BOYCOTT AS WEAPON

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 June 1938, Page 10

BOYCOTT AS WEAPON

CHINESE IN MALAYA. SINGAPORE, May 14. The boycott of Japanese goods has been organised in Malaya with extiaordinary efficiency. In February, 1937, imports from Japan into Malaya were valued at 3,525,000 dollars (£.A 503,000); in February of this year their value was 777.000 dollars (<£ Alli,000). When the war broke out in China, anti-Japanese feeling, fanned by the first-class propaganda machine of the Chinese Central Government, swept through the Philippines, the Netherlands Indies, and into every corner of the Malay Peninsula. In the Straits Settlements alone, where there are nearly 750,000 Chinese, many of whom were born here and have never even seen China, an almost complete boycott of Japanese goods has been organised. At first many Chinese ignored the boycott, for trading with the Japanese or working for them was their living. To-day they are without ears or they limp from broken bones; some were killed. After the outbreak of hostilities, the importation of Japanese textiles and other goods slumped, and Japanese cement ceased to be used in construction work. Chinese contractors and workmen refused to handle it, and now European and Indo-China brands are used.

A spectacular Chinese achievement has been the boycott, of the Malayan iron ore mines in the States of Johore and Trengganu, on the east coast, which are operated by Japanese companies. Malayan production of ore, most of which is high-grade haematite averaging about 64 per cent, of metallic iron, has increased at a great rate in recent years. In 1932, it was 688,000. tons, and in 1935 had jumped to 1,400,000 tons, production from Trengganu alone being approximately 800,000 tons. lu 1936, when production rose to 1.600,000 tons, 6,000,000 tons of ore had been exported since the opening of the Ishihara Sangyo Koshi, Ltd., mines at Batu Pahat, Johore, and the company had paid royalties of 3,500,000 dollars to the Johore Government—virtually to His Highness Sultan .Ibrahim of Johore. In 1936, from the Bukit Besi mines of the Nippon Mining Company, inland from pungun, Trengganu, came more than 1,000,000 tons of orc. It has been estimated by experts that at Bukit Besi there are at present 50,000,000 tons of ore available on the surface alone, and many millions of . tons below surface, which have as yet not even been touched.

Soon after the war began, the Japanese mining companies met trouble. In October, 1937, the Chinese crew of a freighter with 6,000 tons of iron ore aboard walked' off the ship at Singapore. The ship was delayed some days, and a 50 per cent, increase in w’ages had to be offered before a scratch crew could be induced to take the ore to Japan.

SOLID CHINESE SENTIMENT. Two months later, hundreds, of Chinese mine workers walked off the mines at Pohore and Trengganu as a protest against Japanese aggression, the men stating that they would not produce iron ore which was’ being used to make munitions to kill Chinese. The strikers were welcomed at Singapore as heroes and patriots, and work was found for them by the Chinese community.

Eight hundred coolies at Johore followed this example in a week’s tiriie, at the end, of the month when the Japanese armies started their in- ’ vasibn of Shantung, home. State of many of the iron working coolies,

3.000 coolies threatened to leave the Trengganu mines at Bukit Besi. Until this period the majority of the coolies in Trengganu claimed they had not heard that the Japanese had invaded China. The first news was believed to have been brought to TrenggAnu by one of the workers who smuggled photographs of the lighting in China into the mines concealed in a hole in the heel of his shoe. Chinese workers claimed that they were always searched and their letters were read and sometimes confiscated by the Japanese managers on the mines. In January this year official figures showed a big drop in iron ore exports to Japan. The December, 1937, exports totalled 12,424 tons, compared with a monthly average for the preceding 11 months of 128,858 tonsOn January 8 a bomb exploded in one of the Johore mines, but no serious damage w’as done. The next month 60 coolies who left Trengganu announced that the whole labour force at Bukit Besi had ceased work, and it was reported that coastal steamers were unable to cope with the abnormal exodus of mine workers. Although the Nippon Company again denied the exodus of workers, it was confirmed that the entire labour ,force of 3,000 men had left Trengganu and that 1,000 Indians had already been engaged', but ore production still fell heavily.

In April efforts were made by the Japanese to work the Trengganu mines with labour recruited among .unemployed Japanese fishermen in Singapore. The reason for this move was that most of the Indian coolies .who took over from the Chinese walked off the mines after advice from Indian political leaders. At the beginning of last year there were nearly 3,700 Japanese in the Straits Settlements, the majority being in Singapore—traders, local merchants, shopkeepers, and fishermen. The war has brought many of them to poverty, while some had to return to Japan.

-Chinese secret societies watch every Japanese shop. If a Chinese is seen entering a Japanese shop he is followed' and atended to; he is usually beaten, but the favourite method is to seize him in some quiet lane and slice off his left ear. Confiscated Japanese goods are sold' and the money sent to China for war purposes.

Outside Penang a Chinese was found to have sold six pigs to a Japanese. After the traditional ear-slic-ing the pigs were taken from the Japanese. They were then killed and the flesh sold at auction, the proceeds being sent as a loyal contribution from the Chinese village to the Central Government.