loom Mill. The late Mr. Toyoda,
the father of the present Managing Director
of the Mills, invented an automatic loom, which
enables one person easily to look after thirty
looms instead of the maximum of eight in
Japan and two in our country. Theoretically,
a person can attend, I was told, to sixiy looms
but it was found by experience that it was
physically impossible for a girl to look after
more than forty. The average is thirty in
the Mill I visited. The patent rights of this loom
- 62 -

·INDUSTRIES have been purchased, I was told, by Platt Brothers for one million yen. The very fact that a firm of the standing of Platt Brothers should have thought fit to purchase the patent rights of this invention, at a high price is a guarantee that the invention is a success and worth much more than the amount of price paid for it by Messrs. Platts. Those of us who cry down the Japanese mill industry as being a subsidized industry maintaining its present position by unfair means, dumping its wares at a price lower than costs in other countries, may be asked why in India which started the first mill much earlier than Japan did, there has been no invention or new method found out and introduced for improved production or reduction of costs. Is this not due largely to the fact that our industrialists depend more upon foreign experts for advice than upon themselves and seldom give time to the subject of finding out new methods themselves? The Japanese mills are managed entirely by the Japanese; even in the year of grace 1933 some of our mills have to employ non-Indian managers or spinning and weaving masters and even some of our best mill agents are of opinion that there are very few Indian weaving masters capable of looking after say 10,000 looms. - 63 - ·INDUSTRIES A statue of the inventor Toyoda is kept in the front of the mill in a nice garden, from which it is apparent that the man had a big brain. His son whom I met at Nagoya has no sides and is as simple in his manners as the mill agent of a middle-sized mill in Bombay. In the same locality there is a factory for manufacturing spinning machinery bearing the name of Mr. Toyoda. This factory is turning out machinery comparable to British machinery. We in India had during the boom period thought of putting up a factory for the same purpose. Unfortunately, the boom was followed by a slump which continues till now in one form or another and the project fell through. Now that the Tata Iron and Steel Co. is on a very sound footing and can easily supply the steel required by a factory manufacturing 25 to 30 thousand spindles and the requirements of cotton mills are likely to go on increasing it is hoped that some enterprising industrialists or a syndicate of industrialists will consider seriously the question of putting up such a factory at Jamshedpur or Bombay as may be advised by experts. If there is once more peace and goodwill between our country and Japan, thare is no reason why our industrialists should not join hands with as - 64 - ·INDUSTRIES persons like Mr. Toyoda with the object of putting up a factory of this type. As Japan buys cotton in India and then takes it to her country and converts it into cotton piecegoods, she similarly buys wool from Australia and makes woollen muslin and serge from the same. This industry was established in 1887 for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the Japanese army. This was complete Swadeshism; it was an attempt to make the country self-contained at least so far as the clothing of the army was concerned. The fillip thus given to the industry has had remarkable results in the last twenty years. The country's production of woollen goods has increased by 74 times compared with what it was in 1912, that is, from 4.4 million yards to 33 million yards. This increase in production is mainly for home consumption. In 1912, Japan consumed 10 million yards of woollen goods, and it imported the difference between this figure and the home production, while in 1932 she consumed 33.4 million yards which is nearly equal to her production. Even in that year she did import 4.4 million yards of woollen goods of the quality not manufactured in the country She, however, exported almost an equal amount from her home-production. - 65 - ·INDUSTRIES It is true that Japan is a cold country and that her inhabitants have to wear warm clothing during the greater part of the year. But while they could purchase and use only ten million yards in 1912, the purchasing capacity has increased to 300 per cent. in twenty years, thus showing the growing national prosperity of the country. I was able to visit one woollen factory manufacturing ordinary woollen serge. All manufactured goods are carefully examined by trained persons to see if there are any flaws in the composition of the cloth; after first inspection there is a test inspection by Government which shows how anxious the Government are to keep up the good name of their country's manufactures. The cement industry of Japan is growing. She is trying to find out and capture foreign markets and in the last year or two she has been able to compete with Indian manufactures, even after paying the high protective duty charged on imported cement. I I was, therefore, anxious to see the working of one of the large cement factories in Japan. The Tokyo Chamber of Commerce was good enough to arrange for my visit to one of the Asano Cement Factory at Yokohama, manufacturing about 125 thousand tons of cement per annum though not - 66 - ·INDUSTRIES are working up to its full capacity. That factory has the advantage of being on a canal leading to Yokohama and having a railway siding connecting it with the main line running to Tokyo and all parts of Japan. Two Indian factories possess similar advantages, but none of them nor the Cement Marketing Association has ever tried to capture foreign markets. They getting nervous about what is said to be the dumping of Japanese cement. In Japan, industrialists have made the same mistake regarding the manufacture of cement that we made in India, namely, of increasing the productive capacity far beyond the demand of the country. There are only two courses open in such a contingency : (1) to agree by common consent to reduce the production, so that it may not exceed the demand to any appreciable extent and (2) to send cement outside the country and sell in foreign countries at competitive rates. Japan adopts both methods. The curtailment of cement production varied from month to month in 1932 from 60 to 57.5 the average for the whole year being 55.1. We can have the consolation, if it is any consolation, of knowing that Japan also was obliged to curtail its production practically to the same extent as ourselves. It might be still - 67 - ·INDUSTRIES The proper course greater consolation to know that while the dividends paid by some of the large cement companies during the last three years in Japan have varied from nil, for six out of 11 companies, to 14 per cent. for one single campanythe next highest for another company being 10 per cent.-none of the companies in India has been in the unfortunate position of not paying any dividends, whilst the maximum has been much higher than Japan's. to meet Japanese competition is to reduce the prices of our cement, if necessary, even to the level of all-in costs, and thus increase the sale tonnage and prevent Japanese cement from coming in. This policy will also indirectly benefit the consumer. The worst of protection is that those who have benefited by it ask for more and more protection as soon as there is a likelihood of their profits being reduced instead of fighting competition in the correct fashion. Coming back to the question of manufacturing costs of cement, in the one factory I visited I found that they were much lower than the working costs of our most successful cement factory. The chief reasons for the low costs are: (1) most of the plants have a large capaproduction; (2) as companies like the city for - 68 - ·INDUSTRIES Asano possess a large number of factories in several parts of Japan with a total producing capacity of nearly 2 million tons, the general management charges are much lower per ton; (3) there being ng charge on account of the managing agency commission, the head office charges (as we call them) are also low ; (4) Japan being a small country and there being coal mines in several prefections and railway freight being lower than in India, the factories get the coal cheaper than even the cement factories in the Central Provinces ; (5) there is economical management both as regards the number of men employed and also as regards the salaries paid to the higher officers. Although I was not told the exact amount of the salary paid to the works manager and chief chemist, both of whom were very intelligent young men, of course Japanese, I could gather from my conversation with one of the head officers there that the officers get 20 to 25 per cent. of the salaries paid to officers doing the same kind of work in our most successfully managed companies ; (6) the use of paper bags for cement to be exported except to Hongkong and British India. These bags are strong and protect the cement both from leakage and moisture and are cheaper than jute bags in India. If we want to face Japanese -69 - ·INDUSTRIES competition the present duties are high enough for real protection; we must try our best to reduce the works costs and to sell our cement at a lower price, than now, even if the latter action leads to a reduction in the percentage of dividends. We must follow the example of Japan's industrialists by ignoring the share market quotations and by strengthening the company than by frittering away the profits in giving large dividends. We must also look to the needs of the consumer and the general tax-payers and not ask for more and more protection. At Nagoya I also visited two pottery works and one cloisonne work to see the artistic side of Japan's industries. One of these two works is the largest in Japan and perhaps in Asia. In this factory, one sees the machine and the artist working in co-operation. The machinery does all the work of grinding, mixing the raw materials and of preparing the articles ready to be baked. These are taken to the art department where two sets of people are working, one set doing a mechanical process of ornamentation by transfer of the design ; while the other set of persons both men and women do the actual hand painting, as per design, on the half finished article. One person, however, - 70 - ·INDI'STRIES does not do the whole work. Each worker has to do only a small part of the whole design, after doing which he passes it on to his or her neighbour who does his work and puts it before the third person and so on. In this way the whole work is done by 10 or 12 persons. It was a pleasure to see the delicacy with which each person did his work. The whole process went on with clock-like regularity, and though not a single worker can be called an artist in the larger sense of the term, yet there was art in the handling and painting done by each worker. At this factory, both rich and ordinary painting work is done. As a rule, the fcrmer is usually purchased by America and also Great Britain and a few other continental countries. The ordinary porcelain ware is exported to different countries in Asia. The managing director showed me the kind of porcelain ware manufactured to meet the Indian demand. The men who prepared the original design in accordance with which all the latter work is to be done, are real first class artists. I was delighted to learn that an Indian was employed as an artist at the smaller factory which specializes in a particular class of porcelain ware. When I met him later, I learnt that he went to Japan from the Fine Arts School - 71 - ·INDUSTRIES of the Vishwa Bharati for studying higher Japanese art. Although he met with certain difficulties in the beginning he worked on with one aim and his work has been appreciated to such an extent that not only is he given employment in the factory, but he is allowed to do his own porcelain ware manufacturing work at home. Some of the samples of the latter kind, done to order for the chairman of the company were highly approved and the chairman showed his appreciation by having a house and small factory combined built for him. That a Japanese industrialist should make a present of a building of 5 to 6 thousand yen to a foreigner, shows how high is the regard for art in that country as also the broad-mindedness of the people as far as art is concerned. While talking of art, mention must be made of cloisonne work done in Japan. I visited the well known factory of J. Ando wheru gold and silver enamel work is being done by a number of artists. They were so absorbed in their work that they did not take any notice of visitors. When I visited the factory, the management was having a photograph taken of some very high class cloisonne work done for the Imperial Palace. I also visited clock manufacturing - 72 - one ·INDUSTRIES factory at Nagoya which was manufacturing only table and wall clocks. All the parts of the clocks were made either in that factory or some others in Japan and the management was not obliged to import from outside any part thereof. The value of total exports of this kind of clocks from Japar in 1930 came to 14,62,865 yen out of the total manufacture of clocks and watches of the value of 90,66,563 yen. Here also the manager of the factory drew my attention to the kind of wall clocks the company was manufacturing for India. Being anxious to march with the times, Japan has taken up the work of manufacturing electric clocks. By 1929, there were 6,870 such factories manufacturing clocks of the value of 3,03,946 yon. We can measure the importance of the growth of this industry from the fact that while in Bombay two small factories are struggling to continue to exist, Japan has 6,870 such factories. As fish is one of the chief articles of food of the people, the fishing industry is necessarily large and gives employment to one and a half million people in 2,500 villages. Looking to the size of the country this employment means a great deal to the country. How important it is can be gauged from the fact that out of the total annual harvest of fish in the whole world of - 73 -

·INDUSTRIES
ten million tons valued at 170 million sterling
pounds, "Japan reaps one-third or a harvest of
three million tons worth 35 million pounds.
With reference to the effects of this fish diet
Dr. Nitobe writes: “It has been suggested
by more than one foreign writer that the
relatively large size of the Japanese brain is to
be ascribed to the abundant use of fish diet.
There is an opinion, not yet fully corroborated
by science, that fish oil is conducive to fecundity,
and that, therefore, a fish-eating people is apt to
increase in population much more than a nation
of meat consumers and vegetarians." It is
interesting to note that her piscicultural products
in the year 1931 were worth a little more than
nineteen million yen. Out of twelve kinds of
fishes produced, I shall refer to two about which
I have some personal knowledge. Most of us
have seen gold fishes and have admired their
beauty. While we see and admire this type of
fish, the Japanese have prepared large farms for
the culture of gold-fish, many of which they are
exporting to America and England. Every
decent hotel or Japanese inn has either bowls
with some gold fish in the building or small
ponds or artificial streamlets, where gold fishes
are kept to attract visitors. There were in 1931,
1,856 stations for the culture of gold. fish and the
- 74 -

·INDUSTRIES total value of the gold fish of all these stations was about 560 thousand yen or more than double of what it was in 1922. On my way to Hiroshi from Nara, I was shown one of the culture stations of gold fish and explained the business side of this activity, which naturally surprised me a great deal, as I was quite ignorant about the manner in which this kind of activity was carried on. Similarly, there has been a growth of the pearl oyster industry. The phrase culture pearls is known all over the world, but how the oysters are reared and new pearls obtained is shown by a cinema film at the shop of Mokomotu at Tokyo. As soon as the manager of the shop knows that foreigner has come to Tokyo and is staying in one of the well-known hotels he sends him leaflets on the subject and also a formal letter of invitation to visit the shop. This shows the business acumen and propaganda methods of the ordinary Japanese businessmen. These are the industries about which I could personally gather information. There are many others the working of which I had no time to see. The most important of these are ship building yards, both private and Government, aeroplane manufacturing plants; arms and ammunition factories, which supply the some - 75 - ·INDUSTRIES needs of the navigation and air service and of the army respectively. The ships for the mercantile marine of the country are built in private ship-building yards. Then there are the weaving industries and the razor manufacturing and silk weaving industry. There is hardly any modern industry which the Japanese have not tried to introduce in their country. This is made more practicable by Governments assisting new industries by granting subsidies or by granting loans at cheap rates of interest. Many of us have been pressing Provincial and Central Governments to take steps to establish industrial banks, but no action has been taken by any of the Governments beyond passing State Aid to Industries Acts in two provinces and giving financial assistance to a few industries within their jurisdiction. In Japan, on the other hand, as far back 1875 the monies received as deposits in the Postal Savings Banks were entrusted for administration to a department called the Deposits Bureau under the Finance Ministry. Loans are given out from this fund to "enterprizes and communities which the Government wishes to help are invested in Government Bonds and debentures of special Banks”. The figures of investments out of the Postal Savings made in as or - 76 - ·INDUSTRIES 1932 show how effective is the assistance given by Government to private associations (companies) or corporations as well as for social welfare activities. The Financial and Economic Annual of Japan says: “The principal items of investments made in the fiscal year 1931-32 were as follows: thirty million yen represented loans for enterprizes by public corporations : thirtytwo millions for enterprizes by various Associations : five millions for funds for social work, sixty millions for the relief of unemployment, and 114.8 millions for concession operations of high interest loans of public corporations. The rest of the funds were appropriated for underwriting national loans and treasury bills and other special purposes ". When I made a demand before the Indian Central Banking Inquiry Committee for earmarking the Post Office Savings Bank deposits of agriculturists for the purpose of granting loans for agricultural improvements or for the liquidation of their debts I had not the example of Japan before me, otherwise it would have made my demand look more justifiable. That demand—just and modest as it was-fell on deaf ears. The Government of Japan is going far ahead and all the objects of loans and assistance are useful from the social and economic points of view, - 77 -

·INDUSTRIES
except the last one, namely, “Other special
purposes". That phrase may mean anything
and everything, it may mean loans to foreign
countries for political purposes. I do not think
any Government can be justified in lending
money received from the savings of her citizens,
outside the country. Barring this exception,
I am entirely in favour of the policy pursued by
the Government of Japan, even if there be some
bad debts from the loans to Associations. If
loans to public corporations, municipalities or
local boards were granted in this country out of
the Post Office Savings Deposits, these local bodies
would have been enabled by now to carry out
their water works or drainage schemes, many of
which are held up on account of want of funds.
As Japan has to import from Australia all
the wool required for the manufacture of woollen
goods she is naturally anxious to have wool
locally and she is giving subsidies for the purpose
to those who are prepared to rear sheep for
the purpose. She makes no secret of it. Dr.
Nitobe refers to the fact in the following term,
“As to sheep they have as yet shown no great
promise of progress either in quantity or quality,
inspite of the Government subsidies which are
given with the view of supplying at least a part
of the increasing demand for wool"
- 78 -

·CHAPTER IV AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE " The THE HE area of arable lands in 1931 was 15 per cent. of the total area of Japan. 54 per cent. of this area is under rice while the remaining 46 are upland farms, growing other produce, barley, wheat and the green crops. number of farm households totalled 56,33,800, that is 46 per cent of the total number of households. 73 per cent of these are principally engaged in agriculture while 27 per cent. were subsidiarily engaged in that profession.” Japan though not primarily an agricultural country like India has about half its population engaged in agriculture, and yet she has introduced modern methods in agriculture to an extent unknown to us. As a result of this, the production of rice has increased since 1880 from 237 - 79 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE bushels per acre to 39 in 1930 or an increase of 57 per cent. As the acreage under rice has increased during this period by about 25 per cent. from 6 millions and odd to 8 millions, the total production of rice has increased from about 150 million bushels to about 310 million, that is to say the principal food produce has more than doubled in the last half century, whereas the population has increased by about 72 per cent. This result is due mainly to the large use of fertilizers by farmers. As the requirements for fertilizers increased, attempts were made to supply the necessary fertilizers from production in the country. It is interesting to note in this connection that the production of ammonium sulphate by 15 companies increased from 336 thousand tons in 1930 to 684 thousand in 1932 that is by about 90 per cent. within two years. It is expected that this year, in 1933, the production will go upto 900 thousand tons. As a result of this increase in the production of this article, its imports dropped from 300 thousand tons in 1930 to 116 thousand tons in 1932, probably they will be nil this year. This is the correct method of keeping out imports. Similarly, the production of superphosphates has increased from 719 thousand tons in 1931 to 862 thousand tons or by more than 20 per cent. in - 80 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE one year. Japanese industrialists are not above taking advantage of the effects of the depreciation of the yen on foreign imports. When they found that on account of the lower value of the yen, the imported articles could not compete with them they at once increased the prices to such an extent that the farmers had to approach the Ministry of Agriculture, which took immediate action by asking the combine guild of the producers to reduce prices. For some time, the manufacturers took no notice of this request or order and formally dissolved the guild, so that the Minister might not be in a position to approach one corporate body. In the end, however, they had to yield. The stoppage of the inflow of imports by State action such as high tariffs or inflation of currency would be harmful if the manufacturers are not restrained from squeezing the consumer. The larger use of electric power to work pumps for irrigation purposes is another factor in the increase of the yield per acre. As the total power generated by hydroelectric and steam electric companies comes upto 63 million kilo watts these companies are anxious to sell their power. They naturally want to sell at any reasonable prices, and with this object they assist the agriculturists by sup- - 81 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE plying them with motors and by charging a low rate. I have seen small towns or large villages being supplied with electric power which works the pumps of the agriculturist or gives electric light to the place. There is a Sanskrit verse* which after quoting certain examples advises all persons to keep away from overdoing anything-even a virtue. On account of consistent efforts being made to increase the productivity of the soil and to make the country self-contained, so far as its staple food, rice, is concerned, the production of rice in Japan proper has gone up in excess of the demand in the country, and to add to the troubles caused thereby, comes the import of rice from Taiwan (Formosa) and Chosen (Korea), which countries produce rice at a lower cost than Japan. The price of rice has gone down considerably both on account of the above causes and world depression. Japan is exactly in the same position regarding rice as America was and is regarding cotton. The farmers there are heavily indebted, though not as heavily as in India, and the rate of interest they have to pay is fairly high. The average rate of interest comes to 11 per cent., individual money-lenders charging as high as * अतिसर्वत्र वर्जयेत्. - 82 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE mers. 30 per cent. The interest charges at the average rate come to about two-thirds the realized income from rice and the position is, therefore, getting more and more serious. The Japanese Government are adopting measures to meet these difficulties as they do not believe in a laissez faire policy, nor are they indifferent to the increasing difficulties of the far- One of the remedies adopted by them is to purchase a certain quantity of rice to keep up the price level. The second remedy is this described in the last annual number of the “Japan Advertiser" : "The difficulties of farmers naturally have been reflected in the banks of the farmers. Institutions which lend money on rural real estate dare nnt sell out their mortgage, lest they completely destroy the market. Thus the Government is trying to readjust farmers' debts and is trying to persuade the banks to liquidate their holdings, giving lower interest loans in both cases. But the totals are so great that the Government is unable to do more than make a start at the solution of the problem." Government also lend monies through the Deposits Bureau, that handles the Postal Savings Deposits, advance loans for agricultural purposes to the Bank Hypothec or other official Bank at four per cent., keeping half per - 83 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE on cent. as margin for expenses, which in its turn passes on the money to the smaller credit associations and these associations add two per cent. for bad debts and expenses and lend the money to the farmers at six per cent. I have referred to this subject at some length as the difficulties of the farmers in Japan are the same as those of the agriculturists in the Bombay Presidency, and if the Government of Bombay are really anxious to find out a solution, they must follow methods similar to those adopted in Japan and not be indifferent to the existing condition of affairs. Sericulture is carried in various provinces of Japan. It can be called a home industry (the phrase cottage industry is not easily understood in that country) and subsidiary to agriculture. Houses devoted to sericulture last year (1932) numbered 2,065,628 or a little more than forty per cent of the total farm households. “The cocoons írom which raw silk is made come from the villages where they are raised as a household industry; many agricultural households spending most of their time in the raising of other crops, such as rice.” Over and above those engaged in producing silk worm cocoons, there are 459,246 persons engaged in manufacturing raw silk out of the - 84 - ·AGRICULTURE AND SERICULTURE COCoons. to The quantity of raw silk produced in 1932 has increased from that produced in 1923 by more than 80 per cent. that is from nearly twenty-four millions kilograms 43.75 million. The wages paid to persons employed in the work, most of whom are girls or women, are higher even than the wages of men engaged in farming and much higher than of women engaged in it. The value of the silk produced in 1932 was only 427 million yen on account of the drop in the price of silk, but even this amount means an extra income of about 20 yen per annum to the farm households which are engaged in the industry. Sericulture th:us is a great help to the agriculturist in enabling him to add to his income and thus to meet his increasing needs. - 85 - ·CHAPTER V CIVICS THE HE Japanese are as anxious to keep their towns and the streets there clean and sanitary as they are to keep their houses and bodies clean. Keeping the bodies clean is an individual's own lookout, keeping the houses clean is more or less the lookout of the housewife, though the co-operation, passive if not active, of the other members of the family is necessary for the purpose. For the town as a whole as it has been found impracticable to have the willing and active co-operation of all the citizens to keep roads and streets clean, such work is undertaken for them by a co-operate body, which levies taxes to meet the expenses of keeping the town clean, tidy and sanitary and for supplying the population with water, gas, electricity and other amenities. - 86 - ·CIVICS In olden days, in India before the introduction of the corporate system, people at least in villages did the work of cleaning the portion of the road facing their houses. In some small towns like Sri Rangam and Conjeevaram in Southern India, where the persons living in the inner rectangles belong to the same community and also believe in the same sect of religion, they even now take upon themselves the duty of keeping the Vithis (streets) clean and even watered. ) was surprised to see that the Japanese people co-operated with one another to keep the town clean by doing scavenging work themselves and then watering the streets. This is possible in small towns and some of the bye-streets of the large towns. The larger towns have their municipalities, most of them being composed of members elected by the people. But even in such towns there is co-operation amongst shopkeepers or householders about lighting the roads and streets. If the shopkeepers of some important business thoroughfares like the Theatre Road or Moti Machi at Kobe desire to have ornamental lighting arrangements, they meet together and settle the number of poles to be put up in that street, and the number of lamps to be put on each pole and the types of lamps, etc. They raise the -87 - ·CIVICS amount required for this decoration of the street by mutual understanding and the work is done by a committee appointed by the owners of the shops. The municipality is saved the trouble and expense of putting up the lights and has merely to supply power and recover the charges for the same. In Japan, the municipalities insist on the complete cleaning of all houses within their areas twice a year the dates for which are fixed by the municipal authorities. Very strict inspection is maintained to see that the cleaning orders are properly carried out and as a result the houses are kept quite clean. The city mayors (presidents of almost all municipalities are called mayors) co-operate with chambers of commerce and the other industrial bodies in their socio-economic functions. Kobe was the first place where I began my tour in Japan. A few hours after my arrival, a representative of the Kobe Chamber of Commerce came to my place to invite me on behalf of the Chamber to tea the next day. He added that the representatives of the Chamber wanted to discuss the abrogation by the Government of India of the Treaty of Commerce with Japan. I accepted the invitation and when I went to the Chamber building, I was surprised to find the Mayor of Kobe present at the meeting. The - 88 - ·CIVICS same was the case at soine other towns. This shows the solidarity of all classes of people and such solidarity keeps up the spirit of nationalism. The mayors of some places are so polite that they send their secretaries to the station or the wharf to meet a foreign visitor and welcome him to the city in the name of the civic fathers. They were on many occasions good enough to send a book or books giving an account of the city's population and growth and describing the various important places which were worth visiting. Such books prove very useful to the visitors especially to those who do not know the Japanese language. This kind of politeness and hospitality is seldom seen in other countries. - 89 -

·CHAPTER VI
HOT SPRING RESEARCH HOSPITAL
BEPPU
EPPU is a small town on an inland sea,
with a population of about fifty thousand,
and is famous for its hot springs. Though at first
I thought that these could not be very different
from some of the hot springs in the Bombay
Presidency, I decided to see the place for myself
as I had heard a great deal about the springs.
The whole of the area under Beppu and round
about is full of underground hot springs of
various kinds. Some are sulphurous springs,
some are iron (red ochre) springs while others are
full of radio activity. The foreigners call some
hell" and some red hell”, the local
people on the other hand call them emerald
ponds and ruby ponds. The temperature of
most of these is near the boiling point varying
from 200 to 265 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of
them are said to be as deep as 550 feet. In
green hell
- 90 -

·HOT SPRING RESEARCH HOSPITAL most of the open springs the hot water bubbles. up and steam issues from that spot and goes up so high that visitors can locate a spring on account of the steam from a distance of more than one mile. Near each spring have grown up shops for selling photographic souvenirs and refreshments to visitors. The hot water of the ruby pond is so red and so full of iron compounds that several people come there to dye their clothes in the red muddy water. After some dips, the clothes become quite reddish and some shops have been started there to sell this reddish cloth. The mud of that spring is said to be very good for skin diseases and one or two enterprising persons have used the mud for medical purposes on a business basis. We in India, when we have a hot spring in our midst, usually admire the scenery and call the spring a miracle worked by some god or goddess, or a special favour shown to that village. A temple is put up to that god or goddess and very often the spring is called by his or her name. Sometimes a scientist like Father Kemp or Father Sierp tries to ascertain the radio activity of the water and writes a thesis based on his research and thereafter no further action is taken. Provincial governments or local bodies do not care to make investigations - 91 - ·HOT SPRING RESEARCH HOSPITAL for the purpose of utilizing this gift of nature. The Japanese Government whose love and respect for science cannot be greater than that of Great Britain acts in quite another way. If the gifts of Nature had been in Great Britain probably the British Government would have done what Japan and other continental countries have done and are doing in such matters. Not only are the waters of the different springs at Beppu carefully analysed and the results made public for the use of the medical men, but the local Government of Kyushu have gone further and established a Research Hospital at Beppu in the vicinity of some of the springs. The Hospital is in charge of a very capable doctor, who is assisted by a number of assistants and by a still larger number of boys and girls to attend to the inpatients and outdoor patients. Not only Japanese subjects but persons of other nationalities who have heard of the fame of this institution go to Beppu to be treated at this Hospital where excellent medical advice and treatment can be had for a nominal fee. When I went to Beppu I was taken by the secretary of the municipality to see this Hospital and I was so impressed by the arrangements made both for the examination of the patients and for external treatment that I decided to - 92 - ·POT SPRING RESEARCH HOSPITAL consult the chief medical officer regarding a long standing complaint of mine, namely, pain in one of the arms which was said to be due chiefly to old age. At the Kamenoi Hotel where I was staying there was a German visitor who had come from Shanghai specially for medical treatment. He told me that he had gone to Beppu as he had tried other places and had found no relief. When I went to the hospital there was a large number of patients waiting to consult one of the medical officers and to have the treatment prescribed by them. When my turn came, the Chief Medical Officer who does the first examination carefully examined me and after diagnosing the disease said that if I underwent about a fortnight's treatment he could cure me. staying there for this period was out of the question he suggested that I might have the treatment of a steam bath and massage even for one day and that it might do me some good. I was sent with one of the nurses to that part of the hospital where various kinds of such treatments were being given. After seating me on a chair jets of steam were thrown on that portion of the arm where there was pain. I then had some inkling of what the nether-world might be like. Twenty minutes of this bath is no joke and if the girl who was giving me the As my - 93 - ·HOT SPRING RESEARCH HOSPITAL bath had known English I would have asked her to stop after a few minutes. I had, however, to undergo the whole treatment, at the end of which I was taken to another part for massage. An intelligent looking young doctor who also unfortunately did not know English began the massage according to the written instructions of the Chief Medical Officer. As a result of this treatment I did feel somewhat better. For such medical examination by a medical man of that standing one would have to pay in Bombay at least Rs. 10 and for the steam bath Rs. 3 to Rs. 4 more. The fee I had to pay for both examination and treatment at this hospital was one yen, that is, 14 annas. First class in-patients are charged 5 yen per day for a separate room, medical treatment, nursing and meals, while hotel charges in that city come to about 16 yen per day. Third class patients are charged only one yen per day. These charges cannot meet even onethird the hospital expenses. The Provincial Government of Kyushu must be paying all the remaining expenses, or they might be sharing the same with the city of Beppu. The establishment of such a hospital in this area shows the philanthropic side of the Japanese character and also the belief of the authorities in medical research work. Their charging the same fees - 94 - ·HOT SP ING RESEARCH HOSPITAL from foreigners as from their own people shows their broad-mindedness and catholic spirit. All the time I was in Beppu I was wondering whether this kind of work would ever be done in India by the existing or later by the responsible local governments. While I am talking of Beppu, I might as well refer to another research institution in that city although it has nothing to do with medical work or directly with hot springs. Japan is a country of earthquakes, and as Beppu is the centre of the hot springs the Imperial University of Kyoto has established at the place "a terranian physico-geo-physical laboratory." As its name indicates, this Laboratory is fitted with a most delicate Seismograph, has geological samples of various periods and parts of that district and has a good physical laboratory to help students in the study of geology. More attention is paid to the teaching of practical geology to the students of the Kyoto University who come down to Beppu to hear lectures and do practical laboratory work, than to the students for the B.Sc. or B.E. examinations of the Bombay University. The laboratory is located in a fine building and all the apparatus are quite upto date and kept in very good condition. - 95 - ·CHAPTER VII RELIGION IF the number of shrines or temples and the number of persons who visit these sacred places to worship the gods are any guide for understanding the religious temperament of the people, the Japanese must be said to be very religious. But when one sees the manner in which those who come to the shrine or temple and pay their homage either to the image of Lord Buddha or to the memory of the person in whose honour the shrine is erected and when one tries to discuss with them the problem of higher philosophy or religion, in the real sense of the term, one feels that their religion begins and ends in ringing the bells, twice clapping their hands, and then bowing with joined hands before a Shinto shrine, or doing the latter - 96 - ·RELIGION for a only before Buddha's image. The original religion of the people was Shintoism. It was more a creed than a religion. It had some set rules for ceremonial observances for worshipping their deities, but it had no philosophy nor any religious teachings. When, therefore, Buddhism with its intellectual philosophy and its own religious preaching by the great master Sakyamuni entered Japan through China and Korea, it was able to get an easy admission there and was time able to drive Shintoism into the background. But when after some time, the national spirit of the Japanese revolted against the idea of having to admit the superiority of a foreign religion and when chey found it difficult to drive it away and to put Shintoism on its old pedestal, they decided to adopt Buddha as an incarnation of their own gods. In doing so, they were unconsciously following the example of the Hindus, who have also adopted Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, the preserver deity. By acting in this manner, people try to save their faces and keep up their self-respect and at the same time incorporate in their own old religion the new religious teachings so far as they are not contrary to the basic principles of the existing religion. The Hindus, while giving - 97 - ·RELIGION Bhagwan Buddha a very important place amongst the hierarchy of gods quietly drove away Buddhism from the country, probably because they considered the philosophy preached by Bhagwan Buddha as being agnostic, and thus being opposed to their main religious principle of creation and immortality of the soul. The Japanese accepted Buddha's philosophy as it did not come in contradiction with Shintoism which had no philosophy of its own. This combination of the two religions is compared by Dr. Nitobe to "Morganatic connection, to be dissolved sooner or later. Under this device, Shinto like a henpecked husband, was led by the nose, kept alive to take no active part in the real concerns of life." Shintoism had its revenge when a wave of nationalism passed all over the country in the beginning of Emperor Meiji's reign. Attempts were then made to revive that religion, and give it the first and most important place in the country. These attempts were given up when Japan became modernized in religion as in industries and enterprizes. Both the parents are now living separately, the children showing reverence to both. When a foreigner sees huge crowds of men and women or batches of girls and boys studying in schools going both to the Shinto shrine and the Buddhist temple and - 98- ·RELIGION 19 1) making obeisance to both with almost equal reverence he is not able to say definitely to which religion those crowds belonged, and yet if each individual was asked whether he was a Shintoist.or Buddhist he would at once give a definite reply, which means that the family to which he belongs has kept up the old tradition of naming the one or the other as its religion. Later on, when the Samurai military class came in power they established a creed of their own known as Bushido, which is called, “The way of the Knights." " Its originality consists in the combination and not in its merits." As Lowes Dickinson puts it, “Japanese Feudalism converterl the Buddha's doctrine of renunciation into the stoicism of the Warrior. The Japanese 'Samurai’ renounced desire, not that he might enter Nirvana, but that he might acquire the contempt of life which would make him a perfect warrior. In him, the knight included and swallowed up the Saint. And the Samurai meditating in a tea-house on the beauty, vanity and the pathos of life and passing out to kill or to die, is as typical of the Japanese attitude to life as the wandering Sanyasin is of the Indian." All these creeds or religions or sects are now merged into one religion of nationalism and filial piety, that of performing their duty - 99 - ·RELIGION towards their parents and members of the family and more than that their duty to the Emperor and the nation. In later days, the necessity of gaining knowledge, mainly scientific, commercial or economic anything that might prove useful in this life was added to the first mentioned ideals of religiousness. The following quotation from a book published some thirty years back by an Englishman who had stayed in Japan for three years gives an idea of the religious mentality at the time of one of the best of Japanese leaders. That description even now appears to be correct on the whole, excepting the reference to superstition which has evidently disappeared to a great extent. "I asked Marquis Ito", says the author, "whether Japan had a substitute for religion if she should abandon her Buddhism Shintoism and refuse Christianity”. “We have knowledge, science, culture for a religion”, he said in effect. The author goes on to say, “Here is the whole diapason of history to date. At one end superstition, at at the other positivism. Between them is everything and nothing.” A great deal of water has flown during the last thirty years under all the bridges in Japan, and to-day she is getting more and more positivist or - 100 - ·RELIGION even and has practically shed off most of the old superstitions. Anyone who visits Japan now will be able to realize that the question of the creation of the Universe, or of after-life does not iriterest the people. They have not the otherworldliness of the Hindus, nor Hindus, nor even that of the Christians or Muslims. They have so much work to do in this world and in this life, that they have neither the time nor perhaps the mentality to grapple with what we call the Higher or the Highest Problem. May it not be that this indifference to the Mystery of the Universe enables them to give more time and to spend more energy to the solution of the problems nearer at hand. On the other hand, is it not a fact that too much engrossment in talks of the mystery of the Universe has made I am talking specially of the Hindus,-indifferent to the study and solution of worldly problems which depends the happiness of our brothers and sisters? and sisters? Paul Deussen in one of his articles said some years back that “Vedanta has proved the curse of material progress in India". By Vedantism he meant Shankaracharya's philosophy of Advaitism and the consequential Máyá Váda. After seeing Japan and other countries, a respected friend made us, on -101 - ·RELIGION of mine said that he would prefer the gift of a third class ticket to any part of this world to that of a first class ticket to heaven. It seems that the Japanese believe in and follow that policy of ignoring heaven and sticking to this earth. The success of the Japanese in naval or land battles, their advancement in industrial and other enterprizes may well be attributed to their desire to make this life more and more beautiful for their co-citizens and for their children. Religion in its highest sense is the method of knowing the Absolute, and bringing one's soul in communion with God or by whatever name we may call that Highest Power. All religious practices or ceremonials are mere helps in achieving that object. In the ordinary and commonly accepted sense, religion is a guide to moral action, partly by promising reward for meritorious deeds and partly by holding out threats for those who act contrary to the precepts of their religion. If an individual goes the right way because he thinks it his duty to do so or because he is anxious to keep up the reputation for good manners and morals of his country, he should be considered more fit to enter heaven than one who acts properly - 102 - ·RI.LIGION was to get a reward or because he is afraid of punishment if he did not do so. In Japan, the artistic side of some of the religious practices is well preserved. When I went to see the Suwa shrine at Nagasaki I was asked to halt at the boundary limit fixed for sight-seers and thence I saw within the sanctuary a girl beautifully dressed in red robes moving round something like an altar in a very rhythmical and graceful gait somewhat like the Garba dance of Gujarat. I learnt afterwards that it a sacred temple-dance which is usually performed by the virgin girls of the priest's family. After the dance was over, the young lady brought back the offering which a couple v.ith a newly born infant had made. After the ceremony was over the girl removed the red robes and other ornaments worn for the occasion and went to her father's shop in the same compound to help him in selling picture, post cards and souvenirs of the shrine. I had another opportunity of seeing the virgins' temple-dance at Nara where the priests arrange such dances if timely notice is given and for which fees as per schedule rates have to be given. This dance was of a different kind but was more artistic than the Nagasaki one. It was in accompaniment - 103 ·RELIGION with music played by the male members of the family. The High Priest of the shrine, whom I met later on, attached great importance to this dance ceremony which to him was a part of the religious performances, In some Buddhist Temples, as at Nikko, after prayers public sermons are delivered explaining the principles and ethics of Buddhism. In spite of these ceremonies and the visits to temples and shrines by large crowds of worshippers it can safely be said that to Japanese people religion does not mean the search after Truth or the solution of the Mystery of Creation, or other-worldliness. They have their own ideas-narrow-minded as they may appear to us--of what religion means to them. Be it said to their credit that in their daily life they act according to the precepts of their own religion. So long as an individual puts into practice what he accepts as religion, even though it may be narrow in its outlook, he is far superior to the man who can talk glibly for hours on religion or mysticism or higher philosophy but who forgets everything about them when he has to act upto the principles laid down by him. If Hindus, Muslims and Christians acted every hour and minute of the day as their religion asks them to act, we -104 - ·RELIGION might have real millennium on this earth. Recently, there has been a revival of Buddhism in certain areas where Buddhist schools are established for the purpose of imparting instruction about the tenets of Buddhism. There are also some monasteries, specially of the Zen branch, where pupils have to undergo a strict discipline before they are admitted to the monastery and then taught the methods of carrying on meditation as prescribed in Zen literature. I had the privilege of meeting an eminent Buddhist professor, Dr. Suzuki who with his American wife-also a very learned Buddhist scholar-is conducting a Buddhist school at Kyoto. They are also chief contributors to a very high class Buddhist journal. It is very difficult to say how far these attempts to revive the Buddhist religion will succeed in converting the majority of the Japanese to Zen or any other branch Mahāyāna Buddhism. The prospects of this are not very favourable at present as the nation seems to be swinging more and more towards the religion of science and less and less towards mystical religion or old superstitions. - 105 - ·CHAPTER VIII SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN TOKYO KYO being the Capital of the Empire and, according to the guide book, being the second city in the world in the matter of population usually occupies the first place in a visitor's itinerary. Tokyo with Yokohama were the greatest sufferers from the earthquake and consequent fires of 1923. Such, however, was the indomitable spirit of the Government and the people and such were the methods of reconstruction adopted by them, that a person visiting both these towns ten years after the earthquake can hardly find anything to give him an idea of the havoc worked by the earthquake and fire. There is an earthquake memorial hall at Yokohama where are kept graphical representations and statistical charts giving a clear idea of how and - 106 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN when the first shock was felt and how houses .caught fire and in what directions the fire spread. The statistical chart shows how Yokohama grew from a hamlet of less than a thousand persons to a town having a population of nearly 450 thousand. On account of the setback due to the earthquake, the population was reduced by more than 100 thousand persons; after some time began the upward trend, which has brought up the population to more than 600 thousand and made Yokohama a typical modern city, a more beautiful and sanitary town than it was before the earthquake. The only visible harm done to the city is that Kobe has now grown in importance and has taken Yokohama's place as the centre of the country's foreign trade. Tokyo has its Imperial Palaces and their gardens which a visitor can see from a distance and admire, if he is so inclined. The moats round the palace compound at Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagoya remind an Indian of the moats round the Moghul palaces at Delhi and Agra, or round the palaces and forts of the Rajputana Princes. There are in Tokyo the usual parks and shrines—including the renowned shrine in honour of Emperor Meiji. As Tokyo is the capital of the Empire, all the highest educational - 107 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN institutions are located in that city. Amongst the large number of theatres and cinemas in. the city, there is a theatre called Kabuki of which each and every citizen is proud and which he wishes the visitors to see and admire. Three plays were on the programme when I went to that theatre. One of these was about the peace talks between Marquis (afterwards Prince) Ito and his colleagues with the Chinese representatives at the end of the first Chino-Japanese war in 1895. The acting at the theatre was really good. The object of the play appeared to me to show to the people that Japan has always been generous to a vanquished enemy, and that it can also give up its legitimate rights with good grace as she did when Russia, France and Germany asked her to renounce the possession of the Peninsula of Liatoung which had been ceded to Japan by China under the Treaty of 1895. I had an opportunity of visiting the Inn at Shimonosiki where the peace pourparlers were carried on and which is preserved in the same condition as in 1895 and is considered almost as a place of pilgrimage for visitors. Yokohama is about twenty miles from Tokyo and as there are buildings all along the road which is maintained in excellent - 108 -

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condition, from one town to the other it looks
'as if they were not two separate towns, but
only one town. Owing to cheap petrol, the lower
salary of motor drivers or keen competition
or the combination of these factors, taxi fares are
very low between these two centres. Taxis
for going from one place to another and coming
back with one hour's detention can be had for
five yen which at the present rate of exchange
comes to about Rs. 4, while taxi fares from
Bombay to Malad or Borivli and back with
an hour's detention will cos at least twice as
much if not three times. This is but an
indication of low costs in most of the trades
and industries in Japan. There are some twenty
Sindhu merchants in Yokohama loing export
business chiefly in silk yarn and piecegoods.
There are, besides these, two other Indians,
one a Muslim from the Aligarh University and
the other a Bengali. The former is a professor
and the latter is doing import business in Indian
edibles, such as pickles, chutney curry powders,
and the like. The Indians have a club of their
own called the Indian Club housed in its own fine
building where most of them go in the evenings
after a day's work. They have only business
relations with Japanese merchants, but no social
relations, probably because the necessity of
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·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN developing social contacts and the advantages to their business likely to result from it have not appealed to these merchants. I think that if they desire to have social relations with the Japanese, the idea will be welcomed by the latter as there is no feeling of racial or class superiority amongst them. Next in importance to Tokyo is Osaka, the industrial centre of Japan. So far as distance and the continuity of buildings on both sides of the main road making them into one city instead of two are concerned, Osaka and Kobe can be compared to the combination of Tokyo and Yokohama. As centres of industry and ports of loading and unloading these twin cities play a more important part in the development of trade and industry of Japan than even the capital. I have already referred to the enterprizing spirit of the people who constructed the tramway service connecting these two cities and on its proving unremunerative, built a departmental stores at Osaka and Takarazan a place of amusement somewhere between these two cities. There are two other enterprizes at Kobe which if reproduced in India would make a trip to a place like Matheran real pleasure. There are two hills near the city а -110 -

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·Indon AERIAL ROPEWAY ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN nervous. called Maya and Rokko; about 2,000 feet and 2,800 feet respectively above sea level. The base of one hill is about five miles from Kobe and that of the other about seven miles. From the base of both these hills there are cable-car services to take passengers to the top of the hills within fifteen to twenty minutes. At Rokko in addition to this facility there is also an aerial ropeway. A car with accommodation for about thirty persons is hung on a rope to carry passengers up to the top; all the while, the car is swinging on the rope in such a manner as to make some of the passengers A view of the valleys as the car passes very high above them is beautiful. Travelling by this ropeway might appear dangerous to persons standing near the base and seeing its fate hanging on a rope, but to most of the persons sitting in the car, it is a very exhilarating experience free all danger. It takes fifteen minutes to go from the base to the top and the fare is a little lower than seven annas. If a cable car service can be put up at the base of one of the points to the Matheran Hill, visitors to Matheran go to the base by motor cars or buses and be on the top of the Hill in much less than three hours, at probably half the cost of the present second can - 111 -

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class fares from Bombay to Neral and thence
to Matheran. If I remember aright a proposal
of this nature was under the consideration of one
of our enterprizing industrialists some eight years
back. We, however, take so much time in
cogitating over a scheme that we allow the
appropriate occasion to pass by without doing
anything. Even now it is not difficult to
obtain a licence and concession from Government
and the local Municipality and go ahead.
When I went to the Kobe Chamber of
Commerce in response to their invitation to
tea, the President of the Chamber was good
enough to take me round the industrial museum
arranged in the building under the auspices of
the Chamber. A few years back, the Chamber
felt the necessity of bringing to the notice of the
public and of visitors the products of various
industries of the city and prefecture, and they
decided to have a museum of their own to
enable people to see all kinds of these industrial
products collected together in a central place
and to place orders for the purchase of the
same. There were in the museum articles
manufactured at large factories and also artistic
goods such as hand painting made at home,
both for ordinary use and for home decoration.
Almost all large cities and even some small ones
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·TYPIC. IL JIP.I.NESE VILLA ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN have their commercial or industrial museums ander the auspices of the city municipality or the Prefectural Goverrment. Both the administrations consider it their duty to spend money from their revenue to help the industries of the prefecture or city by pushing the sale of indigenous goods. This is real Swadeshism, it represents an honest and earnest effort to help the sale of the indigenous goods of one's country. The Government of India, constituted as it is, still follows the laissez faire policy, partly because it has not the strength to get out of the ruts of the old track and partly because it has to carry out the instructions of the Secretary of State for Ir:dia who has to placate the industrialists of his own country. In some cities and towns in India, Municipalities are indirectly moving in the direction of Swadeshism, by renting, at concession rates, municipal shops to merchants offering to sell Indian goods only. Such an action would meet with approval of the Government and the public in any other country. But in India, Government seems to be so afraid that the movement of Swadeshism might be utilized by the Congress for political purposes, that the Municipality is taken to task and asked to explain its conduct ! As I had expressed to some friends my desire tree a typical house where the higher - 113- ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN class of Japanese lived, the President and Vice- President of the Kobe Chamber of Commerce were good enough to take me and some Indian friends, two being cultured Indian ladies, to see them. All the houses that we saw bad large compounds with gardens, artificial lakes or small canals full of gold fish. The paths in the garden were studded in a peculiar manner with large polished stones at a certain distance from one another. This is said to be the typical Japanese garden path. Not being an artist I do not feel entitled to express any opinion about the artistic beauty of the garden. I may, however, add that the two Indian ladies who accompanied us enthusiastically admired all arrangements both in the garden and in the houses. Only one out of the four houses that we visited was built half in modern style. All the others were in pure Japanese style. At the house of the Vice-President, Mr. Enami, I had an opportunity of witnessing the famous tea-ceremony of the people, which every well-bred Japanese young lady is expected to know. The English-educated daughter of Mr. Enami was good enough to perform the ceremony in our presence. The whole ceremony gives one an idea of the artistic temperament of the nation. There is art in each There is art in each and every - 114 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN detail, and there is delicacy in the handling of the powdered tea-leaves, the tea kettle and the tea-cup and then giving it to the guests; these must be seen to be fully understood and appreciated. It was at that house that I saw for the first time their famous musical instrument the Koto. It resembles in shape to a certain extent the Indian Bin and is played with small hornlets put on the fingers of the left hand. As Kobe is now the centre of the import and export trade to and from Japan, there are many Indian firms and individuals staying in Kobe and transacting business either in Kobe or at Osaka. There are Hindus, Mussalmans and Parsis. All of them are from the Bombay Presidency, excepting one gentleman from Bihr who over and above his ordinary business, is conducting a journal called the “Voice of India.” Although the different groups of Hindus, (Gujaratis and Sindhis), Mussalmans and Parsis have their own meeting places, they have all combined in starting a club, called the Indian Club, which is more or less a recreation club where some members go every evening while the majority go only on special occasions. As several of these gentlemen live at Kobe with their families the ladies have organized a ladies' club, which is not puriy" a recreation club but where certain - 115 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN subjects are taught at the weekly gatherings. The ladies also arrange concerts at least twice a year, and from the funds raised at the concerts they send donations to India for women's education. At Kobe, as at Yokohama, the Indians do not mix socially with the Japanese. Two daily newspapers with the large circulation of a million to million and a half are published in Osaka. They are said to be so anxious to get first the latest news about any exciting event that during the last war they used aeroplanes to take photographs of the battles and fights and publish them as soon as the aeroplanes brought the negatives to Osaka. Visitors to Japan are not allowed by them to have a peaceful time, and as reporters do not understand English as "she is spoke", and as the visitors do not as a rule know the Japanese language, the chances of the reports of interviews being incorrect are very great. The buildings in which their printing press and the management are housed are quite modern in style and furnishing. The Japanese probably learnt the art of carrying on propaganda work from the Englishmen or the American, but now they have nearly surpassed both nations in the sphere of publicity as in many others. Steamers coming to Japan front Western - 116 - ·SOME CITIES AND TUWNS OF JAPAN Europe or from India have to pass through a very parrow strait to enter their inland sea of whose beauties every Japancse is very proud. He feels as if he has had a hand in dotting the sea with islands in au artistic manncr and that the whole handicraft was his work, though God Almighty might have given a helpirag hand. If one speaks to a Japanese friend about the narrow strait or the Island Sea, ie will find the friend go on talking on the subject for any length of time, of course in the Ja.panese language. This is one other illustration of the ultra-nationalism of the people. Before coming to the Strait, boats pass by Nagasaki, the oldest port in Japan, though now declining in importance. Even this town has an industrial and commercial museum of the products of that locality. There is also a big ship-building yard and a College of Commerce. The ancient Capital of the Empire, in the early days of Buddhism, was Nara. It retained this important position for less than a century, but during that period the expanse of the city and its population were very great. Even now visitors can see the remains of her old greatness. The statue of Buddha, (the Great Buddha as the people of Nara call it ) is the biggest officially recognized statue, though - 117 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN not so beautiful, it is said, as the statue at Karnakura which is smaller only by a few fect, Shintoism was still in a flourishing condition during that period as evidenced by a very big Shinto shrine, in whose compound stand thousands of beautifully carved stone lamps dedicated by devotees. These lamps are scattered all over the grounds of the shrine and are lighted at the time of festivals. There are about 800 deer in the garden of that shrine, as there has been a standing order since the old days that no deer is to be killed at Nara. They roam about in the gardens, where rice-cakes are often given them by pilgrims and visitors. By their graceful movements they add to the beauty of the garden. It is here that the virgin dance referred to above can be seen if previous arrangement is made. The custom of offering carved stone lamps has led to the development of the stone carving industry in that area. Nara has also its industrial and commercial museum which is well worth a visit. In the vicinity of the temple there is a small hill the whole of which is covered with green grass. It is known as the Green Mount. Guide books and guides speak of it as if it were one of the wonders of the world. It does look beautiful - 118 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN 'from a little distance and the shape of the hill adds to this beauty but there is nothing very uncommon about its beauty, though the Japanese Government seem to be spending some money to keep it green all round the year. The railway that connects Osaka with Nara is a State railway and to increase the importance of Nara and to attract people to visit that place and travel by the railway, the authorities have put up a hotel in one of the finest sites within the precincts of the city, commanding a view of a lake in the park and also of the Green Mount. The manager of the hotel is appointed by the railway and ranks as an officer of the Government. As most of the visitors to the hotel are foreigners who do not know the language of the country and most of whom know only the English language the aurhorities have selected for the post a gentleman who has received his education in America and speaks English correctly and fluently. The idea of State-managed railways was pooh-poohed by the Government of India till a few years ago, and even now they have adopted the new policy of taking over the management of a few railways 80 to 85 per cent. of whose shares are - 119 -

·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN
owned by Government, merely because a strong
majority in the Central Legislature supported
that proposal. But even now they would fight
shy of any proposal about these railways having
their own hotels at important historical places
to attract visitors to these centres.
From Nara, the capital of the Empire was
transferred to Kyoto which continued to be the
first city in the Empire till the Meiji revolution of
1868, that is, for about eleven centuries. As the
city enjoyed this important privilege for so long
a period it grew in size, in population and was
the seat of culture and art. It is the seat of an
Imperial University. During my stay in Japan
there was some trouble between the faculty of
law and the Education Minister and this formed
one of the main topics of news and criticism in
the public Press. Disciplinary action was taken
by the Minister against a professor in that
faculty for having given expression to radical
views in one of his books. This action was
resented by that faculty and by some other
faculties as being an unjustifiable restriction on
the liberty of thought and speech of professors
of that University. This action of the Minister
shows that even in a national Government there
are some die-hard members who are still so
orthodox and conservative in their view that
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BHAGWAN BUDDHA'S TEMPLE, NARA

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·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN now. they cannot tolerate the expression of advanced views and theories. One of the historical places of that city is the old Imperial Palace where the Coronation ceremony of a new Emperor takes place even Those who have seen the old palace of the Moghul Emperors of India at Delhi or Agra or even the modern palaces of several of the ruling chiefs of Indian States, may not think much of this old Imperial Palace. But real grandeur lies in the simplicity of the style of structure. It is not the stone and mortar that count, but it is the historical background that takes back the imagination of the visitors to the greatness of the city and its environments. Like Kobe, Kyoto has its hills and cable cars, and an aerial ropeway which is another evidence of the enterprizing spirit of the people. The most attractive and charming sight in Kyoto is the Lake Biwa, some two hundred miles in circumference. There are some ports and landing places all over the bank and steam-ferries run regularly at short intervals from Kyoto to those different places. So big is it in size that the lake looks more like an inland sea, and the scenery around it is pleasing and restful to the eye. Kyoto has necessarily its industrial museum - 121 ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN on consisting chiefly of artistic painting and other work on silk, Nagoya, the growing industrial city and port of Japan lies between Kobe and Tokyo and presents a marked contrast to the old Imperial Capitals of the Empire like Kyoto and Nara. It is the centre of porcelain industry and of the manufacture of artistic cloisonne work gold, silver and other metals. The location of the mills working the famous Toyoda automatic looms gives it a great importance in the eyes of visitors. Spinning machinery is also manufactured in this city. It is an old city and has an old castle with moats and having entrance gates on the same principle as the gates of the capitals and cities of Moghul Emperors or Rajput Princes. The castle has two golden dolphins on the top which make it more attractive specially to students of Japanese history. I stayed here for the first time at a hotel run on Japanese lines commonly called a Japanese inn. The arrangements in the sitting and dining rooms are the same as in Japanese houses and resemble more our Indian hornes than do the modern hotels. The proprietor and the waitresses were very polite and obliging, though it was difficult for them to follow my English pronunciation. If I could have made my English - 122

·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN
easily understood, I would have preferred to stay
at a Japanese inn than in a hotel furnished in
modern style. The inn had small gardens in
the compound, with the usual artistically
arranged paths runring all round. In one of
these gardens was a shrine and the proprietor
worshipped at the shrine every morning almost
in the same manner as a Hindu lady worships
the sacred Tulsi plant in the compound of her
house.
• Besides these historical and industrial
cities, I visited some towns for the scenic
beauties in the neighbourhood. Of all such
places visited I felt that Nikko was decidedly
the best. It has a very exhilarating and
invigorating climate, although it is only
about 1,800 feet above sea-level. An express
train takes one from Tokyo to Nikko in two
hours and a half amidst charming scenery, and
at the end of the jetúrney the visitor goes to a
hotel which is one of the two most artistically
furnished hotels in the country and which is
situated near the bank of a river the music of
whose small waterfalls adds to the charm of
the place. At Nikko is situated the Buddhist
temple in the grounds of which is a smaller
temple on one of the panels of which are
engraved the three monkeys so well known both
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·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN inside and outside the country; each monkey has its hands either on the mouth, eyes and ears signifying Talk not Evil, See not Evil, Hear not Evil. There is also a large and beautiful Shinto shrine. Both the temple and the shrine are important assets of Nikko, but the most attractive and beautiful sight is that of the Lake Chuzenji whose altitude is about 4,000 feet. The drive to the lake is through beautiful hill-side covered with trees all along the road. Several waterfalls are seen on the way, but these are not in any way superior to those seen in the monsoon on the Bhore Ghat while going to Lonavla or Poona from Bombay. The Kegan waterfall, however, is an exception. It is seen from a small hill just facing it, which can be reached by going down a lift worked by hydro-electric power. That waterfall has both grandeur and beauty and a visitor to Chuzenji lake ought not to miss the opportunity of seeing it. The climate of the hill near the lake is more invigorating than at Nikko, and ihe lakeside hotel commands a really beautiful scenery all around. At an outside place like Nikko, I was surprised to see a girl managing one of the best known curio and embroidery shops and speaking grammatical English with correct pronunci. ation. That shop has been visited by H. R. H. - 124 - ·By KAGAI TALLS

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·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester. This young lady received her English education at a mission school at Tokyo. With the English language she has imbibed modern ideas and she had the boldness to say in the presence of her mother that she did not want to marry. Many other girls must have similar views also, and unless the women in Japan are made friends, companions and in some matter counsellers of their husbands, girls would prefer to lead unmarried independent lives, ins.ead of being confined in their houses to be merely "good housewives and wise mothers." Next in sea level height and also in scenic beauty is Miyanoshita. The hotel there, Fujiyama, is the prize hotel of Japan and can stand comparison with the best hotels in the world. It is a strange coincidence that the proprietors and managers of bash"these hotels are brothers. Probably both of them inherited the artistic instinct from some near or distant ancestor. In clean shaven modern Japan, Yamaguchi, the Proprietor of the Fujiyama Hotel keeps a moustache and heartily welcomes those having moustaches. A young lady who was working behind the counter and spoke English well, told me that she had become a Christian--possibly under the influence of her teachers at the mission - 125 ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN nor school and she also did not want to marry. This also is a result of constant contact for a number of years with modern views about marriage. There is a pass a few miles from the hotel whence a good view can be had of the Fuji Mountain and Lake Hakaru if there are no clouds or mist. When we went to that pass there were clouds and we could see neither the mountain the lake. There were other visitors also sitting near the small rest house on one side of the pass. All of us waited for an hour or so, but as there were no signs of improvement in the weather, many of us cursed the weather and came back to the hotel. There is a delightful park called the Gora" Park a few miles distant and connected by a railway with Miyanoshita. Miyajima (literally the Shrine Island) was the third city I visited murely for seeing the natural scenery, and the main shrine. While I stayed at a modern hotel, a Japanese friend of mine, who had accompanied me to Miyajima from his native place about ten miles away, stayed at a Japanese inn. While the hotel commands the view of the inland sea, the Japanese inn is situated a little in the interior and commands the view of a small hill, and in its neighbourhood are small waterfalls making - 126- ·{ { , 11 ᏓN OI Ꮅ

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·件 DEER PARK, MIIAJINIA

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·! BEPPI BAY FROM PARK ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN music for the ears of the visitors. The situation of the hotel and the inn gives one an idea of the scenery that, according to the hotel proprietor, the Westerners (and Indians are Westerness in their opinion) would like, and the scenery and the surroundings that will attract the Japanese. There is no architectural beauty in the main shrine. The historical background means everything to the Japanese, while the visitor has the satisfaction of walking all along the corridor, the length of which is given in guide books to show the vastı.ess of the building. One other building well worth a visit is the hall of 1,000 mats. Some 300 years back, mats were brought as offerings and even now some pilgrims offer mats. All these are cullected and preserved. The view of the Island as a whole from a motor launch going round it is really enchanting. In that trip, one sees a number of shrines dotted all the island and understands the reasons for calling this place Miyajima (Island of Shrines). There is a regular ferry-boat service connecting Miyajima with Beppu about whose hot springs and the research hospital I have made mention before. The ferry service is run by the O. S. K. line, which is as important and big as the N. Y. K. The management of this line over - 127 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN having learnt of my intended visit to Beppu from Miyajima, through the itinerary prepared by the Japanese Tourist Bureau, were kind enough to send me a complimentary ticket for the trip with a very polite covering letter. This is one more instance of the hospitable and polite manners of the business world of Japan. As the boat by which I was to return to India was halting at Moje, I went there from Beppu. Moje is an industrial centre, and yet there is no decent hotel in that city ; visitors have to go to the other side of the sea and stay at Shemonoseki, made famous in Japanese history on account of its being the place where negotiations regarding the terms of the treaty between China and Japan were held in 1895 and where the treaty was finally signed. signed. A few miles from there is the town of Chofu, where there is a Shrine in honour of the late General Nogi, the hero of the Russo Japanese War. Although the house in which he was born and brought up had to be demolished, as there was a landslip, an exact replica of that house is built in the same compound which gives the visitors an idea of the pecuniary condition of General Nogi's family. By his success, General Nogi proved that in Japan, as in England, every - 128 - ·SOME CITIES AND TOWNS OF JAPAN soldier carries in his knapsack the Field- Marshal's baton. Japanese guide books give in one sentence the effects on the visitors of seeing the scenic beauties and historic places of Japan. This phrase is an antithesis of the proverb, “See Naples and die." The Japanese say, “See Japan and live." - 129

·CHAPTER IX
INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS
DURING my stay in various cities and towns
of Japan, I had opportunities of meeting a
few literary men, and many more industrialists
and business men. Most of the literary men were
professors. Amongst all of them it was Dr.
Anesaki, who impressed me the most as regards
depth of his studies and research work. On
meeting him and hearing him talk on religion
and philosophy, I was reminded of the late Sir
Ramkrishna Bhandarkar. The other professors
whom I met were Dr. Takakasu and Dr. Suzuki,
both of whom have done splendid work in their
own subjects and would be ornaments of any
university. Dr. Nitobe has made his mark as an
author of very high rank and a splendid public
speaker not only in his own country but in other
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·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS countries also. I considered it a great privilege to have had an opportunity of meeting these great men and of hearing their views on their own special subjects. A large number of industrialists whom I had the pleasure of meeting would not or could not speak in English with me personally or at meetings of their associations. This necessitated the use of an interpreter and it is not possible to gauge correctly the character of a person speaking through an interpreter. There were, however, a few exceptions to this general rule, Mr. Okada was the person who impressed me most as a mill-owner who knew all the details of Che working of his and other mills and was also able to put his case very lucidly and strongly against the abrogation by the Government of India of the Commercial Treaty with Japan. The general secretary of the Cotton Spinners' Association, Mr. Kamasaki, and one of his secretaries, Mr. Kawaguchi, knew very well the statistical side of this question and were able and willing to supply me with all the information I required. Mr. Abe, the President of the Cotton Spinners' Association, is, I was told, the ablest and most respected industrialist in the country. But my ignorance of the Japanese language came in the way of my fully appreciat- - 131 ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS ing his abilities. Mr. Tsucada who, for reasons of his own, kept himself in the background and appeared to be hiding himself from limelight was another of those who appeared to me as capable as any Bombay or Ahmedabad millowner. I visited the offices of the Chambers of Commerce at Kobe, Tokyo, and Nagoya and of the Cotton Spinners' Association at Osaka. The buildings of the Associations at all their places except Osaka are situated on a high ground and command a beautiful view. The building of the Cotton Spinners' Association at Osaka is in the midst of the city proper, a fine impressive structure of two storeys. On the ground floor of this building is a spacious well furnished waiting room, where persons having any business come and discuss their affairs amongst themselves before going to the offices upstairs. The Bombay Mill-owners' Association has no building of its own and even its rented offices can stand no comparison with the building of the Cotton Spinners' Association at Osaka. At Tokyo, the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Federation of Japan have a common building. The President of the one institution is very often the President of the other. Both these institutions are work, ing in co-operation with one another so that - 132 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS or both the academic and practical sides of a question may be carefully cxamined before any action is taken. One institution which deserves special notice is the Japan Tourist Bureau. It is not a private body like Cook's or the American Express or Jeena & Co. It is a Government body created to render assistance to visitors from foreign countries. Its object is not to earn any money but to carry on propaganda about the beauties of the nature and historical monuments of the country, and thus attract people to visit Japan. If any one in India suggested to a Provincial Government to the Central Government to have a similar institution in this country, he would be laughed out and perhaps be put down as a fanatic if not a lunatic ! Most of us in India have not given any careful consideration to the changes that are going on in that Far Eastern country. Even those of us who hàve cared to follow her progress from a congerie of feudal states to a big Empire have not been able to understand how she was able to achieve all that she has done, during the short space of 65 years. Many of us still believe that the greatness of Japan is superficial and that in trying to follow along the path of Imperialism in the footsteps of the British Empire she will sooner or later collapse. We - 133 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS even our will not accept the supremacy of Japan's industrial achievements, although · 'we see that her industrialists have been improving the quality of manufactured goods and have been able to reduce the working costs to a very low figure. It appears humiliating to industrialists to acknowledge the advance of a sister nation to such an extent that she is able to capture the markets not only of India, but of most of the countries in Asia and even of East Africa and South Africa. On the other hand, Indians who have been staying in Japan for a long time and doing business there speak very admiringly of the industrial progress of the country in the last thirty years. Sudden rises are usually accompanied by sudden falls, at least that is one of the lessons taught by history. It is necessary to study how far the geographical position of the country and its geophysical condition have been instrumental in moulding the character of the people. It is desirable to note also the effects that the religious developments have had on the mentality of the people and, lastly, the past history of the country will have to be carefully studied before anyone can venture to give any opinion about the future of Japan. To a certain extent, the condition of the - 134 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS country before 1868 was analogous to that of India before the invasion of the Afghan Ruler, Mahomed Ghaznavi. Both the countries were ruled by kings who were practically independent in their kingdoms. There was, however, one very important difference between conditions in India and Japan. While the Rajas and Maharajas of the several Indian States owed allegiance to none, the Daimyos uwed allegiance, though a'nominal one, to the Emperor and virtually to to the Chief Shogun in power for the time being. Owing to this allegiance of the chieftains, the people of the country were also loyal to the Emperor and that feeling of loyalty to one person whose family was believed to have descended from the Gods acted like a cementing force and kept together the different chiefs, so far as the interests of the nation as a whole were concerned. Although there was absolute monarchy or rather pure autocracy in Japan at that time, by some sort of reasoning which it is difficult for an outsider to appreciate and understand, the people were led to believe that as they were in a way connected with the Royal family they were also to that extent partners in the administration and were rulers over themselves. A European writer, Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, - 135 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS writing about the effects of the geophysical condition of Japan on the character of the people observes : “From times unknown, Japan has been a land of cataclysms-earthquakes that ruin cities in the space of a moment, tidal waves two hundred miles long, sweeping whole coast populations out of existence, floods submerging hundreds of leagues of well tilled fields, eruptions burying provinces. Calamities like these have disciplined the race in resignation and patience and it has also been well trained to bear with courage all the misfortunes of war. Even by foreign peoples that have been most closely in contact with her the capacities of Japan remained unguessed. Perhaps her power to resist aggression is far surpassed by her power to endure." This was written some thirty years back, just before the termination of the Russo- Japanese War. During these thirty years, Japan has added to her virtues of patience endurance and resistance to aggression, the capacity of fighting with nature, or recreating cities and palatial buildings demolished by the vagaries of nature. The people have also learnt to be aggressive themselves when it suits their purpose to do so. The discipline that taught passive virtues taught active creative virtues and also 136 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS taught Japan several other things such as aggressiveness, which to a pacifist like myself do not appear to be virtues or even activities in the service of humanity. Unfortunately, in this world the larger and more powerful nations spread out their wings nominally to protect but virtually to control and exploit weaker nations. When such conditions exist in other parts of the world, one cannot find much fault with Japan for her aggressiveness and militarism. We wonder at times whether we should feel grateful to nature when she is propitious and bountiful to a country. One of the results of nature's favours is that the people of that country usually become soft and easily contented with their lot. Not having to fight nature and to earn their living by hard toil and constant preparedness, and easily obtaining their requirements and maintenarice, they lose grit and are gradually doped by nature to lethargy and indolence, from which it is very difficult to shake them to wakefulness and activity. Some parts of India and the whole of Ceylon have the advantages and disadvantages of being nature's favourites. One at times wishes that nature were not as bountiful as she is in some parts of Malabar or some districts of Bengal or Ceylon or even that it might be better to have at - 137 ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS intervals floods like the Gujerat floods of 1927 which brought out the latent self-sacrificing spirit of many of our young men under the guidance of Sirdar Vallabhbhai and others. If Japan has learnt discipline from natural cataclysms, she has learnt nationalism on account of her continuous loyalty to the Royal family and, as a sequel, loyalty to the nation at large. The contact with Western civilization led Japan to introduce compulsory primary education and higher technical commercial as well as military and naval education. The results of this policy are correctly depicted by two Amrican writers in the following words :- “The nation has been up and coming for somewhat more than half a century, adapting and modifying our Western Civilisation to her own needs, not as a mere imitator; instead with her own worthy history in mind, she is fashioning to Japanese needs much of the best from abroad.” Shintoism which has no creed, nor can be called a religion in the ordinary sense of the term is a combination of worship of the Imperial House, worship of the ancestors and worship of national heroes. This combination must be due to the belief that the members of the Imperial House and the ancestors of the people - 138 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS 'might be classed as national heroes. If this inference is correct, Shintoism can be called the religion of national hero worship. One of the effects of constant thinking of the greatness of the national heroes is that it enthuses the people in the national cause and leads them to try and be as great heroes as those whom they worship. As all these heroes were men and not incarnations of gods as in India, people feel that they can be equally great if they earnestly tried to achieve greatness. They are also taught to act in a manner that would keep intact the greatness of the nation. Buddhism tried to draw the people towards spiritual and moral greatness, but as its tenets were gradually assimilated to Shintoism the formal ideal of greatness was widened by including in it spiritual and moral ideals. The religion of the Bushido added to these qualities the quality of chivalry and of courtesy or politeness. Last, but not Icast, came the contact with Western civilization which added the cult of industrialism while Christianity put before them the ideals of Jesus Christ, of sacrifice for public good. All these teachings have contributed to raise the country to the present high position which she occupies in the civilized world. These teachings have been mixed not as a mechanical mixture but as - 139 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS a chemical combination, and the existing standards of moral and ethical and physical culture are the result of this combination. As the contact with Western industrialism and western methods of conducting wars were the latest contribution to the mixture, these have not yet been chemically combined with the Mercy of Buddhism or the Love of Humanity of Jesus Christ. In course of time, one hopes there will be in Japan a combination that will be beneficial to herself, to other nations like China, whose territories are in proximity to hers, as also to the world at large. Japan has two alternative ideals before her, the Imperialism of Western countries, or peaceful progress and acquisition of the goodwill of the sister nations in Asia. At present, the chances are that she will follow the first ideal. Her population is increasing at the rate of one million per year. Although there are still hundreds and thousands of acres of culturable land, which can be brought under cultivation for the use of the growing population, this work cannot be done without money, and as long as her military expenditure continues to grow and so long as she carries on her civic administration on the most progressive and expensive lines as at present, she may not be 140 - ·INDIVIDUALS AND ASSOCIATIONS able to find money for the requisite reclamation of land and of carrying out agricultural improvements. Unless she is at peace with her neighbours and succeeds in having real friendly relations, with other countries, who are jealous of her military power and industrial development, she cannot reduce her military expenditure and must always remain fully prepared to fight if, she has to find new lands for her growing population and must capture new markets for the increasing production of manufactured goods. This means imperialism with a vengeance. It is just possible that she may decide to win the friendship of China and if that happens and if Japan trains and disciplines the Chinese, the union of these two countries will be sufficiently strong to prevent. any Western power from attacking them. The only danger of this union is that these two countries might aspire to rule over the whole of Asia. On the other hand, if this union seeks and obtains the goodwill of other Asiatic countries the yellow and brown races Inay be able to create culture, peaceful and artistic, yet creative and progressive. This may look like a dream, and yet who can say what is on the laps of Providence ? a new - 141 -

·CHAPTER X
VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES
CEYLON
ON my way to Japan, I stayed in Ceylon for
about a fortnight and by the kindness of
two Indian friends was able to visit old historical
places like Pollunurawa and Anuradhapur and
the hill stations of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya
and see the scenic beauties of the mountainous
tract from Kandy to Núwara Eliya. At
Kandy I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Menon
and gathering through him and one courteous
tea-planter Mr. Piper, some information about
the condition of Indian labourers in Ceylon. My
letter to the “Indian Social Reformer"
and other subjects is given as Appendix A.
The people of Ceylon appeared to be almost
like the Indians of Malabar, and I felt that
on this
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·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES
İndia had greater affinities with Ceylon than
with Burma and that Ceylon should in future
form a part of the new Indian Federation. So
long as Ceylon gets full provincial autonomy and
is allowed control over her finances it might not
be difficult to come to an agreement with it
about joining the Indian Federation. The only
real change will be that instead of the Colonial
Secretary being responsible for the administration
of Ceylon, the Secretary of State for India will be
responsible to Parliament for its administration.
One advantage to India from this amalgamation
would be that it might be possible to persuade
Indian Civil Servants to reduce their salaries
und allowances to the level of the salaries paid
to the members of the Ceylon Co.onial Service
and that the Members of the Executive Council
and Minister and the Provincial Government
might also agree to accept salaries almost equal
to the salaries paid to the Ministers in Ceylon.
The fact that India is getting poorer is not fully
realized either by the Government of India or the
Provincial Governments. Nor do many of our
leaders know how economical the colonial
administration is so far as the services are
concerned. Until the Secretary of State and
the Government of India make a sincere and
earnest effort to reduce the salaries of the
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·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES services by putting the interests of the masses of India above the interests of the services, there is very little hope of reduction in taxation and of improvement in the economic condition of the vast majority of our people. In Ceylon, as in Burma, an agitation is being carried on against the Indian businessmen as exploiters, who displace the Ceylonese from trade and commerce and take all the business in their own hands. Indian businessmen are called exploiters and are gradually being treated as such. The remedy for this is to a very large extent in the hands of Indians themselves. They must invest a portion of their profits in the country of their adoption and must also subscribe freely to all activities for the betterment of the Ceylonese people. They must also co-operate with Ceylonese businessmen in every way they can, and never should they, cry them down as incapable of managing commercial or industrial concerns. If there are any shortcomings of theirs, the Indians must in a friendly way draw their attention to the same and show them the way to remove these shortcomings. The roads by which I travelled in Ceylon were in excellent condition and were as good as the best of our roads in Bombay City. Government have evidently thought it better to spend - 144 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES inoney for providing such amenities for the benefit of agriculture, trade and commerce and for the travelling public, than in giving high salaries to their officials. There are rest-houses at all important towns and old historical places. These rest-houses are well furnished and the service there is good and economical. As I have taken advantage of two or three such rest-houses, it might be considered ungrateful if I say anything against the policy of undergoing this large recurring expenditure for the convenience of a few visitors, or the rich gentry and planters, who are the only persons likely to use them. The Minister in charge may usefully examine the figures of the annual expenditure incurred on their maintenance and the number and class of persons who take advantage of the same, and if he finds the expenditure is quite out of proportion to the advantage derived by the travelling public, he may well reduce the number of rest houses or reduce the services without causing real inconvenience to the travelling public. SINGAPORE When the Tango Maru touched Singapore I had a most agreeable surprise in store for me. I saw an English member of the Malayan Civil Service, jump out of the quaran- - 145 ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES tine officers' launch to the gangway of the steamer and come up the same and greet me in a very friendly manner. That officer, Mr. Charles Wilson, had visited India in 1924 with the representatives of the Malaya Federated States to help them in placing their case before the Emigration Committee of which I was then a member. The little hospitality or help I had extended to him and his colleagues had been remembered by him when he saw my name in the list of incoming passengers and as if to repay me for my friendly offices he had come up to the boat lying in mid-stream to welcome me to Singapore and ask me to be his guest. That a member of the so-called heaven-born service should go out of his way to find out the time of the arrival of a non-official gentleman of some acquaintance and then take the trouble of going to the boat to see him was a novel experience to me. similar spirit were to prevail amongst all members of the service in India, there would be much better understanding between them and the public. Mr. Wilson takes a paternal pride in the growth of Singapore and he was good enough to show me public buildings, specially the hospital, which I was told, was one of the biggest in Asia. He showed me the beauty spots of the city and also the poor men's and the labourers' quarters If a - 146 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES and their dwelling places. It seems that the city municipality constructed some time back one model building for this class of people, and as it proved remunerative as an investment, private.capitalists took up this kind of work. They have built a number of similar houses. This is in marked contrast to the failure, from the investment point of view, of the Improvement Trust, Development Department, Chawls in Bombay. There must be a flaw somewhere in our management of affairs of this type, otherwise there is no reason why schemes that prove successful in out of the way places like Singapore should prove failures in our city. It may be mentioned that the salaries of the Malaya Civilians, as those in Ceylon, are much lower than those paid to members of the Indian Civil Service, and yet these Civilians work with same zeal and loyalty as do members of the Indian Civil Service. Probably they do not know how to combine and agitate for higher salaries or other allowances, or perhaps they know that the Colonial Secretary is not half as generous as the Secretary of State for India is with Indian revenues. Singapore being a free trade port has become the distributing centre for all kinds of goods, agricultural products such as rubber, and - 147 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES preserved pine-apples, as well as manufactured articles from all adjacent areas. Her merchants, and these include Indians also, believe in free trade, for they have prospered on account of it. As they have no industries that need protection, their attitude is quite understandable. There is a fairly large number of Indian merchants in Singapore; chiefly Hindus and Mussalmans and a few Parsees. In Singa. pore, the Hindus stick to the caste rules and hence there is no interdining between Hindus of different castes and necessarily not between Hindus and Mussalmans. Eastward of Singapore things are much better as the caste and communal feelings disappear at Hongkong and further on. Malaya is a Mussalman country and as the Hindus observe the caste, they have little social relation with the Malayans or the Chinese who form a large percentage of the population. The Chinese at Singapore lead a clean and decent life and are not at all unclean or dirty as they are usually supposed to be. Penang which I saw on my way back from Japan has its beauty-spots as also parks and cable cars and other interesting amenities. There are a few Indian merchants and some lawyers, one of whom a Bohra gentleman, the Hon'ble Mr. Abdul Kadar, originally of Surat, - 148 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES has been nominated a member of the Legislative Council. As this is the highest honour reserved for an Indian, the Hon'ble Mr. Abdul Kadar is treated as the leader of the Indians and he has won the respect both of Indians and Malayans. The two port towns on the East Coast of China, to which I was able to pay hurried visits are Hongkong and Shanghai. I had no idea till our steamer anchored and midstream between Hongkong and Kwillon the former was an island. This may be due to my crass ignorance of the geography of Asia. I fear, however, that there are many of my countrymen whose geographical knowledge of their continent is not much superior to mine. Hongkong is a beautiful city. It is more modern than Bombay or Calcutta. It has its cable car service for taking passengers to the Peak—the top of a hill commanding, a splendid view of the city with its electric lights. The front bench in the cable cars is reserved for the Governor and his staff. One can understand reservation for the Governor, but that his staff are also provided with reserved seats shows that the administration consider them to be too big to mix with the citizens of Hongkong. No one can say as to how long this superiority complex of this class of officials will continue, but it does not portend - 149 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES harmonious working between the officials and the people. Kwillon on the other side of the river is on the main continent and is connected with the interior by a railway. An Indian regimentat present a Jat regiment--is stationed there. The medical officer of that regiment is an Indian belonging to the Indian Medical Service. Captain Gore met me in Japan at Kobe and then at Nara, He has travelled in China and Japan and can give information on many subjects connected with those countries such as very few Indians would be able to do. He was my host at Hongkong and Kwillon and showed me with justifiable pride the maternity hospital for the Jat women of the regiment for which he had raised funds. He spoke with gratitude of the assistance he received from the European officers of the regiment. There is, as usual in the East, a large contingent of Indian merchants, who have a club of their own. There are a few Parsees and Mahomedans. Shanghai with its reputed population of two millions and a half can be divided into three separate cities : (1) The French City, though inhabited mainly by the Chinese ; (2) areas under joint international control; (3) and, the Chinese town proper known as Chapai. - 150 - ·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES My Indian hosts were very anxious to show me the newly built theatre which they told me was the best in Asia and one of the best in the world. It is really very grand both as regards architectural beauty and decorations and the amenities provided in it. They also showed me a new hotel which was under construction and which was to be of twenty-two storeys. I had read of the destruction of Chapai in the Sino-Japanese war of 1932 and I was anxious to see the ruins. The sight was terrible; it was the result of bombing from aeroplanes. Any humane person who saw the devastation wrought at this place, would wish and pray that the Disarmament Conference should put a stop to bombing from the air in future wars. If Britain had not opposed this proposal, perhaps the Conference would have adopted it. It seems as if this question will not be seriously considered until the next war in the West. Probably when one of the countries that dominates the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference suffers from aerial bombing as Chapai has done and brings forward a proposal to stop it, the Western world will insist on the abolition of air-bombing. Asia is too far away to make her voice heard at these international gatherings, and even if any nation gets - 151 -

·VISIT TO OTHER COUNTRIES
an opportunity to place such a proposal for the
consideration of the nations of the world it is
not likely to receive the serious consideration
that a similar proposal from a big country
nearer the seat of these gatherings is likely to do.
- 152 -

·APPENDIX A
INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLJN*
WHEN I agreed to carry out the instructions
of my friend, Mr. K. Natarajan, the
Honorary Secretary of the Imperial Indian
Citizenship Association, to inquire into the
present economic condition of Indian labour
on tea and rubber plantations, I did not
realize the vastness of the problem. After a
casual inquiry ab a few plantations and talks
with the Agent to the Government of India
and with some progressive planters, I feel that
I am in the position of a globe-trotter who
writes in dogmatic manner about the
political and social problems of India and
whose writings are treated with indifference
if not contempt by persons having an intimate
а.
* From the Indian Social Reformer, dated 27th May 1933.
- 153 -

·INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLON knowledge of those subjects. I have, therefore, decided merely to state facts as I have been able to gather them and to make one concrete suggestion. As I was a member of the Emigration Council of the Central Legislature for two years about a decade ago and had opportunities of studying the problem of Indian emigration not only in Ceylon, but in the Federated Malay States, Mauritius and other places, I was able to take up the threads of the problem from the time that I left the Emigration Council, and I shall draw upon my past knowledge as far as possible. One of the problems that the Council tried to tackle was not directly concerned with the question of emigration, but affected the rights of Indians to enter the Civil Service of Ceylon by the open door of the Civil Ser:ice Examination. Some of us felt very strongly on the subject and wanted to use the emigration question as a lever to move the Government of Ceylon to keep the door of the Colonial Civil Service open for Indians. The then Honourable Member in charge of the Department (the late Sir Narasimha Sarma) thought that this matter did not come within our purview and he did not allow us to press this point on the - 154 - ·INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLON attention of the Government of India in our recommendations. Since my arrival in Ceylon I had talks on the subject both with Indian officials in the service and with non-officials, and I am more convinced than ever that a very grave injustice is being done to Indians by preventing domiciled Indians and their sons from competing at the Colonial Civil Service Examination. These Indians have as much right to appear for this examination as any subject of the British Empire and, having been born and brought up in the country of their adoption, they have greater rights even than Britishers. Although this question does not come within that of the Emigration Acts it is but right and proper that the public of Yudia and the Government of India should fight for the equality of rights of Indians to Britishers inva colony culturally allied to our country. The most important demand of the Emigration Council in those days was the introduction of the minimum wage system for emigrants from India. Although very strongly opposed then and for a few years after, that demand was granted by the Government of Ceylon on strong representation from the Government of India. It is satisfactory to note that till the - 155 - ·INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLON was occurrence of the recent heavy drop in the prices first of rubber and then of tea, to attempt made by the vast majority of planters to treat the minimum wage as a maximum or standard wage as was suggested by them to the old Emigration Council. As sound businessmen they wanted to get the best out of the workers and used to pay more than the minimum wage to capable workers. Recently, on account of the slump in trade attempts have been made to reduce the minimum wage, and in some cases to make the minimum wage the standard wage. An attempt was also made to induce His Excellency the Governor of Ceylon to abolish the system of a minimum wage altogether. His Excellency, although favourably inclined to the reduction of the minimum wage on account of the great fall in prices, was firm in his resolve to stand by the principle of the minimum wage. Legally and generally, trade depression by itself does not justify any reduction in the minimum wage, but a reduction in the cost of living is a reasonable ground for reduction of the minimum wage, and it is chiefly on that ground that the Agent to the Government of India and the Government of India have agreed to a reduction. There has been a difference of opinion as regards the percentage of the - 156 - ·INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLON reduction, but with a sympathetic gentleman like Mr. Menon as the Agent, the labourers' interests are sure to be safeguarded. There are some black sheep amongst the planters as in almost all fields, and they attempted to reduce the hours of work and used this argument to reduce the amount of the minimum wage. This is manifestly unfair, and it is to be hoped that the Government of India will take strong measures to prevent such a misuse of the bye-law regarding the maximum hours of vork per day and per week. The three other demands of the then Emigration Council were (1) better housing facilities, (2 establishment of lying-in hospitals, (3) more and better equipped schools. In he estate I visited, a great deal of good work was done as regards the first and third demands. As regards the second, I was told that in spite of lying-in hospitals being started, the women do not take advantage of the same and prefer to be treated by their dais. More persistent propaganda work must be done in a sympathetic spirit by the planters and the Kamgars to explain to the women of the labour community all the advantages of going to the lying-in hospitals for delivery purposes. If this is done, the hospitals will not remain vacant as they do at present. - 157 -

·<
INDIAN LABOUR IN CEYLON
On visiting the Labour Lines (the phrase
'Coolie Lines is now banned) I saw one woman
wearing a gold ear-ring. On my asking her if
it was pure gold, she proudly answered in the
affirmative; and then she added that a duty is
charged at the port of entrance into India on
those trinkets. This was confirmed by the planter.
It seems to a layman a great shame that an
Indian labourer should be mulcted of his or her
saving if such saving is invested in gold. Will
the Honourable Sir Fazli Hussein or his able
Secretary take up cudgels on behalf of these
poor voiceless people with the Commerce
Department and have that duty removed ?
They are strong enough to win in the fight if
they are satisfied about the unfairness and
injustice of the Customs Department. It is upt
the Agent to the Government of India to put
up a strong case for the labourers entrusted tu
his care.
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