JAPAN'S FOOD NEEDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 31, 5 August 1941, Page 7

JAPAN'S FOOD NEEDS

MINISTER'S APPEAL

FLOODED AREAS VISITED

(Rec. 10 a.m.) TOKIO, August 4. The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. H. Ino, after touring the recently flooded zones in the Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures, said that he was surprised at the extensive damage to the crops. He stressed the urgency of an immediate increase in the agricultural output of Japan, and admonished the farmers not to abandon themselves to despair, saying that the soldiers were undergoing greater hardships at the front.

A message from Singapore reports that abnormally large re-exports of sugar from the Dutch East Indies to Thailand, where Japan is a big buyer, have resulted in Malaya introducing a quota system fixed on the average of 1919-40 for re-exports.

A Batavia message says that a Dutch patrol boat arrested the French steamer Dupleix, which was escorted into Batavia harbour on Sunday. This was the first French ship engaged on the Saigon route to be detained since Japan occupied Indo-China.

The last members of the Japanese trade mission to the Netherlands East Indies departed for Tokio on board the Haruma Maru, which also took a large cargo of sugar bought prior to the operation of sanctions, which applied from August 4.

The Domei news agency's corres-

pondent in Hsinking reports thai Manchukuo has rationed rice, flour, dairy products, salt, sugar, matches, cotton goods, and rubber shoes, in order to stabilise .distribution.

The United Press Bureau says that the newspapers have adopted an ultrapessimistic view of the JapaneseAmerican relations.

The "Asahi Shimbun" said: "There is no room for readjustment'because the American attitude is increasingly hostile. Through the self-conceit of the United States the waves of the Pacific are rising higher. We are resolved to meet the worst."