TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, 7th APRIL, 1943 JAPANESE POWER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5602, 7 April 1943, Page 2

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, 7th APRIL, 1943 JAPANESE POWER

* CHINESE leaders and publicists have been for some time inclined to stress every argument that represents the danger of the holding strategy in the pacific, and the danger, in particular, of allowing Japan time to fortify herself with the material resources of her donquests. This was also one of the points made by Mr Curtin a few weeks ago, when he spoke of Japan’s settling down to exploit her new empire and making herself impregnable within itThe Chungking commentator reported from New York last week therefore took a somewhat surprisng line when he declared that Japan’s shipping losses prevent her from using the raw material treasure she had won and that Japanese industrial and labour organisation increases the handicap; but part of the truth, certainly, lies along this line. The mistake is to over-run it. The magnitude of Japan’s conquests and their economic wealth, supplying most of Japan’s greatest deficencies, was perhaps overemphasised at first. The fact that Japan’s gains not merely filled the great gaps in her war economy but left great gaps in that of the United Nations fully explains the tendency. But what Japan holds can help Japan only as she has the means to use it. One major difficulty at once appears in the fact that, whether from the islands or from the Asiatic mainland. Japan must ship her plunder home. If Japan’s merchant tonnage is about 6,000,000 tons, coastal trade and military transport will use a full half of it, leaving 3,000,000 tons to serve the demands of the Co-prosperity Sphere. And, as a corespondent of the “Economist” suggested in December, this is not enough to serve them fast and well. Moreover, it appears that the Japanese Government holds resolutely to its policy of self-sufficiency in food supply, and this is no doubt prudent; but it means, first, that Japan has set a limit to her own industrialisation; second, that she cannot make rapid headway in equipping and industrialising her new territories; third, that Japan is troubled to find exchange goods to pay for raw materials; and, fourth, that the economic balance of areas normally exporting large food surpluses, such as Siam and IndoChina, is badly upset. Other facts contribute something to this estimate of Japan’s difficulty. Japan’s progress has been aided by continuous import of machinery and of the technicians to install and run it; this import has come to a dead stop. Resources of some kind ”?ere ruthlessy destroyed as the Japanc - advanced; others were not. Fortunately, destruction of the oil wells and refineries was most systematic and thorough—a fact as well attested by the strenuous efforts of the Japanese to expand synthetic production as by their admissions that well output has been only fractionally restored. Japan’s conquests, again, did not fill her need for copper and zinc. Finally, the Japanese are poor hands at organising alien labour, as the history of their colonies shows. But it shows, also, as in the pre-war Manchukuo production figures, that they are not too poor to improve. All this, however, is reassuring only within severe limits. It suggests that Japan’s power is not yet greatly recruited by territorial exploitation, that the rate of progress is still slow, and that the difficulties are still formidable. It does not mean that Japan’s military strength is dwinding for want of this support, or that it is not actually growing; it does not mean that Japan’s defensive ring is weakening or that it is not actually being made harder to break. Least of all does it mean that Japan has no chance of overcoming her difficulties and gathering Vast new energies from her conquests. It does seem to mean, however, that Japan’s present disadvantages must be capitalised by every possible aggressive development within the holding strategy; and it; means, further, that every day, every machine, every ship that can hasten its transition to the full offensive, within the sanction of global strategy, is an insurance against long and appallingly costly war. In this connection Mr Nash’s statements are reassuring.