CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 527

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ceremonial bow. This time, however, I found a completely changed state of affairs. On visiting two of the largest mills, one in Kobe and one in Osaka belonging to different Companies, I was taken round by the President, the Managing Director and the Will Manger, sẽ that we formed a compara- tively imposing procession. Yet no one, except an occasional old woman naid the slightest attention to us, even though these ills are particularly well managed and the Japanese Managers in question are highly respected. I thought this might be the result of new instructions, as the continual bowing does to a certain extent interfere with the working of the machinery, but when we came to the playground I noti- ced exactly the same phenxenon namely, that workman lounged about on the benches and ignored us. Only in the Hospital did a few alck girls display any interest. On the other hard on visitặng a mill at Ogaki, belonging to the same Company as the one at Osaka I found the old politeness and respect, and when I draw the attention of the Mill Winager to the difference he said that the evil influence of the towns had not yet reached the country districts.

I have discussed this point with General Pease, Works Superintendent of the Japanese Explosives Company a branch of Nobel's forks, and he tells me that during the two years he has been here he has noticed a remarkable change, while bis English foremen who have been in Japan far longer, say that an extraordinary difference has taken place of late. Another Englishman who has come out here to set up machinery in a mill and who has had extensive experience in many foreign countries, says that with the exception permane of Mexico, he has rarely seen relations so strained between the Workmen and those in authority over them.

I have referred enrlier in this memorudum to the shipbuilding yards na que of the most probable sources of trouble in the future, but one must not forget that the kúng