IN OLD JAPAN.

NZ Truth, Issue 159, 4 July 1908, Page 8

IN OLD JAPAN.

Quaint and Striking News

" Lustful^icfa and Vaneful

Proud."

How Mien "-Demonstrate" m Tokyo.

: The advance:' of Socialism m Japan has been: signalised by the foundatioh of a new. Socialist journal, "The Tokyo So-^, cialist," two copies of which have been .sent , us. The journal is an eight-page periodical, printed m pictorial BUT CABALISTIC CHARACTERS, whose meaning, we sorrowfully confess, is to us utterly unfathomable. ' Fortunately, however, one column has been printed m English for the benefit .of .'tbe 'British race, and hence we seize the (opportunity of culling one or two .items of information.. And first, as to the : periodical itself. It is described as the central organ 'of the* Japanese • Socialists, the defender of the Japanese, workmen, and the only popular and instructive interpreter^ scientific Social--ism. Furthermore — J "The' Tokyo Socialist" is the, inevitaUe ' enemy of THE LUSTPUL RICH ' and the vaneful proud.and the unmerciful strong, but 'the guardian angel ol the oppressed weak and crushed poor 'and needy m, Japan. i ; /Anothej: c paragraph anjiounces the exclusion of *a prominent Japanese Socialist, Mr Katayama (who attended the. Amsterdam Congress m 1904) from the Socialist ranks. The paragraph states that 25 members of the Tokyo Socialist Doshi JKwai met at the house bf comrade Wishi--kawa, and unanimously passed a resolution^ excluding Mr Katayama from their party, on the ground that he was a lukewarm reformer, and an obstacle to the party's . movements. The extent to which the Japanese have adopted Western me- , thods of popular agitation is illustrated i by another paragraph, which gives a report of a DEMONSTRATION IN TOKYO ; against increased taxation— a demonstra■i tion m which the Socialists took a leading part. The demonstration took place on February 11, but was interrupted by \ the arrest of Comrades Matsuaaki, Fujita, and others whilst distributing antitaxation tracts. The report thus proceeds : We regret that their cherished hope ended m disaster. However, over ten thousand people assembled m Hi'biya Park,, the appointed place for the mass meeting, two of whom even addressed the crowd, attacking the increased tax- ■ ation, and were applauded again and again, which led to the trouble between the police and the crowd, and resulted m, throwing ' STONES AT THETRAMCARS, but. as the meeting was not presided (over) by' no one the event was closed without disturbance,' except (that) . the police made some fifty arrests of the ttfsturbers^-"T_e Labor Loader."