Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/260

248 We jot down the above just as they occur to us. The idea suggested will bear elaboration, the steps of the process being in each case these:—first from India to China, second from China to Korea, third from Korea to Japan; or else from China to Japan direct, without Korean intervention, but this less often except in comparatively recent times.

 Industrialism. About the year 1880, industrialism leapt into existence in this land which, under the old regime, had been divided between an exclusive aristocracy and a humble peasantry, both extremely simple in their tastes. Now almost every town has its sheaf of smoke-stacks, five thousand breaking the sky-line in Ōsaka and its suburbs alone. But why attempt to give statistics which a few weeks will turn into ancient history? Not a month passes without seeing new manufactories of cement, carpets, soap, glass, umbrellas, hats, matches, watches, bicycles, smelting-works, electrical works, steel foundries, machine-shops of every sort. Nor is everything left to private enterprise; government steps in with liberal bounties. The silk industry, once confined to certain narrow districts, is fast spreading over the entire centre and south. Formerly the Nakasendō was an old-world trail among the mountains. The last time we travelled along the new, finely graded carriage road, we were wakened every morning by the scream of the factory whistle. Journeying on and reaching the town of Kōfu, we found its silk filatures to be now its most noteworthy sight, troops of girls coming in at five every morning and working straight on till eight at night,—fifteen hours at a stretch!

The cloud of discontent that has darkened industrialism in the West already begins to obscure the Japanese sky. The "rights of labour" are asserting themselves. We hear of frequent strikes, than which nothing can be imagined further from the whole mental attitude of the working class of even seventeen years ago. For them, as for subjects generally, the watchword was, not rights, but duties. Now quite a new spirit is abroad. The spread of this