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Rh And so on till they take the whole crop. What girl would think of marrying a man Who knows nothing about the Peasants’ Union?”

At first they were all stupefied with astonishment, and then there was a storm of clapping.

“What’s the matter? What d’you want?” said Hamamato, looking angrily at the hotel servants standing in the corridor.

The unexpected meeting between Miesima and Hamamato served as an impetus to the creation, one wild rainy night, in the depths of the district of Shiga, in a forgotten mountain hamlet, of the Peasants’ Union, in 1921, just when the feverish excitement in the town was subsiding, just when strikes were breaking out like fires every day, just when the Japanese trade union movement was passing from the spontaneous, elemental stage to one of organized planning.

Seven years passed. And in these seven years Peasant Unions sprang up all over Japan. The Osawa Peasant Union in the district of Shiga became the centre of the movement and about thirty organizations were formed in the district, arising directly out of the struggle. They all belonged to the Japanese Left-Wing Peasant Union. A district council of the Peasant Unions was formed, and the unions grew at a tremendous rate.