Foow Our "OWN Comnesroncext Tokyo, May 2.
Being extremely interested in! Labour movements the world over: and especially here in Japan, 1. was amongst the handful' of foreigners present this morning the rallying point of the Tol May Day paraders.._ I was amongst the extremely few foreigners who) walked with the demonstration and saw it break up in orderly fashion when the goal at Uyeno Park had been reached, As a totally unbiased and disinterested outsider, T watched the] speech-making and the arrests; the sombre-visaged guardians of the law with their chin straps fixed at the "ready" and the good-natured, smiling faces of the greater part! of the crowd whose behaviour was more like that of schoolboys. having a day off. I saw the police] Interrupt speakers grufily, issuing their orders in a tone of voice more suited to the field of There may have been thoughts uttered, but such apparently made no effect on the crowd. The only time the crowd applauded was when the police interfered and there was a slight, fracas between the more extremely inclined of the workers and the guardians of the law. The uniforms and dangling sabres gave the only emphasis to the point, and a Japanese crowd loves a diversion. May Day in this country is still a Jcontest between a minority of the demonstrators and the police, and from being a major nin the sense it is) meant to be in other lands.
The Honour of Arrest I watched the police pick out! those whom they didn't like _and desired to arrest. Some, in their teens, and the of being regarded a and a "danger" to the state was too much of a lure for The es" were for the most these unmatured lads to re
part, that they sang too loud; made faces at a constable; or waved their flag-poles in too defiant and challenging a manner.
To me it all seemed so unnecessary, 80 stupid, s0 provocative fon the part of the police, who were well armed and were there thousands—strong enough easily to break up a mob five times the size of the one that paraded that da The police seemed to think they had to make some arrests in order to. justify their presence to the tax-payer. The good sense that is to be had in Great Britain and in the United States where the disgruntled are occasionally allowed.|to blow off steam was entirely'
lacking.
I thought of Russia. But 1 immediately recollected that the Japanese, as a nation, are yet sound and practical and have a ral share of common-sense in their mental make-up. The stark brutality" and loathsomeness what followed when the Bolsheviks overthrow Tsardom has not been forgotten by the Japanese. They are not likely to go the way Russia went, despite the misplaced zeal of their' police force.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.