tiles, cotton and silk received wages varying from 9 cents per day for girls under 15 to 25 cents for male weavers of adult age.

In the same year the average yearly wages of farm laborers, including their keep, was $26 for men and $15 for women, while house servants received per month $2.70 for men and $1.59 for women. Wages not including living were: Carpenters, 43 cents per day; stone cutters, 50 cents; cabinet makers, 40 cents, and blacksmiths, 28 cents. The ordinary laborer earned a wage of 29 cents. The statistics show a considerable advance over the wages of nine years previous, though unequal in different trades. From 1916 to 1919 there was a very substantial advance.

WAGES THERE AND HERE.

A publication of 1919 by the Japan Cotton Spinners' Association includes a carefully prepared comparison between the wages of cotton operatives in the southern part of the United States and those paid in Japan. Excluding overseers, with whom the disparity is less, the average rates of wages in the Southern States are given as 210 to 876 per cent of those in Japan. The average income of cotton operatives in Japan in June, 1919, was figured at $15 per month for females and $22.50 for males. Board and lodging are furnished at very low prices, $1.50 per month for women and $2.70 for men.

The same publication gives the wages of carpenters in 1919 as varying from a minimum of 65 cents in the country to a maximum of $1.25 in the city. Plasterers get the same, and masons slightly more. Day labor

ers receive 50 to 75 cents per day.

It seems impossible that these low rates of wages should continue; strikes by abstention from work have become frequent. It is the general opinion of observers that, with higher pay, efficiency has not improved in proportion. The labor of children is diminishing; emphasis laid on education has had much to do with this, together with a more humane consideration for women and children, though as regards female labor the Oriental attitude toward women is involved. In no other country is the proportion of women employed in factories so large.

LEGISLATION FOR 1931.

A factory law was promulgated some years ago limiting hours and the ages of children employed, and forbidding the employment of women at night, or in dangerous occupations. This, however, does not go into effect until 1931. Labor unions as organized elsewhere are not tolerated. Picketing and the collection of strike benefits are strictly prohibited. Thus far the policy of the Government has been altogether partial to the employer, rather than to the employe.

In nothing has Japan manifested. greater growth than in the development of shipping and shipbuilding. To make effective a policy of non-intercourse with other countries a decree was issued by one of the Shoguns in the year 1638 forbidding the building of boats of more than seventy-five tons. This was enforced for more than 200 years. Now Japanese ships are upon every sea, and Japan's mercantile marine is increasing by leaps and bounds. Chief among ship

Yusen Kaisha (Japan Mail Steamship Company), the head of which, Baron Kondo, recently visited the United States. The Emperor is a large stockholder. No steamship company has shown a more rapid increase in tonnage and the handling. of traffic. With other Japanese shipping it was in a position to reap unheard-of profits in the World War, and its dividends have been enormous. Japan is truly a country of colossal dividends. Second to this is the Osaka Shosen Kaisha, or Mercantile Steamship Company. These two companies are in a class by themselves, although there are numerous others of large and growing importance. It is possible to recruit an almost unlimited number of sailors from fishing fleets.

Japan's ability to maintain ships on the Pacific in competition with the United States, where there is no predilection for a seafaring life, is very much increased by the handicap of unfavorable legislation in the United States.

Formerly Japan obtained steel boats from England or elsewhere. Now she has five large shipyards, one of them employing as many as 20,000 men. These ships have greatly stimulated the trade of Japan. Preference is given to the carrying of Japanese goods.

SUBSIDIZING INDUSTRY.

The activities of a paternal Government are ever present to promote industry. Government factories have been established, often operated at a loss to develop new lines of manufac

ture.

When successful they are usu

Subsidies and bonuses are liberally

granted. granted. Inventors are rewarded. Investigators are sent abroad and instructors are furnished at home. In the promotion of industry by the State, Japan undoubtedly surpasses all other nations.

Water power is a valuable asset, though not yet utilized with the usual ingenuity and progressiveness characteristic of the Japanese.

To obtain the advantages of cheap labor and proximity to consumers many factories have been established by the joint investments of Japanese and foreign capital, particularly in the electrical industry. In time the employers are practically all Japan

ese.

Tariff duties are light. More than half the imports in 1918 were duty free, and the average rate upon dutiable goods was only 8.25 per cent. Propositions for increased rates do not seem to have been favorably regarded by the Ministry or the Diet.

Like any other people without long education in the use of mechanism, the Japanese are far behind the most advanced industrial nations, both in the manufacture and use of delicate and complicated machinery. Their critics say that machines sent there must be "fool proof."

Among disadvantages the lack of raw material is fundamental, and it is to the lasting credit of the Japanese people that they have successfully met so serious an obstacle. There are only negligible quantities of iron ore. The official annual of Japan states that less than 80,000 tons were mined in 1917. Of coal there is much more; measured in metric tons of 2214

pounds, about 23,000,000 tons were mined in 1916. This is practically exhausted for ships, railways, factories and salt mines, leaving practically none for domestic use, although some 3,000,000 tons were exported. There is a great variety of other minerals in small quantities, gold, silver, lead, antimony, sulphur, but of copper alone is there an abundant supply, of which large quantities are exported.

Of cotton there is practically none, of wool almost none.

AMERICA STILL DOMINANT.

There seems to be a prevalent opinion that Japanese manufacturers are assuming a prominence which threatens the supremacy of countries of longer established industries. While the development there has been extraordinary, and Japanese goods in many places have made serious inroads upon the exports of other countries, there is, as yet, little basis for this opinion. A comparison will show that the economic position of the United States is almost immeasurably stronger. The population of this country is less than twice that of Japan. There is hardly any branch of trade or production in which the disparity is not immensely larger. The recent surplus of exports over imports is alleged to have made Japan a wealthy instead of a comparatively poor country, but in the first six months of 1919 the excess of exports from Japan changed to an excess of imports, while the balance of trade in favor of the United States exceeded all previous records. In fact, our increase of foreign trade each. year in the time of Japan's greatest

prosperity was more than Japan's total.

Japan is still predominantly an agricultural State, with average farms of 2.62 acres. More than 30,000,000 of her population are thus engaged and 2,000,000 are in fisheries, which in the rivers and surrounding seas furnish very large quantities of food.

The question arises, "What will become of the rapidly increasing surplus of population of Japan?" Much of it is absorbed in manufacturing industries, but the disposition of the Japanese to emigrate is exaggerated. Their attachment to their native land causes a strong desire to remain at home. They are not fond of cold countries. The Japanese Island of Hokkaido, with a climate not more severe than that of New England, is but sparsely settled.

Several years ago, a very favorable contract was made for concessions in Brazil, under which 10,000 emigrants were annually to go there for two years. Only 5000 could be obtained. The one country which seems to be considered a paradise is California. There is a desire to enter that country, though whether with the intention of remaining is not certain. Recent utterances by Japanese statesmen have favored abandoning emigration to remote countries and centering their settlements upon nearby localities on the continent of Asia.

The principal fields for emigrants in the immediate future will no doubt. be Korea and Manchuria. Many live. abroad. There are more Japanese in China than of all residents of Caucasian races, but this may not mean that most of them contemplate re

maining permanently. Their most universal desire is not to go outside their own country unless as proprietors or superintendents or in some privileged position.

Like other countries, Japan has serious problems to face, such as the burden of military expenses, the la

TARIFF REDUCTION HITS

North Carolina, a dependably Democratic State, with one of its Congressmen head of the House Ways and Means Committee and one of its Senators head of the Finance Committee, when the Democrats were in power in Congress, has become a great producer of hosiery. Its mills located near the cotton fields, manufacture the raw materials into the finished product with the labor of its home people and the employment of home capital. That State, therefore, should feel particular interest in a report just received from the American consular agent in England telling of the restoration of the hosiery industry in Great Britain. After saying that the mills in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire are experiencing the most prosperous period in their history, and have taken all the orders they can fill up to June and are refusing further orders, the American representative declares:

The United States has also been an important buyer, and it is said by some manufacturers that they are doing the best business in the United. States at present that they have ever done, and they expect that business in the coming year will be even better and on a much larger scale.

This means that American con

bor question, the effect of increased wealth and luxury upon the morale of the people, and the availability of raw material to meet the growing demands of her factories, but there is every prospect that the industrial progress of the last twenty-five years will continue.

NORTH CAROLINA MILLS.

sumers are buying more extensively of hosiery "Made in England" because they can buy it cheaper than in America. It also means, apparently, that our purchases of hosiery in England will increase as England gets back on a full peace-time operation in industry. It means that every dollar sent to England to buy hosiery will be a dollar less expended for the employment of wage earners in American mills. It means that every dollar deducted from American payrolls will be a dollar less expended for the purchase of food and clothing, for payment of rent and purchase of property in America.

In view of these facts, it might be well for North Carolina business men to meditate upon the question whether their Senators and Congressmen were wise in voting for a reduction of from 30 to 50 per cent in the import duty on hosiery. It is impracticable to give exact figures on the extent of reduction of the duty, as the basis of computation was changed, but the figures given out are not far from cor

rect.

If England is able to make a recordbreaking invasion of the American hosiery market, it would seem that the reduction of duty was clearly not wise.