Editing SG32NNU-T (section)

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'''B:''' That newspaper had an article called “The Dubious Blessing of Low-Interest Loans.” It told stories like this. In Kanagawa, a tenant farmer went to the village office to borrow low-interest funds, but the officials deducted his overdue payments from the loan and, instead of cash, handed him a statement showing that he was actually in the red. In Yamanashi, “in order for each person to borrow fifty yen, ten people made eight trips from their mountain village to the prefectural office and the Kangyō Bank branch.<ref>The Nippon Kangyō Bank (日本勧業銀行), founded in 1897, was a state-backed financial institution established principally to provide long-term credit to agriculture and industry.</ref> Their travel and meal expenses came to twenty yen apiece, so in the end they effectively borrowed thirty yen but had to repay fifty. It turned into a thoroughly high-interest loan.” Things like this leave you speechless. Money, money—everything comes down to money. Nobody today is as badly treated as the farmer.

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'''A:''' Exactly. First of all, they sweat to grow rice, and then the rice never reaches their own mouths—they live on barley and millet instead. Some cannot even get enough of that. In Tōhoku there are farmers who sell their daughters in order to pay the interest on their debts or their tenant rents. Meanwhile, look at the upper classes in the cities: they live in all the luxury they please. Think about it and the whole thing is absurd beyond words. Anyone who has awakened even slightly to socialism can see that things simply cannot go on this way.

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'''B:''' But looking at history, haven’t peasants always lived with a kind of fatalistic resignation?

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'''A:''' Since the end of primitive communism, under class society, the peasantry has unfortunately appeared that way.<ref>“Primitive communism” (''genshi kyōsan shakai'' 原始共産社会) was the conventional Marxist term for an early, pre-class stage of human society characterized by communal ownership.</ref> But that does not mean it must remain a subordinate class forever. Such irrationality will sooner or later be liquidated. The day has come when the upside-down prehistory of humanity—in which those who work are despised while those who do not work swagger about—will finally be brought to an end.

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'''B:''' But can the politicians of today carry out such a fundamental liquidation? They don’t even have a clear idea what to do in the immediate situation. Rebuilding the countryside is going to be difficult. Perhaps the countryside will simply be driven from poverty into extinction.

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'''A:''' Don’t be ridiculous! The countryside is the lifeline of all humanity. The day the countryside disappears is the day humanity disappears. Do you really think humanity is simply going to die out? As long as humanity survives, the countryside cannot disappear. Nor can anyone make it disappear. The countryside is indestructible. Its present distress is precisely the birth pangs of its revival. At the same time, this is the moment in which we have been given the task of…

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