CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 528

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are also likely to be the scenes of very grave difficulties. Even in the past there has been more rioting amongst miners than amongst any other classes. This is doubtless owing to the fact that their occupation is dangerous and their remum- eration disproportionately small, while the class from which they are recruited is very rough. During the last few

months there have been many strikes, and a great deal of un-

rest among them, and as their employers have been exceptional- · ly prosperous their difficulties will be correspondingly

Kreat.

Taking it all in all, I am inclined to think that unless Japan introduces a new ani more genuine kind of factory law,

and unless her workmen are treated with more consideration

there will in the near future arise a situation fraught with

dangerous possibilities. One factor which must not be over-

looked is the decision of Baron Shibu sawa to try and reform

labour conditions here. Up to the present it will be remem- bered there has been no voice to represent the labour point of

view in the met. There is, it is tme a Bociety called the "Yuaikal," which has recently taken up the labour question, and looks after the welfare of the workers, but although it

is growing its influence up to the present has been very

small.

Baron Shibusawa who may be called the father of the

business world in Japan, is a man of absolute integrity and

honesty of purpose, and is looked up to both by the business

men and the operatives, and it is just possible that he may

be able to save the situation by bringing about wide and far

reaching reforms, ut unless he can do this, much trouble

is in store, ani ne in the past one of Japans' greatest

Assets; from an industrial point of view, has been her cheap and docile labour, we must look to the introduction in the

near future of a factor which must, to a great extent, affect the possibility of her becoming a serious competitor in the markets of the world.

One/