MUCH CONCERN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 194, 18 August 1933, Page 7

MUCH CONCERN.

JAP. COMPETITION.

TARIFF WAR HINT.

Serious Effect on Standards

Of Living.

PACIFIC INSTITUTE DEBATE.

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11 a.m.) BANFF (Alberta), August 17. Desperate measures will be forced upon Japan as a means of finding a way out of the dilemma if high tariffs are imposed against Japanese goods- because of cheap labour, Dr. Komskichi Takahassi, director of the Takahassi Economic Research Institute, Tokyo, declared at the round table conference of the Institute of. Pacific Relations to-day.

Dr. Takahassi was dealing with complaints by British members that the low wages paid to textile workers in Japan were illegitimate competition with Lancashire spinners. He said he did not take seriously the complaint that Japan had been dumping products on foreign markets by virtue of the abnormal drop of the yen exchange, describing this factor in the situation as merely temporary.

It was declared-during the argument respecting cheap labour, that unless situation was clarified the nations of tho .world would raise their tariffs against Japan even higher than at present. Unless they did so, it was contended that they would have to lower wages and standards of living so as to compete with Japan.

"Tho deciding factor in the Japanese wage conditions is the key industry, agriculture," said Dr. Takahassi. "When there is a demand for labour in industry, there is a flood of men and women from farms. This tends to influence manufacturers in keeping down wages.

"If Western nations raise their tariff barriers on the grounds that Japanese products arc cheap, because of the cheap labour, the situation will be aggravated nnd the labour cost in Japan must become even cheaper.

"Tho only solution of the problem is a settlement on the basis of fair play. If capitalists in Japan harbour the mistaken notion of competing with foreign countries through cheap labour, we. must first get at the capitalists. At the same time there is need for Britain and the United States interests to study th£ question more thoroughly and not to act on surface indications only."

The discussion indicated that Britain and the United States are countries keenly concerned by the Japanese industrial production and the living standards of the Japanese worker.