Page:Sanzō Nosaka - A Brief Review of the Labour Movement in Japan (1921).pdf/26

 with the support of other fellow organisations and at last won the whole demand. Soon this was followed by others.

In this month the Japanese labour movement made a sharp turn. Beaten on the industrial field, the organised workers turned their eyes towards the political side, demanding universal suffrage and abolition of the „Police Law“. For the time being, they acted in concert with some of the middle class politicians of the Opposition. Huge demonstrations were carried out in the important. cities. A petition was signed by ten thousands of peoples, and lodged in the House. But before any discussion had taken place on the issue, the Diet was unexpeetedly dissolved in February. Then came a General Election, at which all the „democratic“ politicians and the „popular“ parties slipped off the workers' claims from their programmes.

Betrayed and deceived, disappointed and disentranced, the workers acquired a serious lesson—the fallacy of Parliamentarism and the mistake in joining hands with the bourgeois Liberals. Without delay they returned on their field.

But their own field, too, was then by no means good for them. Trade which had been on the wane since the summer of the previous year grew suddenly worse. Bankruptcy of numerous firms, closure of the workshops, and tens of thouzands of unemployments grimly faced them. Moreover, the merciless class never lost the opportunity of cutting down wages to the starvation lines and crushing out the Trade Unions by the means of discharging the leading members from the shops. The demand of the poorest. was answered by a threat of dismissal, strike by lockout, injunction and arrest; and revolt by violent suppression.

February, a bitter conflict broke out at the Vawata (government) Iron Foundry, Kyushu, one of the biggest factories in the Far East. Arising out of a wage demand, 15000 men led by two Unions—Yuai-kai and Labour Society—carried on sabotage and soon converted this into strike action. The situation became more serious when the authority summoned a mass of police, gendarms, and at last troops. This went on for nearly a month, and was finally closed with arrest of 29 leaders and the discharge otof [sic] 240 strikers.

In the same month, the Transport Workers' Union conducted a sabotage on the whole lines of Tokyo municipal tramway for the improvement of allowance system. The Union fought well, and won in this