Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-08-22
Law Prohibits Laborers to Seek
Usual Redress.
SAVANT TALKS TOCOURIER REPORTER
Special Correspondent of This Paper
Granted an Interview With Native
of Japan, Who Is Attending the
Iowa State University.

kiyoshi Kawakami, the japanese
savant, who has come to Iowa as a
Fellow in Political Science in the
state University, is a keen observer
of the labor situation in every land.
especially in his native country The
great steel strike is attracting his at
tention more than a little these DAYS,
and lie discusses it freely. He favors
strikes only as dernier resort, and
condemns violence unreservedly A
representative of the Courier was
granted an interview with the Orien.
tai scholar today. and in the course OF
the talk, the conversation turned to
labor conditions in general in Japan.
Nh. kawakam then said. among 9TH
er interesting things: During the past
thirty years Japan has made great
strides in the fields of commerce and
industry. The Japan China war re-
suited in the most startling and unpra-
cedented advance in the material
prosperity of my country, and the
powers found in Japan, which had
been generation before but a small
almost unknown, insular empire cou,
stantly agitated by internal disscn-
tons. a nation whose influence and flu
ture prospect cannot be overlooked.
Within the six years after the war
our foreign trade has grown from $751;
9S5,O1S to S217, G65.910. while the ag-
gregate capital of the various firms in
the empire nearly quadrupled.
Trouble Coming.
But there is another side that
tends to make one pessimistic. Though
our factory system is not vet in an adj
vanced stage, and the Industrial revo-
luton is still on its way. yet the con
fiicts between laborers and capitalists
have already given rise to uneasiness
in many intelligent minds. The old
patriarchal relationship between the
apprentice and the master is swiftly
disappearing and strikes. which have
frequently interrupted the industrial
progress in different quarters of the
land, are nothing but the precursor of
the stupendous labor agitation that
will surely ferment Japan in the near
future
. Labor and Capital Hate Each Other.
'The greed of gain and the passion
of wealth provoked and heightened by
social ambition and by the enjoyment
of luxury hitherto unknown have over
powered the feelings and thoughts Of
capitalists, to whose eyes the labOrer
appears as mere commodity, to be
bought al the cheapest rate, and to be
consumed like the coal with which they
stoke their furnaces. On the other
hand, employees look at their employ
ers with jealousy and hatred. and yet
are compelled to yield lest they die of
starvation. The Introduction of labor
saving machinery has enormously null
tipled the productive power and ma
tional wealth, but workers have be-
come simply the hands manipulating
the machinery which they cannot con-
troll Moreover, stunted children and
feeble women are constantly compel
ing with and displacing adult male
laborers. A food of great social an
tagonism is approaching.
Child Labor.
in spite of her rapid growth CT in
dustry, Japan has no factory regula-
ton to protect her laborers against
abuses on the part of inconsiderate
employers. Children under ten-even
scarcely five or six-are largely en-
ployed in factories Men are women
are compelled to work IA, Is, 16 and
even IL hours day and night Even
the Observation-Disclosures or laissez
faire' economists of the severest type
must admit that some measure should
be taken promptly to afford a safe,
guard to the miserable employees of
INSCRIPTIONS and merciless employ
erS.
Cruelty Unpublished.
One of these cruel men, in the pre-
lecture of Aichi, last year. locked up
40 young girls in the dormitory of a
spinning factory, keeping them pris-
oners, in order that they might not es-
cape over night from their virtual
slavery. While they slept, weary and
exhausted. a fire broke out, and the
girls had to jump out of the windaws,
or burn to death like rats in hole.
AS the result 81 of the unhappy EN-.
ployes were burned alive before the
eyes of the heartless employer, who
seemed more sorry for the loss of his
factory than the destruction of the
poor girls. And the court never even
questioned the man who was respon.
sible for this dreadful massacre.
This is but a single instance
Scarcely workshop or dormitory in
Japan is not dangerous to the health
and lives of the working men and wo
men employed therein. And vet there
is no law that provides against the ne
glect and carelessness of greedy cap
italists.
No Strikes.
Under present obnoxious lesisIa
ton, the laborer is absolutely forbid
den to strike, and he cannot, there
fore. effectively ask for higher wages
or shorter hours. Men have toiled on
and on, helplessly, day after day
from "A to II hours a day, getting bu,
So or $G per month Il do not like
strikes, but even these great obstacles
to industrial progress are. under lnl
present social regime in Japan (and