This was capped by another story. "A landlord, a samurai, has for his tenants his former subjects, so something of the relation of master and servant still remains. He wished to raise his tenants to the position of peasant proprietors, so when land was for sale in the village he advised them to buy. They said they had no money, but he answered, 'Means may perhaps be found.' He secretly subscribed a sum to the Shinto shrine and then advised the formation of a co-operative society, which could borrow from the shrine for a tenant, so that the tenant need not go to the landlord to thank him and feel patronised by him. He need only to go to the shrine and give thanks there." "The landlord," added the speaker in his imperfect English, "has entirely hided himself from the business." A third of the tenants had become peasant proprietors. In order to better the feeling between the farmers and landowners this landlord and several others had begun to ask their tenants to their gardens, where they were given tea and fruit. "In Japan," said one man to me, "we see feudal ideas broken down by the upper, not the lower class." I visited the romantic coast of a peninsula a dozen miles from the railway. Some 10,000 pilgrims come in a year to the eighty-eight temples on the peninsula, and in some parts the people are such strict Buddhists that in one village the county authorities find great difficulty in overcoming an objection to destroying the insect life which preys on the rice crops. When rice land does not yield well, one landlord causes an investigation to be made and gives advice based upon it to the tenant, saying, "Do this, and if you lose I will compensate you. If you gain, the advantage will be yours." Money is also contributed by the landlord to enable tenants to make journeys in order to study farming methods. A landlord here--I had the pleasure of being his guest--had started an agricultural association. It had developed the idea of a secondary school for practical instruction, "rich men to give their money and poor men their labour." In order to obtain a fund to enable tenants to get money with which to set up as peasant proprietors, this landlord had thought of the plan of setting aside each harvest 250 _shō_[27] of rice to each tenant's 3 _shō_. Good work was done in teaching farmers' wives. "When no instruction is given," I was informed, "a wife may say, when her husband is testing his rice seed with salt water, 'Salt is very dear, nowadays, why not fresh water?' If a husband is kind he will explain. If not, some unpleasantness may arise, so wives are taught about the necessity of selecting by salt water." [Illustration: LANDOWNER'S SON AND DAUGHTER OFF TO THE VILLAGE SCHOOL.] [Illustration: BUDDHIST SHRINE IN A LANDOWNER'S HOUSE.]