tatement that 12 per
cent, would be a rather high estimate of the average rate of dividend,
while figures furnished by the Department of Finance show that for ten
years the average rate of interest on loans has been 11.25 per cent.

The fact that Western ideas as to Japan's recent industrial advance
have been greatly exaggerated may also be demonstrated just here.
While the latest government figures show that in twelve years the
number of female factory operatives increased from 261,218 to 400,925
and male factory operatives from 173,614 to 248,251, it is plain that
a manufacturing population of 649,000 in a country of 50,000,000 souls
is small, and the actual progress has not been so great as the
relative figures would indicate. Moreover, many so-called "factories"
employ less than ten persons and would not be called factories at all
in England or America. The absence of iron deposits is a great
handicap, the one steel foundry being operated by the government at a
heavy loss, and in cotton manufacturing, where "cheap labor" is
supposed to be most advantageous, no very remarkable advance has been
made in the last decade. From 1899 to 1909 English manufacturers so
increased their trade that in the latter year they imported $222 worth
of raw {42} cotton for every $100 worth imported ten years before, while
Japan in 1909 imported only $177 worth for each $100 worth a decade
previous--though of course she made this cotton into higher grade
products.

III

It must also be remembered that the wages of labor in Japan are
steadily increasing and will continue to increase. More significant
than the fact of the low cost per day, to which I have already given
attention, is the fact that these wages represent an average increase
per trade of 40 per cent, above the wages eight years previous. The
new 1910 "Financial and Economic Annual" shows the rate of wages of
forty-six classes of labor for a period of eight years. For not one
line of labor is a decrease of wages shown, and for only two an
increase of less than 30 per cent.; sixteen show increases between 30
and 40 per cent., seventeen between 40 and 50 per cent., eight from 50
to 60 per cent., three from 60 to 70 per cent., while significantly
enough the greatest increase, 81 per cent., is for female servants, a
fact largely due to factory competition. In Osaka the British
vice-consul gave me the figures for the latest three-year period for
which figures have been publishe