I rather suspect that the men I talked with had made some of their money by advancing funds to their neighbours on mortgage.  They all seemed to own several farms.  When I asked how religion prospered in Hokkaido they said with a smile, “There are many things to do here, so there is no spare time for religion as in our native places.”  There is a larger proportion of Christians in Hokkaido than on the mainland.  One village of a thousand inhabitants contained two churches and a Salvation Army barracks.  It was reputed, also, to have eight or ten “waitresses” and five sake shops.  It is said that a good deal of shochu, which is stronger than sake, is drunk.

The roughest basha ride I made was to a place seven miles from railhead in the extreme north-east.  Such roads as we adventured by are little more than tracks with ditches on either side.  The journey back, because there were no horses to ride, we made in a narrow but extraordinarily heavy farm wagon with wheels a foot wide and drawn by a stallion.  Shortly after starting there was a terrific thunderstorm which soaked us and hastened uncomfortably the pace of the animal in the shafts.  When the worst of the downpour was over, and we had faced the prospect of slithering about the wagon for the rest of the journey, for the stallion had decided to hurry, a farmer’s wife asked us for a lift and clambered in with agility.  My companion and I were then sitting in a soggy state with our backs against the wagon front and our legs outstretched resignedly.  The cheery farmer’s wife, who was wet too, plopped down between us and, as the bumps came, gripped one of my legs with much good fellowship.  She was a godsend by reason of her plumpness, for we were now wedged so tight that we no longer rocked and pitched about the wagon at each jolt.  And no doubt we dried more quickly.  Providence had indeed been good to us, for shortly afterwards we passed, lying on its side in a spruit, the basha that had carried us on our outward journey.

We were three hours in all in the wagon.  Our passenger told us that her husband had several farms and that they were very comfortably off and very glad that they had come to Hokkaido.  When the farmer’s wife had to alight a mile from our destination we chose to walk.  Bad roads are a serious problem for the Hokkaido farmer.  In one district, only fifteen miles from the capital, they are so bad that rice is at half the price it makes in Sapporo.  It is unfortunate that the roads are at their worst in autumn and spring when the farmer wants to transport his produce.

I visited the 700-acre settlement which Mr. Tomeoka has opened in connection with his Tokyo institution for the reclamation of young wastrels.  His formula is, “Feed them well, work them hard and give them enough sleep.”  Among the volumes on his shelves there were three books about Tolstoy and another three, one English, one American and one German, all bearing the same title, The Social Question.  Needless to say that Self-Help had its place.