ernment Bureau of Economic Information in Peking estimates the number gainfully employed at 295,000,000. Of these over 80 per cent are engaged in agriculture. Probably a million are engaged in modern and semi-modern factories, and the balance in simple handicrafts and home industries 1 which one sees in the open doorways and on the streets of every city and village in China.

A deep discontent is spreading through the ranks of labor in China. Strikes are now occurring in almost every trade. The workers are being stirred to action. The leaders of the Christian Church are beginning to realize their social responsibility.2 Articles are now appearing in the press challenging employers responsible for child labor, and the conscience of the community is beginning to awaken.

1 Professor C. F. Remer of St. John's University, Shanghai, tabulates 565,255 factory workers of whom 234,152 are men and 231,103 are women, and estimates there are 49,028,864 families engaged in agriculture. The Ministry of the Interior puts the average number of children per family in China at 5.5.

In substantiation of our impressions of a three months' visit to China, we may quote from the findings of the National Christian Conference:

a. "Wealth is becoming concentrated in a few hands and the masses are left as poor as before but with the added handicap of not owning their own tools.

b. "A working day of 14 to 16 hours or even more, made worse by the necessity

of long trips between home and factory, is the rule.

c. "China's time-honored family system breaks down when whole families are in the factory for day and night shifts, and the development of a better home life, which is one of the deepest concerns of the Christian Church, is made impossible.

d. "Grave risks and accidents come with the use of high-powered machinery and of certain dangerous processes of manufacture.

e. "The health of women is seriously impaired both by night work and by the economic necessity of working up to and too soon after childbirth.

f. "The child labor problem, with its heavy toll on the minds and bodies of Chinese citizens, is at its worst here; thousands of children from 6 years of age up are employed on both day and night shifts of from 12 to 16 hours. The same arguments which had to be met in the West are advanced here by both parents and employers: 'They are better off than at home. They must earn money.' The fact that their tiny wage lowers the whole wage scale is lost sight of in the vicious circle.

g. "Conflict between labor and capital has not yet developed in any serious acute form, but there are many signs that labor is beginning to be restless and to seek organization. Unless the obvious mistakes are avoided it is likely to adopt some of the more reckless measures of the labor movement of the West but with infinitely more serious results due to ignorance."

At the National Christian Conference held in Shanghai representing all the Christian forces of the nation, Chinese and foreign, the industrial situation was studied by a Commission on Economic and Industrial Problems which reported as follows: "In view of the difficulty of immediate application of the League of Nations standard to the industrial situation in China, the following standard shall be adopted and promoted by the Church for application

now:

"1. No employment of children under 12 full years of age. "2. One day's rest in seven.

"3. The safeguarding of health of workers, e. g., limitation of working hours, improvement of sanitary conditions, and installation of safety devices."

When the writer was in China he could not find a single law in existence for the protection of labor, national, provincial or municipal. News comes from the International Labor Office, Geneva, that China has just taken the first steps toward the State regulation of labor conditions. In the present condition of the national government it will doubtless be some time before this becomes effective. Nevertheless special Labor Sections have been created at Peking in the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce, and provisional Factory Regulations have been promulgated.

These regulations provide for

The limitation of hours of work to ten hours a day; The prohibition of the employment of boys under 10 and girls under 12;

The limitation of hours of work of children to eight hours a day for boys under 17 and girls under 18;

The granting of five weeks' rest before and after childbirth and a money benefit to women employed in industry.

These measures, which as yet exist only on paper, may be credited largely to the able efforts of the International Labor Organization of the League of Nations, at Geneva, to promote universal standards of labor.

The number and character of her people and the extent and variety of her resources make it inevitable that China will become one of the dominant factors in the world's industry. Her industrial future is a matter of moment to us all as to whether it shall be a menace or a blessing to humanity.

China is now importing, not the worn out rusty junk of a bygone age but the most up-to-date inventions and machinery for her modern plants. Does she not need also the most advanced, efficient and humane methods of dealing with the far more important and vital human problem in labor? Now is the crucial time for determining the nature of China's industrial future. Her people are still democratic and plastic and have not yet broken into the antagonism of class war. All will now depend upon the treatment labor receives. Employers have their opportunity now to change conditions before it is too late.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW JAPAN

As we go to press the recent earthquake has devastated portions of industrial Japan. It may take several years to recover the industrial level described in this chapter. The statements here made refer to pre-earthquake conditions. Upon arrival in the Far East we found evidence of the rise of a new and liberal Japan. The feudal, medieval Nippon of a generation ago laid aside its bows and arrows, learned of modern nations the lessons of militarism, industry and commerce and suddenly took its place as a world power. The progressive element of the new Japan is as rapidly learning the lesson that militarism is now discredited and with equal earnestness is entering upon a new era of liberalism, disarmament and democracy. No nation in history so quickly learned the arts of war, of commerce and of material prosperity, and perhaps none will more quickly learn the art of peace. We found that the Washington Conference had cleared the air of the dark war clouds that threatened the Far East, and the new progressive party is rising to power in Japan. As Dr. Ebina, President of the Doshisha University, expressed it, like a chick breaking from its shell, the liberal Japan is today breaking through the hard, encrusted repression of feudal militarism and a new nation is coming to birth.

During the war Japan doubled her manufacturing capacity, adding 14,000 new factories. She also increased the volume of her banking business four-fold. At the same time she decreased her national debt till it is now the smallest of any of the allied nations, or only about one-twenty

fifth that of the United States. In thirty years the total number of factory workers advanced from twenty-five thousand to over a million and a half.1 In fourteen years, 1904-1919, the per capita wealth increased from $250 to $765. At the close of the war the national wealth was estimated at $43,000,000,000. The number who paid income tax on fortunes declared at over $50,000 increased during the war from twenty-two to three hundred and thirty-six. But the poverty of the poor increased yet more rapidly. While a few of the rich have been getting richer, the masses of the poor have been getting poorer so far as their real wages are concerned. Fourteen families and great firms practically control the wealth and industries of the country. The Mitsui Company alone, with a working capital of $100,000,000, does one-third of the entire import-andexport business of the empire, while the Mitsubishi family controls and operates the leading steamship line.

The marvelous progress of Japan's industries has not failed, however, to leave its mark upon her people. One of the first things that one notices in Japan is the terrific strain to which her whole population is subjected on account of the pressure of the present industrial revolution. She possesses only a few volcanic islands of sand and lava lying out in the Pacific. Her supplies of coal, iron and raw materials are quite inadequate for her own expanding needs. A large part of her territory is mountainous, and only seventeen per cent can be cultivated, as compared with ninety per cent in a country like Germany. Despite her scientific methods of caring for her mountain forests, she is compelled even to import timber from America. Already

1 According to Factory Statistics for 1919, published by the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, the number of factories employing more than five workers, was 43,949, with a total of 1,611,990 laborers, 741,193 males and 870,797 females being engaged in industry.