From Ov Own Yokohama, Aug. 14.
Thesinereased number of the unemployed in Japan is the cause of many a wakeful night for the authorities. The purchasing power of the Japanese masses hag dwindled considerably since the commencement of this year and one of the that manufacturers and merchants are in a corresponding quandary. Unable to dispose of their goods in the domestic market, they have been compelled to sell them elsewhere, even at sacrifice prices. This fact really accounts for th Tecent excess of exports over im: ports, a "favourable" balance of trade that is far from being really beneficial.
The fall in the value of cocoons, tone of the principal of the small industries in which farmers and rural workers engage, for the most art beyond the pale of factory Inws;}, has further diminished the purchasing power of the people, especially inthe country regions, and, according to a leading article appearing in one of Tokyo's principal journal "salaried men, industrial workers and day labourers are terror-stricken at the growing unemploy-monte" Nearly every day produces instances of not only wages being ployees, reduced, but also discharges of em
As A consequence, workers are restive and over 80,000 workers, ployed in some 60 factories Tokyo and Yokohama, are ing a "go-slow" movement their employers. This is a form of sabotage peculiar to the Japanese worker, who turns up at his post at the appointed hour, but manages to get through the working day with out doing much work—a policy that simply suicidal, for this will only further overwhelm employers who already are straggling hard to tide over the difficulties brought about by' the recent bank smashes and busi 'Strange' Suspi Sonieliow or another, the workers Ihave, become convinced that there is a "secret capitalistic agreement" to dismiss as many employees as posible, regardless of the state" to which the working man and his family may be reduced. This suspicion recently has been growing, land dismissals made in the cour of the past six weeks or s0, ray the really were not due to ab-lute necessity to cut down the staff, but were the result of a secret agreement concluded amongst proprietors of factories, The situation is becoming ugly and workers in the Tokyo and Yokohama] Aistriets have decided to band them-elves into a solid phalanx. At a meeting recently held it was decided to present their employers with the following demands:—(1) no further! @ismissals; (2) if dismissals. simply] have to be made, then an allowance of three months' pay should be given to each employee; and (3) minimum wage of Yen 2.50 a testify to the workers enderta regarding their future, but. their ave been regarded by the 8 as unlawful. Matters, thus, are in a state of regrettable tension.
seeming paradox in the situation is that there are many proofs of external prosperity, especially in the Tnrger cities. In Tokyo, for instance, against powerful rings and trusts, fare growing poorer as day succeeds_ day. The chief difficulty of small business firms is the perplexing prolem of getting credit, a matter that, if intricate and hard in the past, has [become still worse since the financial quake of a couple of months ago exposed, with startling nakedness, the very unsound state of many a business in Japan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.