up by a Shinto
priest.

I got the impression that the girls in the factories at Kofu in
Yamanashi prefecture were not driven so hard as those at the factories
in the Suwas in Nagano. Someone said: "However the Suwa people may
exploit their girls, we are able, working shorter hours and giving
more entertainments, to produce better silk, for the simple reason
that the girls are in better condition. We can get from 5 to 10 per
cent. more for our silk." A factory manager said that it would be
better if the girls had a regular holiday once a week, but one firm
could not act alone. (The factories are working seven days a week,
except for festival days and public holidays.)

With regard to the _kemban_, I was told in Yamanashi that many girls
went to the factories "unwillingly by the instructions of their
parents." It was also stated that the money paid to girls or their
parents on their engagement was not properly a gratuity but an
advance. I heard that the police keep a special watch on _kemban_.
They would not do this without good reason.

FOOTNOTES:

[141] The times stated are those given to me in the factories. The
question of overtime is referred to later in the Chapter.

[142] Again the reader must be reminded of the rise in wages and
prices (estimated on p. xxv). During the recent period of inflation,
silk rose to 3,000 yen per picul and fell to 1,300 or 1,400 yen. There
have been great fluctuations in the wages of factory girls. At the
most flourishing period as much as 25 yen per head was paid to
recruiters of girls. In this Chapter, however, it is best to record
exactly what I saw and heard.

[143] On the day on which I re-read this for the printers, I notice in
an American paper that one of the largest employers of labour in the
United States has just stated that he did not see his way to abolish
the twelve-hours' day.

CHAPTER XIX

"FRIEND-LOVE-SOCIETY'S" GRIM TALE

The psychology of behaviour teaches us that [a country's] failures and
semi-failures are likely to continue until there is a far more
widespread appreciation of the importance of studying the forces which
govern behaviour.--SAXBY

I

I do not think that some of the factory proprietors are conscious that
they are taking undue advantage of their employees. These men are just
average persons at the ante-Shaftesbury stage of responsibility
towards labour.[144] Their case is that the girls are pitifully poor
and that the factories