JAPANESE TRADE DRIVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22964, 20 August 1936, Page 11

JAPANESE TRADE DRIVE

A DANGER POINTED OUT DISCUSSIONS AT YOSEMITE MONTREAL, August 18. (Received August 19, at 5.5 p.m.) The relatively academic tone of the Pacific Institute discussions at Yosemite changed to sharp realities to-day as Mr A. V. Alexander, head of the British delegation, voiced a pointed warning that Japan, in her headlong trade expansion, might force several other Powers to combine against her. In a long statement Mr Alexander emphasised Japan's right to expand industrially in the interests of higher living standards for the people, but he presented comprehensive figures to indicate that more and more of the wealth created was going for military purposes. There was reason to believe, he said, that "a mystical urge," in the form of an imperialistic motive, was one of the main dynamics of the Japanese trade drive. The Japanese countered with the statement that Britain and America were essential sources of materials needed for industry and a conflict with either of the two Powers was inconceivable, but, because of geographical propinquity, fear of Communism and other reasons, she cannot look in the same light on China and the U.S.S.R.