There is a silk factory in Ayabe, the Gunze Seishi Kwaisha, whose record is the most wonderful of all. It is managed by a Christian, who runs it entirely with a view to the benefit of the workers and the district. No girls of that district go elsewhere for work. Once enrolled as members of the working force they are regularly instructed, both in general education and in their particular duties; they earn good wages, keep good health, receive Christian instruction, have their regular rest days, remain the full number of years, help support the family and earn enough besides to set themselves up in married life, and are now beginning to send their daughters to the same factory. This Christian factory is Christianizing the district. The rising moral and religious life is transforming even the agricultural and other interests of the region. So high is the grade of silk thread produced, and so uniform and reliable is the quality, that it alone of all the factories in Japan is able to export its product direct to the purchasing firm in the United States, which buys the entire output at an annual cost of about $500,000, and without intermediate inspection at Yokohama. Here we have a splendid illustration of the way in which Christian character is solving the problem arising from the low moral and economic ideals of the masses of Japan's working classes. As a rule the modern industrial worker does not put moral character into his work; and a wide complaint of Occidental importers of Japanese products is that goods are not made according to contract or sample. This is one of the greatest obstacles to the continuous prosperity of any Japanese industry; for as soon as a large demand has arisen in foreign lands for any given article, its quality, as a rule, has rapidly deteriorated. It is this unreliability of Japanese workmen that makes so difficult direct exportation to foreign lands without the supervision of Occidental middlemen. The Christian Gunze Seishi Kwaisha is one of the splendid exceptions which shows what Japanese workmen and manufacturers can do, when controlled by high ideals and motives. Unfortunately however not all factories and their managers have the same spirit, aim, or skill. Many factories are the exact opposite in every respect to those owned by the Kanegafuchi and Gunze Seishi companies. My personal attention was first called to the heartrending condition of servitude imposed on vast numbers of girls by reading, a score of years ago, of a fire in the dormitory of an Osaka factory. The dormitory was in a closed compound, whose doors and gates were carefully locked to keep the girls from running away. The result was the death, if I remember correctly, of every inmate, of whom there were several score.