The Japanese, in their present factory system, as in other developments, insist on making for themselves all the mistakes that we have made and are now ashamed of. In judging the Japanese let us remember that all our industrial exploitation of women[151] was not, as we like to believe, an affair as far off as the opening nineteenth century. I do not forget as a young man filling a newspaper poster with the title of an article which recounted from my own observation the woes of women chain makers who, with bared breasts and their infants sprawling in the small coals, slaved in domestic smithies for a pittance. And as I write it is announced that the head of the United States Steel Corporation says that "there is no necessity for trade unions," which are, in his opinion, "inimical to the best interests of the employers and the public." That is precisely the view of most Japanese factory proprietaries. The trade union is not illegal in Japan, but its teeth have been drawn (1) by the enactment that "those who, with the object of causing a strike, seduce or incite others" shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one to six months with a fine of from 3 to 30 yen; (2) by the power given to the police (_a_) to detain suspected persons for a succession of twenty-four hour periods, and (_b_) summarily to close public meetings, and (3) by the franchise being so narrow that few trade unionists have votes. During the six years of the War there were as many as 141,000 strikers, but a not uncommon method of these workers was merely to absent themselves from work, to refrain from working while in the factory, or to "ca' canny." Nevertheless 633 of them were arrested. When I attended in Tokyo a gathering of members of the leading labour organisation in Japan it was discreetly named Yu-ai-kai (Friend-Love-Society, i.e. Friendly Society). Now it is boldly called the Confederation of Japanese Labour. A Socialist League[152] and several labour publications exist. Workers assemble to see moving pictures of labour demonstrations, and a labour meeting has defied the police in attendance by singing the whole of the "Song of Revolution." But crippled as the unions are under the law against strikes and by the poverty of the workers, they find it difficult to attain the financial strength necessary for effective action. Many workers are trade unionists when they are striking but their trade unionism lapses when the strike is over, for then the unions seem to have small reason for existing. The head of the Federation of Labour lately announced that the number of trade unionists was only 100,000, or half what it was during the recent big strikes and it is doubtful whether, even including the 7,000 members of the Seamen's Union, there are in Japan more than 50,000 contributing members of the different unions. But this 50,000 may be regarded as staunch.