THE STRATFORD EVENING POST WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1924. RECONSTRUCTION IN JAPAN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXII, Issue 59, 7 May 1924, Page 4

THE STRATFORD EVENING POST WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1924. RECONSTRUCTION IN JAPAN.

Oil September Ist of last year Japan’s capital city, with a population of over two nn’lloiu of people, was pirtially destroyed by earthquake and following fires. Yokohama, also with a • population of something under 500.000, suffered at the same time, and 43,000 of her people were killed and another 40.000 were injured. Th> earth which dhi"nally rotates, so gently, that we do not know, frmn p'rsonal observation. that it moves at all, had falter-

ed in her course. As if in mockery of the works of man, a natural pressure cf unknown forces ha 1 arisen, and at least 209,009 p i sons were killed and probably as many more i jured in a few moments. This great disaster engaged the sympathy of the world. The nations vied with one another to send relief. So great a tragedy might hav 1 unnerve 1 any country’s inkers. Japan made the best of it. Her cash balances, in foreign countries, wore so good, she was not driven to b rro.v, in haste, at any prices. S'n? tok tine. She placed her order; i> Great ,Britain and America for m terials, with which to commence tlie huge work of restoration, and qiii 11v waited and watched. B,- thj practi-e of great economy, she lias been able to loir way to reconstruction with 11 loan of £55.000.(00. Of this sum, however, £35,009,009 is required to meet 41 per cent. Japanese bonds which mature next year. This big loan of £55,009,000 was divided; £30,000,099 went to America and £25,000,000 t 0 London. The loan was offered nt 6 per cent, at the price of 87-jf, redeemable at latest in 1959. A sinking fund is provided, sufficient to redeem the whole of the loan within 35 years. A financial authority says the loan “aives a flat yield of just under 7 per cent., or, allowing for redemption, just over 7 per cent.” Of the £25,000,000 reserved for Groat Britain, only £13,000,000 was offered do the public. The. fact that , great,. .financial corporations were to, ,bq t fpund to gobble up p( this, loan, without competition,' speaks well for Japan’s credit. What was offered ito. the public was covered .three timps. over. , Such a result would have been quite unattainable if Japan had, qpt tpkep time, or had been forced,, by a ; weak financial position, 'to throw herself inlmod'iately after her great disaster upon the world’s money markets.