80 THE CLASS STRUGGLE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS OF CAPITALISM 81 About five years ago the government increased the salaries of all civil officials and military officers by 25 per cent. and a new increase is again being contemplated. Last year the pensions paid out to the members of this class amounted to an aggregate sum of 17, 930, 000. This equals the annual wages of 156, 588 workers at 30c a day, a daily wage that considerably exceeds the wage of the average Japanese laborer. Under the present pension system the retired officer of the lowest rank and the police receive a pension amounting to one half his salary for life, after 15 years of service. This class constitutes the heaviest burden upon the shoulders of the people. It sacrifices every interest and resource of the nation to its own self aggrandizement, and under its rule capitalism fourishes; the two advance, hand in hand, in their work of exploitation. have shown how our government helps the capitalist class of Japan in the financial and economic fields. But in social and other ways, too, the burdens of the country are shifted upon the heads of the workers. In theory every able bodied young man at 20 is conscripted into the army. But in actual fact the youths of the rich are permitted to escape from this universal duty.
Government officials, students in the secondary schools, and young men whose financial status permits them to go abroad are exempted.
Still, the great powers that lie in the hands of the ruling class in Japan would finally arouse the resentment of the laboring masses were it not that the latter have been driven into submission by an incredible surplus of labor power in every field of industry, except in the cotton spinning industry, where cruelty and overwork rapidly thin out the ranks of the working girls.
Japanese workers are not permitted to emigrate to foreign countries, not only to America, with which the Gentlemen Agreement exists, but to other countries as well. There is, to be sure, a brutal immigration company which supplies contract labor to Brazil. Furthermore, the Japanese laborer is free to go to Manchuria or China. But here even our poorly paid Japanese workers cannot compete with the cheap labor of the natives. Even the Manchurian Railroad and the rich collieries there prefer Chinese workingmen. Under such conditions the Japanese worker is absolutely powerless at home, under the increasing exploitation of both imperialistic and capitalistic interests.
Japanese imperialist and capitalist classes will emerge from the war vastly strengthened. For the first time in its history Japanese exports have exceeded its imports. Up to 1914 Japan was a borrowing nation, a debtor to Europe. The war has changed this situation. To day Japan is financing some of the Allies, notably China, Russia, and even England. In July, 1916, the national wealth of Japan was 135, 560, 000. But in July of the present year the figures show 449, 000, 000, and its wealth is increasing from week to week. This means that capitalism in Japan will have a free hand to develop her industries and her commerce, will mean greater opportunities of exploiting its surplus labor supply. Imperialism, with the support of a strong bureaucracy, will have greater and more intensive powers of oppression, powers hitherto restrained by the necessity of heavily taxing the population to cover the financial straits of a nation drained by large debts and heavy subsidies. To day money is plentiful, and the army will grow in leaps and bounds. This situation brings Japan face to face with a dangerous future.
She will be misdirected and misguided by a war crazed imperialistic class, by thirsty capitalists and newly created millionaires. Already we see in the utterances of the present Premier, Count Terauchi, whose land cry policy has evolved out of the Imperial Household itself, a sign of the era that is to come.
An imperialistic autocracy, directed by the Mikado, but in reality under the leadership of Prince Yamagata, the very head of the Japanese bureaucracy, will drive the nation onward, utterly irresponsible to the best interests of its people.
It is the irony of fate that Japan imperialism should join in the battle cry to crush Prussian militarism, to make the world safe for democracy while its own system of militarism is crushing the Formosans, the Coreans, and even the Manchurians, as well as the Japanese workers themselves. As an internationalist, oppose, therefore, the present imperialistic policy of Japan, that tramples down the rights and liberties of socialists and workers,