BOYCOTTING JAPAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 19 October 1937, Page 4

BOYCOTTING JAPAN

IT will have been noted that the President of the International Federation of Trade Unions (Sir Walter Citrine) has stated that the trade union organisations in fourteen countries, including New Zealand, have agreed to boycott Japanese goods. Trade unionists are not the entire nation in any country, but the trade unionists of so many countries, can certainly exercise a decided influence on Japan’s export trade by pursuing the proposed policy. Economic warfare is not so cruel as military and naval warfare, but it can exercise a profound influence upon the nation against which it is directed. True, it was not completely successful when, not long ago, it was applied against a great , European nation which had offended international opinion; but that case was hardly a criterion, since many nations failed to apply the boycott effectually. Today the trade unions of fourteen countries (including the United States) appear determined to use their right to exercise their discrimination in matters of trade. In the bulk the trade unions of the countries concerned exercise an enormous influence. Combined, they can, by their boycott, ruin perhaps a fifth of Japan’s foreign market. Furthermore, they may be supported by the general public in their desire to bring Japan to a proper sense of her international obligations. In any case, the weak place in Japan’s armour is her economic necessity. Her army and navy are powerful, but the nation is not rich, and could not long maintain the army and navy in their active operations, if the nation’s trade were crippled by such action as the International Federation of Trade Unions proposes to apply to the situation in the Far East, with a view to bringing the aggressive nation to a sense of its duty to Civilisation.