RAMSHACKLE NATION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 107, 1 November 1941, Page 10

RAMSHACKLE NATION

JAPAN'S WEAKNESS

HER HOLLOW PRETENSIONS

(Eec. 2 p.m.>

RUGBY, Oct. 31,

How hollow are Japan's pretensions to be erecting a so-called "greater East Asia prosperity sphere" is shown by facts available in official quarters in. London regarding the lamentable internal conditions in Japan due to the aggressive Japanese policy. Japan is already suffering from a food shortage, and this threatens to become more severe.- Supplies of rice were bad last year, and will be worse this year owing to a bad harvest. Last year the deficit was offset to some extent by imports from Burma, but this source is now cut off. The Government has adopted frantic measures to induce farmers to increase production, but the subsidies provided have been money lost. The scarcity of food is aggravated by poor crops of wheat and barley and the granaries of the Dominions and of the United States are now closed to the Japanese consumer. The hitherto prosperous food-canning industry cannot continue,' and this food must be wasted, as there are not sufficient .quantities of tinplate and rubber for packing it.

LABOUR CONDITIONS WORSE,

A distinct worsening of labour conditions is inevitable. Owing to the shortage of labour in the war industries, and the shortage of man-power due to the deaths in China, the Government is being urged to cancel all reforms relative to hours of work and employment of women. i . Japan's great cotton and rayon industry is doomed due to lack of raw ■material imports, and a shortage ol -building materials, and consequent jerry building, is causing the jjuthonties great alarm, especially as the danger of war with Britain and the United States looms up. The buildings^ of Tokio offer no protection against air raids. Japan is also pushing forward her new industrial imperialism m Manchuria and Indo-Chma, but this Asiatic "new order" resembles the slave State of Germany's 'new Eur-ope."-8.0.W.