d, indicating in these thirty-six
months a 30 per cent. gain in the wages of men in the factories and a
25 per cent, gain in the wages of women.

Of no small significance in any study of Japanese industry must also
be the fact that there are in Japan proper a full half million fewer
women than men (1910 figures: men, 25,639,581; women, 25,112,338)--a
condition the reverse of that obtaining in almost every other country.
Now the young Japanese are a very home-loving folk, and even if they
were not, almost all Shinto parents, realizing the paramount
importance of having descendants to worship their spirits, favor and
arrange early marriages for their sons. And what with this competition
for {43} wives, the undiminished demand for female servants, and a
half million fewer women than men to draw from, the outlook for any
great expansion of manufacturing based on woman labor is not very
bright. Moreover, with Mrs. Housekeeper increasing her frantic bids
for servants 81 per cent, in eight years, and still mourning that they
are not to be had, it is plain that the manufacturer has serious
competition from this quarter, to say nothing of the further fact that
the Japanese girls are for the first time becoming well educated and
are therefore likely to be in steadily increasing demand as
office-workers. Upon this general subject the head of one of Osaka's
leading factories said to me: "I am now employing 2500 women, but if I
wished to enlarge my mill at once and employ 5000, it would be
impossible for me to get the labor, though I might increase to this
figure by adding a few hundred each year for several years."

Unquestionably, too, shorter hours, less night work, weekly holidays,
and better sanitary conditions must be adopted by most manufacturers
if they are to continue to get labor. The Kobe _Chronicle_ quotes Mr.
Kudota, of the Sanitary Bureau, as saying that "most of the women
workers are compelled to leave the factories on account of their
constitutions being wrecked" after two or three years of night work,
consumption numbering its victims among them by the thousands. Either
the mills must give better food and lodging than they now provide or
else they must pay higher wages directly which will enable the
laborers to make better provision for themselves.

Yet another reason why wages must continue to advance is the steady
increase in cost of living, due partly to the higher standard
developed through education and cont