WISE MEN FROM THE EAST.

Auckland Star, Issue 123, 24 May 1919, Page 17

WISE MEN FROM THE EAST.

CAPTURING THE WORLD'S MARKET.

During a week's tour of the industrial towns of the Midlands I have been struck with the constant iteration of one phrase —Japanese competition (says James Dunn in the "Daily Mail").* The ironworkere of the' Black Country, the leather merchants of Walsall, the hardware manufacturers of Birmingham, as well as the small dealers in sundry products, all regard with deep anxiety Japanese encroachments on the markets of the world. The wise men from the East have been learning in the best European schools for more than twenty years, and they are now garnering the harvest of their foresight and enterprise. Years ago the best commercial schools of Manchester were packed with Japanese studying the intricacies of cotton spinning. In Germany and Austria right up to the war Japanese were learning how to make those wonderful toys which, have been the joy of children and the problem of our own manufacturers. Where to-day can they make the porcelain face of a doll such as they turned out in Vienna for half a crown? And where in the wide world do they make those ingenious mechanical toys of tin that came from Nuremberg? The 'answer to these questions is— Japan. From iron plates to toy motorcars, from cotton goods to fancy leather articles, Japan is capturing the markets of the world. Labour i≤ cheap in the " England of the East." No strikes or rumours of strikes interrupt the even tenor of the business way. The Japanese ironworker is content with ninepence a day, hence the ridiculously cheap prices charged for Japanese iron in Canada, where once the Black Country held undisputed sway. During the last six months not more than a score of tons of Black Countryiron have been exported to Canada. From South Africa comes a similar story. Japanese prices are so low that j only by transplanting industries from this country can our manufacturers hope Ito compete with the abnormal exports : from the East. At one time the average ; British housewife stocked her home with che.ip articles from Germany; to-day almost every domestic article is made in Japan, even to bootlaces. Those silent, studious, observant young Japanese who thronged our commercial colleges a quarter of a century p-zo are the builders of the new Japan. They were, the pioneers of Japanese prosperity, the commercial supplanters of the old-time Samurai. Cheerfully we taught them, eagerly thoy learned,' and noiv when our trade is weighed down by taxation and baulked by strikes the quiet little man from Xippon is playing the master where once be was the scholar.