From what has already been written, it is easily noticeable that wages and incomes, like so many things in _petite_ Japan, are insignificant. It may be added that ordinary mechanics earn on an average over 50 _sen_ a day, and the most skilful seldom get more than double that amount; that carpenters earn from 70 to 100 _sen_ a day; that street-car drivers and conductors receive 12 or 15 _yen_ per month, and other workmen of the common people about the same. Even an official who receives 1,000 _yen_ per year is considered to have a snug income. It will be inferred from this that the cost of living is proportionately cheaper, whether for provisions or for shelter or for clothes, and that the wants, the absolute necessities, of the people are few and simple. Literally true it is, that a Japanese man “wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.” With rice, barley, sweet potatoes, other vegetables, fish, eggs, tea, and even sweetmeats in abundance and very cheap, a Japanese can subsist on little and be contented and happy with enough, or even less than that. But, unfortunately, the new civilization of the West has carried into Japan the itch for gold and the desire for more numerous and more expensive luxuries, and has increased the cost of living without increasing proportionately the amount of income or wages.[29] Industrial Japan has already become more or less modified by features of Occidental industrialism, such as guilds, trade unions, strikes, co-operative stores. It is true that feudal Japan also had guilds, which are, however, now run rather on modern lines. One of the oldest, strongest, and most compact is that of the dock coolies, who without many written rules are yet so well organized that they have almost an absolute monopoly, with frequent strikes, which are always successful. Others of the guilds are those of the sawyers, the plasterers, the stonemasons, the bricklayers, the carpenters, the barbers, the coolies (who can travel all over the empire without a penny and live on their fellows), the wrestlers, the actors, the gamblers, the pickpockets, etc. The beggars’ guild is now defunct. The labor unions of modern days include the iron-workers, the ship-carpenters, the railway engineers, the railway workmen, the printers, and the European-style cooks. The last-mentioned is one in which foreigners resident in Japan necessarily take a practical interest! The only unions which have become absolute masters of the situation are those of the dock coolies, the railway laborers, and the railway engineers. As for co-operative stores, there are a dozen or more in Tōkyō, Yokohama, and Northern Japan.