POLICY IN JAPAN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 75, Issue 6441, 3 November 1947, Page 5

POLICY IN JAPAN

CRITICISM OF SUPREME COMMAND TOURING AMERICAN TRADERS Criticism of the economic policy of the Supreme Command in Japan was expressed by Mr C. G. Moore, of Wellington, who was nominated by returned servicemen’s wholesale firms as a member of the Governmentsponsored party of New Zealand businessmen to explore trade prospects with Japan. Mr Moore said trade delegations from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and others of the United Nations had been invited to visit Japan only as a political gesture, as the United States was determined to dominate Japan as she dominated the Philippines to the exclusion of all other countries. Japan had to buy her raw materials for textiles from overseas, and the prices paid by the Japanese Board of Trade were all fixed by the Supreme Command to favour American traders.

“Japan has to pay very high prices for inferior"raw cotton from America, and it is obvious that the United States is using her as a bolster to protect her own markets and make sure that Japan will never again compete in world trade,” said Mr Moore.

The United States had tried to make all countries trade in dollars, and in trade agreements approved by the Supreme Command for sterling countries. There was a clause that any sterling balance in Japan’s favour after six months’ trading should be converted into dollars, said Mr Moore. He thought this clause would soon be dropped as seven of the main raw materials urgently needed to assist in Japan’s economic recovery, wool, tin, rubber, coarse-count cottons, salt, trochus shell, and copra, came mainly from Empire countries and India.

War damage to Japan’s textile industry has left her with only 26 per cent of her spindles and 24 per cent of her looms, and she was only allowed to replace up to 50 per cent of her pre-war manufacturing capacity. It would be at least 20 to 25 years before she could become a serious competitor in cotton goods, but where Japan was using her own raw materials, such as in porcelain, china, silk, and some rayon industries, prices were reasonable and competitive, but for the Supreme Command’s interpretation of exchange rates, which were not fixed and varied with the whim of the Supreme Command.