TRADE PENETRATION

Evening Star, Issue 21582, 30 November 1933, Page 11

TRADE PENETRATION

JAPAN'S INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY A FLOOD OF CHEAP GOODS Pres* Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, November 29. (Received November 30, at 1 p.m.) Striking figures regarding Japanese trade with Britain and the Empire were given during a discussion in the House of Commons on a private member’s motion, in which Captain Fuller urged the Government to take steps to minimise Japanese competition, in connection with which, he said, nothing adequate had yet been done. He declared that Japan’s exports had increased by 96 per cent, in the first six mouths of 1933. Japan had sent 30,000,000 square yards of cotton to Kenya and Uganda compared with Britain’s 5,000,000. Japanese bicycles were selling in parts of the Far East at 21s each, electric bulbs at Is 6d a dozen, lead pencils at Is lOd a gross, and fountain pens at 3d each. Japan in the past twelve years had subsidised her shipping companies to the extent of £18,000,000. Major Proctor said that if Japanese competition was not checked there would be no Lancashire cotton industry left after four years. The whole of the Empire and the Western world were alarmed because the people’s standard of life was threatened by Japanese competition. Sir Arthur Samuel said that Lancashire had lost five-sevenths of its prewar export trade chiefly owing to the collapse of Indian trade and Japanese competition. The chief cause of Japan’s success was lower wages and automatic looms. The Japanese cotton industry was a highly efficient organisation, while that of Lancashire was a loose mass of unorganised entities. The only way to recover international trade was by concentration on a reduction of costs. Japan’s subsidies and currency restrictions were illegitimate, and her competition must be counteracted. ANGLO-DUTCH CO-OPERATION THE HAGUE, November 29. (Received November 30, at 1.30 p.m.) The Federation of British Industries and the Dutch Employers’ Federation intend conferring on December 2 with a view to English and Dutch co-opera-tion against Japanese competition in India and Europe.