have been supplanted by radical workingmen who wish to control their own unions.

The police law of 1919 made agitation for strikes a crime and trade unions largely collapsed. They are still unrecognized and unlawful, but the steady growth of public opinion and the fear of violence from the growing spirit of unrest in all ranks of labor has restrained the authorities from continued oppression. In 1920 the Japan Socialist Federation was formed in Tokyo with some two thousand members. This year the socialist groups and labor unions put on a parade, which was not opposed, in which they carried not only the red flags of socialism but also six black flags of anarchism.

Economic injustice and oppression are driving the underpaid and dissatisfied masses of Japan into open enmity against the existing social order. At present it is estimated. that there are some three hundred labor organizations with a membership of 365,700. With no legal status the unions when subject to government opposition are almost powerless. The workers rapidly gather for a strike and then hastily disperse, so that the movement at times seems checked. But this is only on the surface. Underneath there is a strong current that is constantly increasing in volume and intensity. The strength of the unions, however, should not be measured by members but by the fact that there is a class-consciousness which enables them to unite to strike and to maintain many of their demands.

Perhaps we can best visualize and realize the concrete situation in the new world of labor in Japan from the life of a typical leader. In the heart of Kobe, we found Toyohiko Kagawa, the benefactor of the poor, the friend of little children, the guide of labor, the organizer of the despairing farmers, the arousing conscience of a satisfied church, the Saint Francis of the slums. We had crossed Japan to see

him, for in this man we found epitomized the new Japanliberal, daring, hopeful-but grappling with the terrific problems of crushing economic need in the grinding poverty of the industrial revolution.

At first he was unwilling to talk about himself, but in the course of a long day in his company we were able to extract the following facts regarding his life: He was born in Kobe in 1888. His father was a Japanese official who had squandered his inherited fortune and died when Kagawa was six years old. He was then adopted by his rich uncle in whose luxurious home the boy had everything he could desire. While attending school, he was invited to join a Bible class conducted by Dr. H. W. Myers. Gradually the story of Jesus the Carpenter of Nazareth, who poured out his life for the poor, gripped the heart of this young student. When he told his uncle, who was a Shintoist, that he had decided to become a Christian he was instantly driven from the house penniless. Dr. Myers then took Kagawa to his home as his son. During his course of study he broke down with tuberculosis. Seeking recovery he went to live in the hut of a poor fisherman on the sea-shore. After partial recovery, he returned to school and then went to live among the poor in the slums. When asked why he decided to go to the slums when he had tuberculosis, with tears in his eyes, he replied: "I thought that I had only a few years to live and I wanted to do all I could in that short time for the people who needed me most."

Dr. Myers says of Kagawa's work in the slums: "We felt that in giving him permission to go there we were signing his death warrant, but he would take no refusal. He lived on $1.50 a month and the rest of the money given for his support and all else that came into his hands went to help the poor and suffering about him. He gave away all his clothes except what he had on his back, and to

provide for somebody who was hungry he often went without a meal. Strange to say this heroic treatment under the blessing of God cured his disease. He was preaching day and night during these years, visiting and nursing the sick, studying and writing, and doing the work of six ordinary men."

When partially recovered from sickness, he became the pastor of a little church in Shinkawa, Kobe. After spending four years in this district, he decided to go to America to study. When the writer visited Princeton between 1914-1916, Kagawa was there as a student. Upon his return to Japan many lucrative positions were open to him. He refused them all and returned to his little room in the slums where he did not have so much as a bed, a chair or a table. The writer found the little room where he had lived for some years in a dark and filthy alley. But in his new office were several hundred of the most up-to-date books on every phase of the labor movement, sociology, politics, art and religion.

We found him not a strong, robust man, but a thin, emaciated, almost pitiful figure kept going by the blazing fire of the spirit with him. He was wearing a suit of clothes that would cost less than $1.50. He is living in the midst of the foulest and most filthy slum we have ever visited in any city in the world.

His first undertaking was to organize labor in order to help improve their terrible conditions. While engaged in the work of a pastor in his little church, he started to fight for social justice. Here in the industrial districts he found women working from twelve to seventeen hours a day, and receiving a daily wage of from twenty to fifty cents. With more than nine-tenths of the laborers receiving less than a living wage, and with 92 per cent of the families of Japan trying to keep alive on less than $250.00 a year, he set to

work to improve these appaling conditions of poverty. He did not ask for charity. He demanded social justice. The majority in Church or State, like the Priest and Levite, passed by on the other side. He dared to face the facts. Through his paper, the "Labor News," of which he is the editor and proprietor, he aroused the hope of the despairing.

Not satisfield with working for the cause of the industrial laborers, he began to organize the tenants and farmers in the agrarian districts where conditions were even worse. Farmers' unions were started, co-operative societies were organized and a paper was published to give the farmers the facts regarding the agricultural situation in Japan. With the awakening of the womanhood of Japan, he introduced a third newspaper called "The New Womanhood."

Kagawa is today the busiest man in Japan. During the seven years since the writer saw him in Princeton, he has written some sixteen books and pamphlets. He is contributing to a dozen magazines and editing three newspapers. He continues to serve as pastor of the little church in the slums where he conducts services before six o'clock in the morning for the impoverished congregation before many of them have to go off for their Sunday of merciless toil in a non-Christian country. He draws his own illustrations and pen sketches for his books and articles. He is at present preparing a novel on the underworld of Osaka, like Sheldons' "In His Steps." He has also been conducting an industrial research bureau which has given him a unique insight into the industrial situation of Japan.

The account of his life is appearing in three volumes. The first volume, containing the story of his conversion and his entry into the fight for social justice for the poor, has exhausted more than two hundred editions, and according to the publishers has been read by more than a million people. When he is announced to speak the largest halls

are filled to overflowing. Students from the Imperial University eagerly crowd the meetings. His life has been "dramatized" and his books have been translated into several languages. He is earning some $15,000 a year by writing, but every cent is invested in downtrodden humanity. He finances a free hospital and dispensary for the poor, and a dormitory for laborers who have no home. His deepest need today is money enough to build a social settlement to enable him to make a demonstration in the midst of the poverty of Japan, such as Toynbee Hall in London or Hull House in Chicago. From the money received from his books, he has already given more than $40,000 for the help of the impoverished labor movement, for the support of his dispensary and for the assistance of his Japanese fellow-workers in Japan, Korea and Formosa. He advocates the application of Christian principles to political, social and industrial evils. Like Mr. Gandhi of India, Kagawa is a pacifist and has a hatred of war. He believes in evolution rather than revolution, expression in place of repression, and in the power of vital social Christianity to uplift mankind. He believes that we must Christianize society and socialize Christianity. He stands for a sane constructive policy for the Japanese labor movement in place of the radical and destructive Bolshevist program which the younger and more ignorant labor leaders have for the time adopted.

Kagawa took an active part in the Kobe strike and went to prison with a hundred and twenty others, He has been arrested five times for his fearless vindication of the rights of labor and for articles printed in his newspapers. In the words of the title of his book, he is living "Beyond the Death Line." But he walks joyous and unafraid.

We left his humble home burdened with the patient suffering of the toiling masses in the noisome pestilence of