Nearly half of this cotton is manufactured at Osaka, the rest at Kobe, and at Okyama, on the Inland Sea, to the west, and at Yokkaichi, Nagoya and Tokio, to the east. The conclusion of the late Chinese War gave a great impulse to the cotton industries in Japan, and necessitated the construction of new and much larger establishments, and the enlargement of those already in existence, so that it is calculated that before long over a million and a half looms will be in activity in various parts of the country. These very important industries, it must be remembered, are not subsidized by foreign capital, or under the direction of foreigners; they are purely and absolutely Japanese; up to the present, however, nearly all the plant has been imported from England and America. Until 1897 employers of labour had a good deal of trouble in obtaining workmen. The townspeople, being engaged in a great many small industries of their own, were not willing to abandon them for work which was not likely to prove as remunerative as their own; in consequence of this the country districts had to be ransacked for hands, and nearly all the girls employed in the factories of Osaka are the daughters of small farmers. They are lodged and boarded by the various companies in buildings erected expressly for the purpose, a percentage being deducted from their wages for their keep. Certain abuses having arisen in their management, a leading local newspaper, published in English, but really owned and edited by Japanese, in 1897 called attention to the same in a series of articles, violently attacking the working organization of the Osaka cotton-mills. The lodgings of the workwomen were, it was stated, exceedingly unhealthy; and as to the morals of the women employed, the less said about them the better. Then, again, the agents who engaged these young women were accused of doing so under false promises, and it was said they even went so far as to intercept their correspondence with their homes. The editor furthermore condemned in the severest terms the employment of extremely young children.