wn
interests alone in view, the future may present unexpected
developments. As I write, the labour movement is conducting a trial of
strength with the great Mitsubishi and Kawasaki enterprises and is
presenting a stronger front than it has yet done.

This Chapter would give an unfair impression of the relations of
capital and labour in Japan if it included no reference to the
well-intentioned efforts made by several large employers to improve
the conditions of working-class life and labour. Sometimes they have
followed the example of philanthropic firms in Great Britain and
America. As often as not they have been inspired by old Japanese ideas
of a master's responsibilities. Many leading industrials have believed
and still believe that by the conservation and development of old
ideas of paternalism and loyalty the trade-union stage of industrial
development may be avoided. This conviction was expressed to me by,
among others, Mr. Matsukata, of the famous Kawasaki concern, who has
made generous contributions to "welfare" work. My own brief experience
as an employer in Japan made me acquainted with some canons in the
relationship of employer and employed which have lost their authority
in the West. Given wisdom on the part of masters, the prolonged
bitterness which has marked the industrial development of the West
need not be repeated in Japan, but whether that wisdom will be
displayed in time is doubtful. The Japanese commercial world has been
commendably quick to learn in many directions in the West. It will be
a serious reflection on the intelligence of the country if the lessons
of the industrial acerbities of Europe and the United States should
not be grasped. Meantime it is a duty which the foreign observer owes
to Japan to speak quite plainly of attempts as silly as they are
useless[155] to obscure the lamentable condition of a large proportion
of Japanese workers, to hide the immense profits which have been made
by their employers and to pretend that factory laws have only to be
placed on the statute book in order to be enforced. But if he be
honest he must also recognise the handicap of specially costly
equipment[156] and of unskilled labour and inexperience under which
the Japanese business world is competing for the place in foreign
trade to which it has a just claim. Such conditions do not in the
least excuse inhumanity, but they help to explain it.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] It is a chastening exercise to read be