HUGE ACCUMULATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 10 September 1941, Page 5

HUGE ACCUMULATION

1 ECONOMIC POSITION SURVEYED Rugby, Sept. 8. ! A warning against under-estimating I Japan’s economic position and misun- | derstanding the increasing shortage of commodities offered for consumption is I given in the current issue of the “Ecoj nomist.” Supplies, it is stated, arc j large enough to cover Japanese wartime 1 requirements for periods ranging in various goods from six to 15 months. It is estimated that they will permit : Japan, while continuing the war in ! China, to face the Anglo-American trade embargo for about a year or al- i i low her to fight a southward blitzkrieg , I for some six months. ! Germany’s attack on Russia was not j foreseen in Tokio and the new situa- | tion thereby created led the Japanese ; fighting services to demand an urgent ! further increase in war stocks so as to | enable them to face, besides the conI tinuation of the China war and the ! Anglo-American embargo or a southern i blitzkrieg, aggressive action against | Russia in case it should collapse before l the German onslaught, j After Japan's adherence to the tri- j j partite pact, the complete apparatus iof the German-financed economic and ' 1 technical advicers was imported and j : superimposed by the Tokio War Office , upon the whole of Japan’s finance and economy. This apparatus of the GerI man advisers is chiefly responsible for i a huge accumulation of war stocks. ; These Germans are also responsible for ; the increasing difficulties of the cur- ; rent industrial production and for a , decrease in the supply of commodities for civilian consumption in Japan. The accumulation in Japan of large j additional stocks of war supplies was accomplished, first, through the sys- : tematic economising of war and other j materials originally earmarked for use I ;in China, secondly, by the continued 1 | tightening up during the past 12 j months of Japan’s foreign trade and j foreign exchange controls and reducing exports to the minimum required by the foreign exchange needs; and, thirdi ly, by a further curtailment of civil--1 iar consumption all along the line. The writer adds, however,: “Infiuen- ; tial Japanese military and naval leadI ers recently have become critical and i are plainly paying attention to the j suggestion of private big business that i production should be encouraged by j the old standard methods of increasing | prices and allowing higher private proi f 'its on war and related materials.”— ; 8.0. W.