Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/52

42 roads, irrigation works, laying railroads, harbour construction and reclamation, sinking new mines, clearing new lands, wharf lumping, herring fishing—almost all of them had been engaged in one or another of these.

When in Japan itself a deadlock had been reached because the workers had refused to be imposed upon, and because all the markets had been flooded, the capitalists made a grab at Hokkaido and Saghalien. There they were able to exploit as ruthlessly as in the colonies of Korea and Formosa. But these same capitalists knew many things which no one dared to mention. In their quarters at these road construction and railroad construction works navvies were killed with less ceremony than lice. Exploited beyond endurance, some ran away. If they were caught they were tied to a stake. Horses could kick them with their hind legs. Sometimes they were handed over to dogs, who chewed them to death. All this, moreover, was done in public. If the victim lost consciousness water was thrown over him to revive him, and this would be repeated many times. Finally, held in the animal’s powerful jaws and shaken round like a bundle, he died. Even after he had been thrown away limp and left in a corner of the open space there were still some convulsive movements from the body. To have red-hot tongs applied to their backs and to be beaten with a six-sided bludgeon until they couldn’t stand up was a daily occurrence. When they were eating their dinner, suddenly from the back a piercing cry arose, and then a pungent smell of human flesh burning was wafted to them.