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3. High Prices.
The economic prosperity caused extremely high prices of life necessities (particularly of rice prices), resulting in the reduction of real wages. The next table indicates the heavy pressure which „War prosperity“ brought upon the life of the producing classes.
| Year. | Index of Prices. | Among above Prices. | Index of Wages. | Differences. | |
| Rice. | Cotton. | ||||
| 1900 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 0 |
| 1914 | 126 | 140 | 119 | 141 | +15 |
| 1915 | 117 | 106 | 103 | 139 | +22 |
| 1916 | 136 | 108 | 129 | 146 | +10 |
| 1917 | 191 | 170 | 268 | 168 | —23 |
| 1918 | 277 | 280 | 318 | 208 | —69 |
| 1919 | 294 | 372 | 506 | 267 | —27 |
4. Revolutionary ferments abroad.
Every events produced by the Western workers are keenly responded and soon followed by the Japanese workers. Above all, the proletarian Revolution in Russia aroused a stormy enthusiasm, awakened in them a great hope, and drew them into the vortex of the worldwide revolutionary ferments.
But tho influence of the Russian Revolution over the Japanese a proletariats should not be overestimated. Because the Japanese workers not only felt a great difficulty in getting the true news on Soviet Russia, but also they had been never well educated by the Socialist ideas.
5. Social and Industrial Unrest.
Now, Japan entered upon a period of great social and industrial-unrests which she had never seen in any of the foregoing periods. The
