JAPANESE INDUSTRY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 253, 22 September 1933, Page 7

JAPANESE INDUSTRY.

REPLY TO CRITICISM. LONDON, Sept. 21. Mr Matsudaira, the Japanese Ambassador, in an interview said that though wages in Japan were low by comparison with Europe, it was most inaccurate to speak of Japanese labbour as sweated. Money in Japan had a higher purchasing power and the workers were able to live in the same comfort as western operatives. Regarding the supposed boycott of Indian cotton by Japan and the depreciation of the yen, Mr Matsudaira said it must be remembered that increasing costs of Japanese manufactures were compelling a continual balancing of incomings and outgoings. The fact that there were many unemployed in Japan necessitated access to foreign markets, but Lancashire was in the same predicament, so the situation was complicated pending an agreement being made in London, probably after Christmas. FORTIFICATION DENIED. LONDON, Sept. 20. The Exchange Agency’s Tokio correspondent says that the Japanese Navy Department emphatically denies either the fortification or equipment of the Bonin Islands since the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1922.