the quality of the rice, and are readily cashed. The storehouse owners
work under a licence, and they have the advantage that the buyer of
the receipts of non-licensed stores is not protected by the courts.

In the office of the company were samples of eleven market qualities
of rice, and before them, by way of showing respect to the great food
staple, was set the _gohei_ of cut white paper seen in Shinto
shrines. Outside the office, girl porters carried the bales of rice to
and fro. Close to the store was a river in which some of the dusty,
perspiring porters were washing and cooling themselves with a
simplicity to which Western civilisation is not yet equal. Opposite
them men were fishing by casting in draw nets from the shore just as
in biblical pictures the apostles are represented as doing.

The company has a rice market where farmers were putting their
business in the dealers' hands. Each dealer has to deposit 5,000 yen
with the State. The dealer who buys rice from a farmer has better
polishing machinery than the farmer possesses. Therefore he can give
the rice a more uniform appearance. By decreasing the weight of the
rice during the polishing he gives it he is also able to lessen the
sum payable for carriage and he has the value of the offal.

In order to visit farmers I rode some distance into the country.[159]
The village, which was of the Zen sect, was at work cleaning out and
straightening the stream which, as is usual in many villages, ran
through the middle of it. I was impressed during my visit not only by
the readiness and intelligence with which my questions were answered
but by the good humour with which a stranger's inquiries concerning
personal matters was received. I had another thought, that I might not
have found a group of Western farmers so well informed about their