“WORKSHOP OF FAR EAST”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 141, 27 March 1948, Page 5

“WORKSHOP OF FAR EAST”

U.S. Plan for Japan

BIG ALLOCATION PROPOSED (N.Z.P A.-Reuter—Copyright). (Roc. 10.45 a.m.) TOKIO, March 2G. “America plans to make Japan the “workshop of the Far East.” This was announced to-day by the United States Under-Secretary for the Army, Mr William Draper, who said that * Congress committees were now considering a Bill to make an immediate grant of 180,000,000 dollars to Japan, in addition to the annual appropriation’of from 300,000,000 to 400,000,000 dollars “for disease and unrest.” Mr. Draper said that Washington considered the establishment' of a selfsupporting economy for Japan a primary objective. A Japanese recovery programme had been developed on basically the same principles as the recovery programme for Europe. Army and State Departments believed that, in order to make Japan self-sufficient a certain amount of industrial raw material would have to he supplied for a short period. Mr Draper denied that the United States plan was aimed againsj Russia. It had been designed honestly and wholeheartedly to save the American taxpayer and to put the Japanese.on their feet so that they could go forward as a democratic nation. Mr Draper said that the Potsdam Declaration, fixing post-war Japanese economy at the 1930-34 level, had not been interpreted by America as meaning that the level should not be increased at some time if the Japanese, by their own efforts, showed that it was possible without endangering peace.

He added that the tendency, since the end of the war, had been to consider factors overlooked then. The maximum contemplated cost to the United States in any one year would be 580,000,000 dollars, but this would be on a reducing scale, with the objective of making Japan self-sufficient by 1952-53.