Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/64

 position in the industry of the country. She is miserably paid, her average wages amounting to about sixpence-halfpenny a day; but she is engaged in industry in greater numbers than Japanese men. Children in Japan are, unhappily, in very much the same position as British children were in the early days of the nineteenth century. The country has provided education for its women, and all the cities and small towns have an excellent system of schools. There are also secondary schools for girls, and institutions in which women may qualify in medicine and pharmacy. Many Japanese women are authors and journalist writers of excellent prose. There are two political associations of women, and many other organisations exist for the promotion of special causes.

When the Japanese women have secured some measure of real freedom for themselves they will probably turn their attention to the women of their dependency—Korea—who are in a condition of amazing servitude, not being permitted to use even their own names. They are spoken of as either the daughters of their fathers or the wives of their husbands or the sisters of their brothers, but never by their own name. This happens in more civilised countries, when the wife is possessed of a particularly famous husband, but it is also true of the husband when his