“Again, the family system gives too much power to relatives and leads to disagreeable interference.  In the case of a marriage being proposed between family A and family B, the families related to A or B who will be brought into closer connection by the marriage may object.  On the other hand, the family system has the advantage that the relatives who interfere may also be looked upon for help.  Not a few people are all for maintaining the family system.  But the spirit of individualism is entering into some families and here and there children are beginning to claim their rights and to act against relatives’ wishes.  One hears of farmers sending boys, even elder sons, to the towns, and for their equipment borrowing from the prefectural agricultural bank instead of spending on the development of their business.”

At a Christmas-day luncheon I met four students of rural problems, two of whom were peers, one a governor of an important prefecture, and a fourth a high official in the agricultural world.  One man, speaking of the family system, said “the success of agriculture depends on it.”  “In my opinion,” someone remarked, “the foundation of the family system is common production and common consumption, so when these things go there must be a gradual disappearance of the family system.”  “No,” came the rejoinder, “the only enemy of the family system is Western influence.”  “Yes,” the fourth speaker added, “an enemy whose blows have told.”

Someone suggested that the Japanese rural emigrant always hoped to return home, that is if he could return with dignity—­does not the proverb speak of the desirability of returning home in good clothes?  One of the company said that he had seen in Kyushu rows of white-washed slated houses which had been erected by returned emigrants.  “But they were successful prostitutes.  Often, however, these girls invest their money unwisely and have to go abroad again.”

Everybody at table agreed that there was in the villages a slow if steady slackening of “the power of the landlord, of the authorities and of religion,” and a development of a desire and a demand for better conditions of life.  One who proclaimed himself a conservative urged that changes of form were too readily confounded with changes of spirit.  The change in thought in Japan, he said, was slow, and some occurrences might be easily misjudged.  I said that that very day I had heard from my house the drone of an aeroplane prevail over the sound of a temple bell, happening to speak of The Golden Bough, I asked my neighbour, who had read it, if to a Japanese who got its penetrating view some things could ever be the same again.  He answered frankly, “There are things in our life which are too near to criticise.  Do you know that there are parts of Japan where folklore is still being made?”

I was invited one evening to dinner to meet a dozen men conspicuous in the agricultural world.  Priests were apologised for because most of them were “very poor men and also poorly educated.”  Very few had been even to a middle school.  Many priests read Chinese scriptures aloud but they did not understand what they were reading.