JAPANESE TRADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 202, 28 August 1933, Page 9

JAPANESE TRADE.

COMPLEX PROBLEM. ALARM IN AUSTRALIA. APPEALS TO GOVERNMENT. (From Ou? Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, August 23. For months past extremely alarming reports have reached us jof the severe competition that has been worked up by Japan in India and throughout the East, in markets where Britain once sold large quantities of goods. Lancashire's cotton trade with India wae reduced to comparatively small proportions by the growth of the Indian cotton manufacture, and now both Indian and British products are being superseded by Japanese goods. It is quite possible that, in competing with India, if the market is left open, the superior efficiency and industrial energy and skill of the Japanese would soon make a foothold for them. But as against British products, what gives the Japanese their great advantage is the low rate of wages received by the Japanese and the long hours worked by them. These things constitute a handicap that no tariff could balance effectually unices it were prohibitive, and the situation thus created has been causing the gravest anxiety for some time past to politicians as well as producers in India and at Home. And now that "the Japanese invasion" has extended to Australia, we have good reason for considering the situation and devising some form of fiscal or commercial or political expedient to meet it. About the increase of Japanese imports into Australia there is no room for doubt. Last year Japanese imports into Australia increased by about £1,200,000—0r, as the "Sydney Morning Herald" prefers to put it, by about 50 per cent; and this gain was made very largely at Britain's expense. We may not be suffering in this respect so badly as England—"Lancashire is paralysed," says one cable; "Lancashire is devastated," says another, by Japanese competition. In Australia, the industries chiefly affected, and though not yet so gravely menaced, are boots, shoes, caps, gloves and buttons, silk, cotton and linen piece goods, yarns ar.d textiles, cutlery, metal and earthenware manufactures, glass, jewellery and fancy goods. And the secret of Japan's success in every case is the abnormally low price at which the goods are offered, coupled with, the depreciation of Japanese currency in terms of sterling. Examples of Cheapness. A few examples may be quoted from a recent article in "Smith's Weekly," which argues that the new Japanese invasion is a real menace to Australia, that Germany's "peaceful penetration" was nothing to it, and that the Federal Government must act promptly if some of our most important industries are not to be wiped out. A cigarette lighter landed in Australia from Europe at 77/ per dozen is offered by the Japanese—same design and bearing original trademark — at 13/6 per dozen. A full-sized man's bicycle can be landed from Kobe and sold here at 45/, when either the British or Australian machine costs £7 or £8. As child's tricycle can be landed here from Japan at 12/6, and sold retail at 21/, as against the British or Australian at 52/ C. In cups and saucers, a certain line of Australian make has been sold wholesale at 9Jd, as against 1/ for British make. A Japanese.imitation, almost exactly similar, is landed here at 2|d and sold retail in Sydney at 3id, or 6d less than the wholesale price of the Australian article. The list might be extended almost indefinitely. We are not yet so badly off as Britain, where Japanese electric lamps are selling for C/ 8 per 100," or less tnan Id each, while English lamps of the same type cost 1/11 each retail; Japanese eocks are being sold at 1/11 per dozen pair, and cotton underwear (wholesale) at the rate of 24 pieces for 8/. But the increasing volume of cheap Japanese goods competing not only against cur British imports but against Australian manufactures has aroused serious alarm, and has induced several of the leading champions of our secondary industries to use very strong language in describing the situation and in appealing to the Federal Government to take steps to deal with it. The Federal Government is in a difficult and delicate position. It doee not want to offend the importers, who naturally maintain that "to buy in the cheapest market" is a sound economic maxim; and, knowing that in recent years the balance of trade has been heavily in Australia's favour, does it want either to provoke Japan into raising tariff barriers against Australian produce or to embarrass itself or the British Government by involving the Empire in political complications with Japan. Naturally the Federal Minister for Customs wants positive proof that Japanese competition in certain lines amounts to "dumping," or that it is essentially illegitimate and unfair. Unfortunately the "Japanese themselves have not improved the situation by the tone and the attitude that they are adopting. The other day the Japanese ConsulGeneral at Simla, India, issued a statement which is described by a leading Anglo-Indian newspaper as "exceeding the bounds of conventional diplomatic propriety," by threatening energetic retaliation if the Indian authorities did anything in defence of their own markets. At the Pacific Relations Conference last week Dr. Takahashi, a leading Japanese economist, issued a solemn warning to the effect that J.apan would be driven to "desperate measures" if higher tariffs were raised against her goods. In just the same tone a leading executive of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Sydney stated this week that "great dissatisfaction" is felt in Japan at the treatment that her exports receive in Australia, and that the Japanese Government is considering seriously what steps should be taken to conserve the rights and interests of its nationals. "Dumping" Denied. Incidentally, several of the leading Japanese merchants and officials in Sydney and Melbourne have spoken derisively of the "dumping" charge, for they maintain that it is only superior industrial organisation and efficiency that enables their people to undersell British and Australian producers. Considering that even skilled male labour in Japan is satisfied with from 2/ to 4/ or 5/ a day, it is difficult to see why the relative cheapness of Japanese goods requires any other explanation. Obviously it is impossible for Australian wage-earners to compete with Oriental industry on such a basis, and the penalty of admitting into our markets Japanese goods produced under such conditions must inevitably be the lowering of our wages rates, the decline of our standard of living, and ultimately the industrial and social degradation of the main body of our people, ;