The germ of the desire to elevate their status, however, was not killed when the first organized attempt of the women to obtain greater social and political freedom came to naught. The flood of Western thoughts that poured into Japan during the past eight years changed the situation rapidly. Events of world-wide magnitude during this period effectively eclipsed the internal happenings in Japan, in so far as the women were concerned, and it was not until the big riots of 1918 that the notabilities of the country realized that the women's crusade for elevating their status could no longer be looked on with amused tolerance and curiosity, for even the gilded dovecotes of Geisha land were fluttering with a significant restlessness. Repression, by sheer force, was rightly ruled out as unsuitable in this enlightened age, for it would only have driven the trouble underground and ultimately made matters worse, The country, through the vast sums of the war, throug] supplying cours shat poured ante it during the allied forces with munitions of war and through the export of Japanese manufactures to all parts of the earth, soon emerged from its semi-feudal stage, financially and economically, a stronghold of Capitalism and this indirectly served the women's cause valuably. The sudden industrial effort, of uni lented proportions, made during the war brought out in clear relief the real, unprotected condition of the women and the dismissals—of women first—that followed the pricking of the war boom bubble accentuated the reality. It furnished the stern necessity that was lacking when the New Women's Association sought two decades or!
ago to organize the women into 2 coherent whole, and today women's organizations, political, social and labour (which however are not legally recognized as trade unions) have sprung up all over the country. They have been subjected: jtc tests om occasion, but have! managed to withstand troublous periods.
Meantime the desire for more political freedom was also manifest-j ing itself side by side with the attempts of the women to emancipate themselves from economic! thraldom. They insist that the two may not be the same, but that the' j distinction is really without.a difference.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.