JAPAN'S TRADE POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22051, 6 September 1933, Page 7

JAPAN'S TRADE POLICY

FOR AGREEMENTS PRESSURE ON DOMINIONS. LONDON, August 21. That Japan is anxious to negotiate commercial agreements with the dominions, and that recent Tokio utterances implying a- threat against Empire trade are probably designed to exert pressure on the dominions, is the view held in .well-informed circles here. The Sun understands that Japan particularly desires a trade treaty with Australia, and the Japanese industrialists' talk of using non-Australian wool seems to be a lever to induce Australian woolgrowers to support any move for a trade agreement. The threat to use South American wool is not taken seriously because, it is said, South American cannot replace Australian any more than Japan can grow wool successfully in Manchuria. It is stated that the Simla textile conference between England, India, and Japan will negotiate an Indo-Japanese agreement. The discussions will be limited to the Indian market and those British colonies in which India is concerned. The wider question of Japanese competition in the dominions and elsewhere is reserved for a London conference. Meanwhile, the competition of the Far East with the Western world is illustrated in a statement prepared by Mr Otto Bankwitz, a Polish cotton mill director, which the Prague Cotton Congress urges should be studied by the whole world. The survey declares that tho Japanese and Chinese cotton industry can work on even a lower basis than the 1029 level, and that European industry is powerless in the face of the double-shift working of cheap labour.