Hard Times in Japan.

Waikato Times, Issue 12445, 30 November 1912, Page 2

Hard Times in Japan.

COST OF LIVING. The semi-official Japan Times has published a noteworthy article on the condition of the lower classes of Japan. The cost of living keeps going up; no one seems to be able to reach out his hands to bring to the ground the steadily ascending balloon; people helplessly watch its course 1 , and gasp. At the same time poverty walks about at large, and the miseries of life increase. Above all, the heads of families of, the laboring class seem to have the worst allotment of miseries and tortures. Many of them are daily deserting their wives and families. The laboring men cannot support their families with the scanty wages they get. The little storekeepers find it impossible to balance their ledgers with the credit ahead of the debit, and are universally discouraged by dull business. At home their wives need money, and their children are simply crying aloud from starvation. The hard-pressed and miserable husbands go out in the morning to search for work, and many of them never return again at night. Daily the charity lodginghouses are crowded by women and children begging .a night's lodging, to drift away the next morning to return again at night s'tarving. Many of them are sick, husbandless, and fatherless, penniless and homeless. Some of them follow the paths of their husbands to death. According to further details given, their hospitals are overcrowded, and the arrangements for the succor of such poor people are most inadequate.