h the honour of his family to change
the method of collecting his rent. He is now chairman of the village
co-operative society as well as of the young men's society, and he
aims to improve his village fundamentally."

I also heard this narrative. The tenants in a certain place wished to
cultivate rice land rather than to farm dry land. But when silkworm
cultivation became prosperous they began to prefer dry land again in
order that they might extend the area of mulberries. Therefore the
landlords raised the rents of the dry farms. But there was one
landlord who said, "If this dry farm land had been improved by me I
should be justified in raising the rent. But I did not improve it.
Therefore it would be base to take advantage of economic conditions to
raise the rent."

So he did not raise the rent. Then he was excluded from social
intercourse by the other landlords because their tenants grumbled.
These landlords said to him, "You can afford not to raise your rents,
but we cannot." Therefore the landlord who had not raised his rents
called his tenants together. He said to them, "It is a hard thing for
me to have no social intercourse with my equals. Therefore I will now
raise the rents. But I cannot accept that raised portion, and I will
take care of it for you, and in ten years I think it will amount to
enough for you to start a cooperative society."

That was eight years ago and the formation of the society was now
proceeding. In order that the reader may not forget on what a very
different scale landlordism exists in Japan, I may mention that the
area owned by this landlord was only 10 _cho_.

I was told the story of a landlord's solution of the rent reduction
problem. "Tenants," the narrator said, "sometimes pretend that their
crops are poorer than they are. Landlords may reduce the payment due,
but sometimes with a certain resentment. One landowner was asked for a
reduction for several years in succession on account of poor crops,
and gave it. But he was trying to think of a plan to defeat the
pretences of his tenants. At last he hit on one. While the tenants'
rice was young he often visited the fields, and when any insects were
to be seen he sent his labourers secretly to destroy them. In the same
way, when crops seemed to be under-manured, he secretly cast
artificial manure on them. At last his tenants found out what he was
doing, and they said, 'As our landlord is so kind to us, we must not
pretend that we ne