LOW-WAGE COMPETITION

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1933, Page 7

LOW-WAGE COMPETITION

CRITICISM OF JAPANESE SERIOUS EFFECT ON BRITAIN POLICY CHANGES SOUGHT 'RECKLESS NATIONAL PLAN’ By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright London, June 1. Trenchant criticism of subsidised and low-wage Japanese competition in the world’s markets is contained in the report of a committee of the Federation of British Industries submitted to the Board of Trade.

The report accused Japan of using every means in its power-to undersell competitors and of deliberately using the depreciation of the yen to embark upon a reckless national sales policy with disastrous results to British and other traders.

The report expresses the opinion that the differences in wages, labour conditions and standard of living render it impossible for the East and West to compete on equal terms, and cites the example of the rayon industry, in. which Japan’s production in 1926 was 5,500,500 pounds and in 1932 64,000,000 pounds. Japan’s export of rayon had increased ninefold and Britain’s had diminished by two-thirds. Japanese cotton operatives were paid barely a third of the British rates and females barely a fourth. The surplus girl population in the agrarian districts provided almost an illimitable supply of docile and dexterous labour. The British male operative in the silk and rayon industries received more for an hour’s work than a Japanese for a day. The committee declares that the inconsistent British policy of protection and the inter-imperial policy arranged at Ottawa permit the Japanese competition in Empire markets to continue unchecked.