The New Year poems come from every class of the community and there is seldom a year in which landowners or farmers are not among the fortunate twelve.

As we rode along a companion spoke of the force of public opinion in keeping things straight in the countryside, also of the far-reaching control exercised by fathers and elder brothers. But the good behaviour of some people was due, he said, to a dread of being ridiculed in the newspapers, which allow themselves extraordinary freedom in dealing with reputations.

I met a man who had had a monument erected to him. He was a member of a little company which received me in a farmer's house. He was formerly the richest man in the village, that is to say, he owned 20 chō and was worth about 100,000 yen. Moved by the poverty of his neighbours, he devoted his substance to improving their condition. Now many of them are well off, the village has been "praised and rewarded" by the prefecture for its "good farming and good morals," and the philanthropist is worth only 50,000 yen. Impressed by his unselfishness, the village has raised a great slab of stone in his honour.

I made enquiries continually about the influence exerted by priests. I was told of many "careless" priests, but also of others who delivered sermons of a practical sort. A few of the younger priests were described as "philosophical" and some preached "the kingdom of God is within you." Many people laid stress on the necessity for a better education of the priesthood and for combating superstition among the peasantry, though the schools had already had a powerful influence in shaking the faith of thousands of the common people in charms and suchlike. Many folk put up charms because it was the custom or to please their old parents or because it could do no harm.

I was told that the Government does not encourage the erection of new temples. Its notion is that it is better to maintain the existing temples adequately. When I went to see a gorgeous new temple, I found that official permission for its erection had been obtained because the figures, vessels and some of the fittings of an old and dilapidated temple were to be used in the new edifice. This temple was on a large tract of land which had recently been recovered from the sea. The building had cost between 80,000 and 90,000 yen. It stood on piles on rising ground and had a secondary purpose in that it offered a place of refuge to the settlers on the new land if the sea dike should break.

The founder of the temple was the man who had drained the land and established the colony. He had given an endowment of 500 yen a year, three-quarters of which was for the priest. This functionary had also an income of 150 yen from a chō of land attached to the temple. Further he received gifts of rice and vegetables. I noticed that the gifts of rice—acknowledged on a list hung up in his house—varied in quantity from four pecks to half a cupful. Probably the priest bought very little of anything. If he needed matting for his house, which was attached to the temple, or if he had to make a journey, the villagers saw that his requirements were met. And he was always getting presents of one kind or another. "A man says to the priest," I was told, "'This is too good for me; please accept it.'" The villagers on their side sat and smoked in one of the temple rooms and drank his reverence's tea for hours before and after service. ^[35]

The building of the temple was not only an act of piety but a work of commercial necessity. The colonists on the reclaimed land would never have settled there if there had not been a temple to hold them to the place and to provide burial rites for their old parents. Not all the people were of the same sect of Buddhism, but "they gradually came together." A third of what a tenant produced went for rent and another third for fertilisers, the remaining third being his own. The population was 1,800 in 300 families. The average area per family was 2 chō and colonists were expected to start with about 200 yen of capital. Some unpromising tenants had been sent away and "some had left secretly." Half of the people were in debt to the landlord—the total indebtedness was about 15,000 yen—for the erection of houses and the purchase of implements and stock. The rate was 8 per cent. In the district 10 per cent. was quite usual and 12 per cent. by no means rare. The co-operative society lent at the daily rate of 2½ sen per 100 yen.

The landlord told me that the sea dikes took two years to build and that most of the earth was carried by women, 5,000 of them. Their labour was cheap and the small quantities of earth which each woman brought at a time permitted of a better consolidation of an embankment that was 240 feet wide at the base. More than a million yen were laid out on the work. The reclaimed land was free of State taxes for half a century, but the landlord made a voluntary gift to the village of 2,000 yen a year. The yearly rent coming in was already nearly 56,000 yen. The cost of the management of the drained land and of repairs to the embankment, 20,000 yen a year, was just met by the profits of a fishpond. A valuable edible seaweed industry was carried on outside the sea dikes. The landlord mentioned that he had had great difficulty in overcoming the objections of his grandfather to the investment, but that eventually the old man got so much interested that at ninety-three he used to march about giving orders.

One day in the course of my journeying I was near a railway station where country people had assembled to watch the passing of a train by which the Emperor was travelling. No one was permitted along the line except at specified points which were carefully watched. A young constable who wore a Russian war medal was opposite the spot where I stood. He politely asked me to keep one shaku (foot) or so away from the paling. When someone's child pushed itself half-way through the paling the police instruction was, "Please keep back the little one for, if it should pass through, other children will no doubt wish to follow." A later request by the constable was to take off our hats and keep silence when he raised his hand on the approach of the Imperial train. We were further asked not to point at the Emperor and on no account to cry Banzai. (The Japanese shout Banzai for the Emperor in his absence and cry Banzai to victorious generals and admirals, but perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of seeing the Emperor, who was facing us. All the school children of the district had been marshalled where they could get a good view. The Japanese bow of greatest respect—it has been introduced since the Restoration, I was told—is an inclination of the head so slight that it does not prevent the person who bows seeing his superior. This bow when made by rows of people is impressive. Undoubtedly the crowd was moved by the sight of its sovereign. Not a few people held their hands together in front of them in an attitude of devotion. The day before I had happened to see first a priest and then a professor examining a magazine which had a portrait of the Emperor as frontispiece. Both bowed slightly to the print. Coloured portraits of the Emperor and Empress are on sale in the shops, but in many cases there is a little square of tissue paper over the Imperial countenances.

CHAPTER VI

BEFORE OKUNITAMA-NO-MIKO-NO-KAMI ^[36]

In Aichi prefecture I was asked to plant trees (persimmons) in the grounds of three temples or shrines and on the land of several farmers. In an exposed position on a hill-top I found persimmons being grown on a system under which the landlord provided the land, trees and manures and the farmer the labour, and the produce was equally divided.

The cryptomeria at one of the shrines I visited were of great age. All of them had lost their tops by lightning. It cannot be easy for those who have never seen cryptomeria or the redwoods of California to realise the impression made by dark giant trees that have stood before some shrine for generations. At the approach to the shrine of which I speak there were venerable wooden statues. I recall one figure carved in wood as full of life as that of the famous Egyptian headman.

The aged chief priest, who was assisted by two younger priests, kindly invited me to take part in a Shinto service. First, I ceremonially washed my hands and rinsed my mouth. Then, having ascended the steps, my shoes were removed for me so that my hands should not be defiled. On entering the shrine I knelt opposite the young priests, one of whom brought me the usual evergreen bough with paper streamers. On receiving it I rose to my feet, passed through the beautiful building and advanced to what I may call, for the lack of a more accurate term, the altar table. On this table, which, as is usual in Shinto ceremonies, was of new white wood following the ancient design, I laid the offering. Then I bowed and gave the customary three smart hand-claps which summon the attention of the deity of the shrine, and bowed again. On returning to my former kneeling-place one of the priests offered me saké and a small piece of dried fish in paper.^[37] The chief priest was good enough to read and to hand to me an address headed, "Words of Congratulation to the Investigator," which may be Englished as follows:

"I, Yukimichi Otsu, the chief priest, speak most respectfully and reverently before the shrine of the august deity, Okunitama-no-miko-no-kami, and other deities here enshrined: Dr. Robertson Scott, of England, is here this good day. He comes to see the things of Japan under the governance of our gracious Emperor. I, having made myself quite pure and clean, open the door of gracious eyes that they may look upon those who are here. May Dr. Robertson Scott be protected during night and day, no accident happening wherever he may go. Dr. Robertson Scott goes everywhere in this country; he may cross a hundred rivers and pass over many hills. May there be no foundering of his boat, no stumbling of his horse. Offering produce of land and sea, I say this most respectfully before the shrine."

After the shrine I visited a co-operative store, curiously reminiscent of many a similar rural enterprise I had seen in Denmark. Sugar, coarser than anything sold at home, was dear. Half the price paid for sugar in Japan is tax. I was informed that there were no fewer than 400 cooperative organisations in the prefecture.

At several places, although the villagers were busy rice planting, the young men's association turned out. The young men were reinforced by reservists and came sharply to attention as our kuruma (jinrikisha, usually pneumatic-tyred) passed. Some of the villages we bowled through were off the ordinary track, and the older villagers observed the ancient custom of coming out from their houses or farm plots, dropping on their knees and bowing low as we passed.^[38] All over Japan, a villager encountered on the road removed the towel from his head before bowing. If a cloak or outer coat was worn, it was taken off or the motion of taking it off was made. Frequently, in showery weather, cyclists who were wearing mackintoshes or capes, alighted and removed these outer garments before saluting.

On the gables of one or two houses near the roof I noticed ventilators which were cut in the form of the Chinese ideograph which means water, a kind of charm against fire. At the door of one rather well-to-do peasant house I saw several paper charms against toothache. There was also an inscription intimating that the householder was a director of the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert in the application of the moxa. ^[39] Every house I went into had a collection of charms. One charm, a verse of poetry hung upside-down, as is the custom, was against ants. Another was understood to ensure the safe return of a straying cat.

In one house in the village my attention was drawn to the fact that the rice pot contained a large percentage of barley.

In two or three places I passed pits for the excavation of lignite, which does not look unlike the wood taken out of bogs. A pit I stopped at was twenty-two fathoms deep. There were twenty miners at work and air was being pumped down.

One of the things we in the West might imitate with advantage is the village crematorium. In Japan it is of the simplest construction. The rate for villagers was 50 sen, that for outsiders 2 yen. No doubt there would be an additional yen for the priest. In a little building which was thirty years old 200 bodies had been cremated.

I looked into a small co-operative rice storehouse. The building was provided by a number of members "swearing" to save at the rate of a yen and a half a month each until the funds needed had accumulated. The money was obtained by extra labour in the evening. Just before I left Japan the Department of Agriculture was arranging to spend 2 million yen within a ten-years' period to encourage the building of 4,000 rice storehouses.

As I watched the water pouring from one rice field to another and wondered how the rights of landowners were ever reconciled, someone reminded me of the phrase, "water splashing quarrels," that is disputes in which each side blames the other without getting any farther forward. To take an unfair advantage in controversy is to draw water into one's own paddy. The equivalent for "pouring water on a duck's back" is "flinging water in a frog's face." A Western European is always astonished in Japan by the lung power of Far Eastern frogs. The noise is not unlike the bleating of lambs.

Every now and again one comes on a fragrant bed of lotus in its paddy field. It seems odd at first that lotus—and burdock—should be cultivated for food. As a pickle burdock is eatable, but lotus and some unfamiliar tuberous plants are pleasant food resembling in flavour boiled chestnuts. Konnyaku (hydrosme rivieri), a near relative of the arum lily, is produced to the weight of 11 million kwan—a kwan is roughly 8¼ lbs. ^[40] The yield of burdock is about 44 million kwan. The chief of all vegetables is the giant radish, of which 7¼ million kwan are grown. Taro yields about 150 million kwan. Foreigners usually like the young sprouts taken from the roots of the bamboo, a favourite Japanese vegetable.

This is as convenient a place as any to speak of an important agricultural fact, the enormous amount of filth worked into the paddies. As is well known, hardly any of the night soil of Japan is wasted. Japanese agriculture depends upon it. Formerly the night soil was removed from the houses after being emptied into a pair of tubs which the peasant carried from a yoke. Such yoke-carried tubs are still seen, but are chiefly employed in carrying the substance to the paddies. The tubs which are taken to dwellings are now mostly borne on light two-wheeled handcarts which carry sometimes four and sometimes six. A farmer will push or pull his manure cart from a town ten or twelve miles off. It is difficult to leave or enter a town without meeting strings of manure carts. The men who haul the carts get together for company on their tedious journey. They seem insensible to the concentrated odour. Often the wife or son or daughter may be seen pushing behind a cart. There is a certain amount of transportation by horse-drawn frame carts, carrying a dozen or sixteen tubs, and by boats. I was told of a city of half a million inhabitants which had thirty per cent. of its night soil taken ten miles away. The work was undertaken by a co-operative society which paid the municipality the large sum of 70,000 yen a year. The removal of night soil, its storage in the fields in sunken butts and concrete cisterns—carefully protected by thatched, wooden or concrete roofs—and its constant application to paddy fields or upland plots cause an odour to prevail which the visitor to Japan never forgets. ^[41]

It must not be supposed that, because the Japanese are careful to utilise human waste products, no other manure is employed. There is an enormous consumption of chemical fertilisers. Then there are brought into service all sorts of crop-feeding materials, such as straw, grass, compost, silkworm waste, fish waste, and of course the manure produced by such stock as is kept. ^[42] In Aichi the value of human waste products used on the land is only a quarter of the value of the bean cake and fish waste similarly employed.

At Mr. Yamasaki's excellent agricultural school (prefectural), which I visited more than once, ^[43] I was struck by the grave bearing of the students. I saw them not only in their classrooms but in their large hall, where I was invited to speak from a platform between the busts of two rural worthies, Ninomiya, of whom we have heard before, and another who was "distinguished by the righteousness of his public career." As in the Danish rural high schools, store is set on hard physical exercise. An hour of exercise—judō (jujitsu), sword play or military drill—is taken from six to seven in the morning and another at midday with the object of "strengthening the spirit" and "developing the character," for "our farmers must not only be honest and determined but courageous." Severe physical labour, shared by the teacher, is also given out of doors, for example, in heaping manure. "We believe," said one of the instructors, "in moral virtue taught by the hands."

For an hour a day "the main points of moral virtue" are put before the different grades of students, according to their ages and development. The school has a guild to which the twenty teachers and all the students belong. It is a kind of co-operative society for the "purchase and distribution of daily necessities," but one of its objects is "the maintenance of public morality." Then there is the students' association which has literary and gymnastic sides, the one side "to refine wisdom and virtue," the other "for the rousing of spirit." Mention may also be made of a "discipline calendar" of fixed memorial days and ceremonies "that all the students should observe": the ceremony of reading the Imperial Rescript on education, thrift and morality, and the ceremonies at the end of rice planting, at harvest and at the maturity of the silk-worm. The fitting-up of the school is Spartan but the rooms are high and well lighted and ventilated. The students' hot bath accommodates a dozen lads at a time. The studies are also the dormitories, and in the corner of each there is stored a big mosquito netting. Except for a few square yards near the doors, these rooms consist of the usual raised platform covered with the national tatami or matting.

I heard a characteristic story of the Director. During the Russo-Japanese war everybody was economising, and many people who had been in the habit of riding in kuruma began to walk. Our agricultural celebrity had always had a passion for walking, so it was out of his power to economise in kuruma. What he did was to cease walking and take to kuruma riding, for, he said, "in war time one must work one's utmost, and if I move about quickly I can get more done."

I may add a story which this rare man himself told me. I had seen in his house a photograph of a memorial slab celebrating the heroic death of a peasant. It appeared that in a period of scarcity there was left in this peasant's village only one unbroken bale of rice. This rice was in the possession of the peasant, who was suffering from lack of food. But he would not cook any of the rice because he knew that if he did the village would be without seed in spring. Eventually the brave man was found dead of hunger in his cottage. His pillow had been the unopened bale of rice.

In the house of a small peasant proprietor I visited the inscriptions on the two gaku signified "Buddha's teaching broken by a beautiful face" and "Cast your eyes on high." On the wall there was also a copy of a resolution concerning a recent Imperial Rescript which 500 rural householders, at a meeting in the county, had "sworn to observe," and, as I understood, to read two or three times a year.

Japan, as I have already noted, has always been a more democratic country than is generally understood; but the people have been accustomed to act under leaders. Some time ago an official of the Department of Agriculture visited a certain district in order to speak at the local temple in advocacy of the adjustment of rice fields. (See Chapter VIII.) A dignitary corresponding to the chairman of an English county council was at the temple to receive the official, but at the time appointed for the meeting to begin the audience consisted of one old man. Although the official from Tokyo and the gunchō (head of a county) waited for some time, no one else put in an appearance. So they asked the old man the reason. He replied by asking them the object of the meeting. They told him. He said that he had so understood and that the community had so understood, but the farmers were very busy men. Therefore, as he was the oldest man in the district, they had sent him as their representative. Their instructions were that he would be able to tell from his experience of the district whether what the authorities proposed would be a good thing for it or not. If he considered it to be a bad thing they would not do it, but if he thought it to be a good thing they would do it. He was to hear all that was said and then to give a decision on the community's behalf to the officials who might attend. "So," said the old man to the Tokyo official and the gunchō, "if you convince me you have convinced the village." And after two hours' explanation they convinced him!

There are in Japan hydraulic engineering works as remarkable in their way as any I have seen in the Netherlands. Some of these works, for example the tunnels for conducting rice-field water through considerable hills, have been the work of unlettered peasants. In one place I found that 80 miles or more of irrigation was based on a canal made two centuries ago. It is good to see so many embankings of refractory streams and excavations of river beds commemorated by slabs recording the public services of the men who, often at their own charges, carried out these works of general utility.

In various parts of the country I came upon smallholders who had reached a high degree of proficiency in the fine art of dwarfing trees. One day I stopped to speak with a farmer who by this art had added 1,000 yen a year to his agricultural income. A thirty-years-old maple was one of his triumphs. Another was a pomegranate about a foot and a half high. It was in flower and would bear fruit of ordinary size. The wonder of dwarfing is wrought, as is now well known, by cramping the roots in the pot and by extremely skilful pruning, manuring and watering. While we drank tea some choice specimens were displayed before a screen of unrelieved gold. In the room in which we sat the farmer had arranged in a bowl of water with great effectiveness hydrangea, a spray of pomegranate and a cabbage.

One marks the respect shown to the rural policeman. In his summer uniform of white cotton, with his flat white cap and white gloves, and an imposing sword, he looks like a naval officer, even if, as sometimes happens, his feet are in zori. He gets respect because of his dignified presence and sense of official duty, because of the considerable powers which he is able to exercise, because he stands for the Government, and because he is sometimes of a higher social grade than that to which policemen belong in other countries. At the Restoration many men of the samurai class did not think it beneath them to enter the new sword-wearing police force and they helped to give it a standing which has been maintained. As to the policeman being a representative of the Government, the ordinary Japanese has a way of speaking of the Government doing this or that as if the Government were irresistible power. Average Japanese do not yet conceive the Government as something which they have made and may unmake^[44] . But is it likely that they should, parliamentary history, the work of their betters, being as short as it is? It is not without significance that the Chambers of the Diet are housed in temporary wooden buildings.

The rural policeman is not only a paternal guardian of the peace but an administrative official. He keeps an eye on public health. He is charged with correctly maintaining the record of names and addresses—and some other particulars—of everybody in the village. It is his duty to secure correct information as to the name, age, place of origin and real business of every stranger. He attends all public meetings, even of the young men's and young women's associations, and no strolling players can give their entertainment without his presence. As to the movements of strangers, my own were obviously well known. Indeed a friend told me that in the event of my losing myself I had only to ask a policeman and he would be able to tell me where I was expected next! At the houses of well-to-do people I was struck by the way in which the local police officer—sometimes, no doubt, a sergeant or perhaps a man of the rank of our superintendent or chief constable—called with the headman and joined our kneeling circle in the reception-room. Nominally he came to pay his respects, but his chief object, no doubt, was to take stock of what was going on. I invariably took the opportunity of closely interviewing him.

The extraordinary degree to which Japanese are commonly accustomed in their differences of opinion to refrain from blows makes many of their quarrels harmless. The threat to send for the policeman or the actual appearance of the policeman has an almost magical effect in calming a disturbance. The Japanese policeman believes very much in reproving or reprimanding evil doers and in reasoning with folk whose "carelessness" has attracted attention. Sometimes for greater impressiveness the admonitions or exhortations are delivered at the police station ^[45]. In more than one village I heard a tribute paid to the good influence exerted on a community by a devoted policeman.

The chief of an agricultural experiment station also seems to obtain a large measure of respect, to some extent, no doubt, because he occupies a public office. The regard felt for Mr. Yamasaki goes deeper. A few years ago he was sent on a mission abroad and in his absence his local admirers cast about for a way of showing their appreciation of his work. They began by raising what was described to me as "naturally not a large but an honourable sum." With this money they decided to add three rooms to his dwelling. They had noted how visitors were always coming to his house in order to profit by his experience and advice. Mr. Yamasaki uses the rooms primarily as "an hotel for people of good intentions—those who work for better conditions." I was proud to stay at this "hotel" and to receive as a parting gift an old seppuku blade.

Which reminds me that one night at a house in the country I found myself sitting under photographs of the late General and Countess Nogi and of the gaunt bloodstained room of the depressing "foreign style" house in which they committed suicide on the day of the funeral of the Emperor Meiji ^[46]. One of my fellow-guests was a professor at the Imperial University; the other was a teacher of lofty and unselfish spirit. They were both samurai. I mentioned that a man of worth and distinction has said to me that, while he recognised the nobility of Nogi's action, he could but not think it unjustifiable. I was at once told that Japanese who do not approve of Nogi's action "must be over-influenced by Western thought." "Those who are quintessentially Japanese," it was explained, "think that Nogi did right. Bodily death is nothing, for Nogi still lives among us as a spirit. He labours with a stronger influence. Many hearts were purified by his sacrifice. One of Nogi's reasons for suicide was no doubt that he might be able to follow his beloved Emperor, but his intention was also to warn many vicious or unpatriotic people. Some politicians and rich people say they are patriotic, but they are animated by selfish motives and desires. Nogi's suicide was due to his loving his fellow-countrymen sincerely. Surely he was acting after the manner of Christ. Nogi crucified himself for the people in order to atone in a measure for their sins and to lead them to a better way of life."

I heard from my friends something of Nogi's demeanour. The old general was a familiar figure in Tokyo. In the street cars—those were the days when they were not over-crowded—he was always seen standing. His admirers used to say that his face "beamed with beneficence." But Nogi, though he loved to be within reach of the Emperor and did his part as head of the Peers' School, liked nothing better than to get away to the country. He was originally a peasant and he still possessed a chō of upland holding. He was glad to work on it with the digging mattock of the farmer.

CHAPTER VII

OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI

There was a bad landlord who was nicknamed "Devil-gon." He was shot. There was another bad landlord who, as he was crossing a narrow bridge over a brook, was "pistolled through the sleeve and tumbled into the water." Although the murderer was well known, his name was never revealed to the police, and the family of the dead man was glad to leave the district. The villagers celebrated their freedom by eating the "red rice" which is prepared on occasions of festivity. In another village, the gunchō who spoke to me of these things said, there were several usurious landlords. "The village headman got angry. He called the landlords to him. He said to them that if they continued to lend at high interest the people would set fire to their houses and he would not proceed against them. So the landlords became affrighted and amended their lives." The rural people of Japan have always three weapons against usury, it was explained to me. First, there may be tried injuring the offending person's house—rural dwellings are mainly bamboo work and mud—by bumping into it with the heavy palanquin which is carried about the roadway at the time of the annual festival. If such a hint should prove ineffective, recourse may be had to arson. Finally, there is the pistol. I remember someone's remark, "A man does not lose a common mind and heart by becoming a landowner."

I could not travel about the rural districts without there being brought under my eyes the conditions which lead country girls to go to the towns as joro (prostitutes). A considerable agricultural authority who had been all over Japan told me that he was in no doubt that most of the girls adopted an immoral life through poverty. I spoke to this man, who had been abroad, of the disgrace to Japan involved in the presence of thousands of Japanese joro at Singapore and so many other ports of the Asiatic mainland. Did these women go there of their free will? My informant was of opinion that "half are deceived." I remember that on the Japanese steamship by which I went out to Japan there were several Japanese girls, degraded in aspect and apparently in ill health, who were returning from Singapore. They were shepherded by an evil-looking fellow. The parting of these unfortunates from their girl friends as the vessel was about to start was a piteous sight. An official who called on me in Aichi—I understood that he was the chief of the prefectural police—told me that there were in the prefecture 2,011 girls in 222 houses, and that there were in a year 725,598 customers, of whom 2,147 were foreigners. Sums of from 200 to 500 yen might be paid to parents for a girl for a three-years term. Food and clothes were also provided, but the girls were almost invariably drawn into debt to the keepers, and not more than 15 per cent. were able to return to their villages. All the girls in the houses had alleged poverty as the reason for their being there.^[47]

Because I was told that the moral condition of the town of Anjo—population 17,000—where the agricultural school of the prefecture is situated, had improved since its establishment, I asked for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no joro, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters and 55 sellers of saké. Against these figures were to be counted 19 Buddhist temples of four sects with 19 priests and 20 Shinto shrines with 4 priests.

I met a schoolmaster who had prepared a history of his village in a dozen beautifully written volumes. He had been a vegetarian for fifteen years because, as a Buddhist, he believed that "all living things are in some degree my relatives." I picked up from him a variant on "the early bird catches the worm." It was, "The early riser may find a lost rin" (tenth of a farthing). He gave me another proverb, "The contents of a spitting pot, like riches, become fouler the more they accumulate."

I heard of temples which were promoting rural improvement by means of lanterns. In one village the lanterns were at the service of borrowers at three different places. The inscription on the lanterns says, "Think of the mercy of Buddha who illuminates the darkness of your heart." There is written in smaller characters, "If you live half a ri away you need not return this lantern." Three hundred lanterns are lost or damaged in a year, but paper lanterns are cheap.

One temple has a society composed of those who have family graves in its grounds. These people "study how to get the most abundant crop." There is a prize for the best cultivated tan. Under this temple's auspices there is not only a co-operative credit and purchase association, a poultry society and an annual exhibition of agricultural products, but a school for nurses—they are "taught to be nurses not only physically but morally." The boys and girls of the village are invited to the temple once a month and "told a story." The youngsters are asked to come to a "learning meeting" where they must recite or exhibit something they have written or drawn; "blockheads as well as clever children are encouraged." A fund is being raised so that "a genius who may be suffering from poverty may be able to get proper education." Then there is a Women's Religious Association which aims at "the improvement, necessary from a religious point of view, in the home and of agricultural business." Sermons are given to 500 women monthly. The society sent comfort bags, containing letters, tooth-brushes and sweets, to soldiers at the taking of Tsingtao. A similar organisation for men had for thirteen years listened to a monthly lecture by a well-known priest. It sends occasional subscriptions outside the village. Finally, this praiseworthy temple issues every month 20,000 copies of a 4½-sen magazine.

The Shinto shrines of the prefecture have in all a little more than 40 chō of land. Someone has hit on the plan of getting the agricultural societies of the county and villages to provide the priests with rice seed of superior varieties, the crop of which can be exchanged with farmers for common rice. This is done on a profitable basis, because the shrines exchange unpolished rice for polished. A gō of seed rice makes only about .5 gō when husked.

I walked along the road some little way with a Buddhist priest. In answer to my enquiry he said that as a Buddhist he felt no difficulty about the bag strung across his shoulders being of leather, for the founder of his sect (Shinshu) ate meat. Even a strict Buddhist might nowadays eat animals not intentionally killed, animals which had not been seen alive and animals which were killed painlessly. But my companion abstained as much as possible from meat. As to the reason why some priests were inactive in the work of rural amelioration, he supposed that their poverty, the tradition of devoting themselves to unworldly business and the fact that many of them were hereditary priests accounted for it. He dwelt on the things in common between Shinshu and Christianity and said that, next to the teaching of the head of the agricultural college in the prefecture, the preaching of a missionary had led him to work for the good of his village.

In my host's house in the evening someone happened to quote the proverb, "Richer after the fire." It means, of course, that after the fire the neighbours are so ready with help that the last state of the victim of the fire is better than the first. The view was expressed that hitherto charitable institutions of some Western patterns had not been so much needed in Japan as might be supposed. ^[48] "Those who go to Europe from Japan are indeed much surprised by the number of institutions to help people." Here, however, is the story of an institution coming into existence in a village: "There was a man who was thought to be rich, but he lived like a miser. His shoji were made of waste paper and his guests received tea only. So he was despised. But many years afterwards it was found that for a long time he had been collecting books. Then, to the surprise of everybody, he built a library for his village. He is not at all proud of this and those who ridiculed him are now ashamed."

I was invited to a "Rural Life Exhibition." Some agricultural produce was shown, but three hundred of the exhibits were manuscript books or diagrams. One diagram illustrated the development in a particular county of the use of two bactericides, formalin and carbon bisulphide. The formalin was in use to the value of 2,000 yen. Then there was a wall picture, a sort of Japanese "The Child: What will he Become?" The good boy, aged fifteen, was shown spending his spare time in making straw rope to the value of 3 sen 3 rin nightly, with the result that after thirty years of such industry he became a rural capitalist who possessed 1,000 yen and lived in circumstances of dignity. In contrast with this virtuous career there was shown the rural rake's progress. A youth who was in the habit of laying out 3 sen 3 rin riotously in sweet-shops was proved to have wasted 1,000 yen in thirty years: the prodigal was justly exhibited fleeing from his home in debt.

One of the books on exhibition mentioned the volumes most in demand at some village library. I translate the titles:

Physical and Intellectual Training
About being Ambitious
The Housewife of a Peasant Family
The Management of a Farm
The Days when Statesmen were Boys
Culture and Striving
Essence of Rural Improvement
A Hundred Beautiful Stories
The Art of Composition
The Preparation of the Conscript
A Medical Treatise
A Translation of "Self-Help"
Nature and Human Life
The Glories of Native Places
Anecdotes concerning Culture
Lives of Distinguished Peasants
Mulberry Planting
Chinese Romances
Glories of this Peaceful Reign
Ninomiya Sontoku

I noticed among the exhibits a short autobiography of a farmer, an engaging egoist who wrote:

"As a young man my will was not in study and though I used my wits I did many stupid things and the results were bad. Then I became a little awakened and for two years I studied at night with the primary school teacher. After that I thought to myself in secret, 'Shall I become a wise man in this village, or, by diligently farming, a rich man?' That was my spiritual problem. Then all my family gathered together and consulted and decided ^[49] that it would suit the family better if I were to become a rich man, and I also agreed. To accomplish that aim I increased my area under cultivation and worked hard day and night. I cut down the cryptomeria at my homestead and planted in their stead mulberries and persimmons. And I slowly changed my dry land into rice fields (making it therefore more valuable). The soil I got I heaped up at the homestead for eighteen years until I had 28,000 cubic feet. I was able then to raise the level of my house which had become damp and covered with mould. The increase of my cultivated area and of the yield per tan and the improvement of my house and the practice of economy were the delight of my life. I felt grateful to my ancestors who gave me such a strong body. Sometimes I kept awake all night talking with my wife about the goodness of my ancestors. Also when in bed I planned a compact homestead. I once read a Japanese poem, 'What a joy to be born in this peaceful reign and to be favoured by ploughs and horses.' (Most Japanese farming is done without either horses or ploughs.) It went deeply into my heart. Also I heard from the school teacher of four loves: love of State, love of Emperor, love of teacher and love of parent. I have been much favoured by those loves. I also heard the doctrines of Ninomiya: sincerity, diligence, moderate living, unselfishness. I felt it a great joy to live remembering those doctrines. I also went to the prefectural experiment station and studied fruit growing and my spirit was much expanded. I returned again to the station and the expert talked to me very earnestly. I asked for a special variety of persimmon. The expert sent to Gifu prefecture for it. I planted the tree and made its top into six grafts. It bore fruit and many passers-by envied it. Two years after that I grafted five hundred trees and sold the grafted stock."

Several villages sent to the exhibition statistics of great interest. One village set forth the changes which had taken place in the social status of its inhabitants ^[50]. Some communities were represented by statements of their hours of labour ^[51]. One small community's tables showed how many of its inhabitants were "diligent people," how many "average workers" and how many "other people ^[52]." A county agricultural association had painstakingly collected information not only about the work done in a year ^[53] and the financial returns obtained by three typical farmers but about the way in which they spent what they earned. ^[54]

On my way back from the exhibition I heard the story of a priest. When fourteen years of age he obtained seeds of cryptomeria and planted them in a spot in the hills. He also practised many economies. When still in his teens he asked permission to take two shares in a 50-yen money-sharing club, but was not allowed to do so as no one would believe that he could complete his payments. He persisted, however, that he would be able to pay what was required and he was at length accepted as a member. At twenty he became priest of a small temple which was in bad repair and had a debt of 125 yen. He brought with him his 100 yen from the club and the young cryptomeria. He planted the trees in the temple grounds. He said, "I wish to rebuild the temple when these trees grow up." He cultivated the land adjoining his temple and contrived to employ several labourers. At last the cryptomeria grew large enough for his purpose and he rebuilt the temple, expending on the work not only his trees but 600 yen which he had by this time saved. Then he proceeded to bring waste land into cultivation. At the age of sixty-two he gave his temple to another priest and went to live in a hut on the waste land. There came a tidal wave near the place, so he went to the sufferers and invited five families to his now cultivated waste land. He gave them each a tan of land and the material for building cottages and showed them how to open more land.