The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1937 CAN THE POWERS “QUARANTINE” JAPAN?

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20894, 25 November 1937, Page 6

The Timaru Herald THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1937 CAN THE POWERS “QUARANTINE” JAPAN?

Japan’s challenge to the Nine Power Pact signatories to show reasons why the outposts of western influence in the Orient represented in the International Settlement should not be surrendered to the conquerer, ought to awaken the Western world to the menace to the safety of the Pacific reposing in Japan’s aggressive policy. It is realised, of course, that the Nipponese Government feels it can take some risks because of the moral support given Japan by Germany and Italy; indeed, some weeks ago, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri deprecated the common assumption that democracies or the League of Nations have a weapon in trade barriers. “With the newly won support from Germany and Italy,” says the Tokio journal, “Japan need not consider financial sanctions.” Th 6 point the Japanese military apologists seem to overlook is that the principal Western signatories of the Nine Power Pact possess a weapon with which they could, without very much difficulty, institute an economic quarantine that would suffocate Japan. Doubtless the militarists who are prosecuting a ruthless war in China do not bother themselves with the economic phases of Japan’s national economy. Nevertheless it is realised that because of her weak financial position, her scarcity of foreign exchange, and a gold reserve that has diminished by nearly half since hostilities commenced, Japan can buy essential war materials only by exporting abroad. The sabre-rattling militarists may swagger across the Oriental stage, but less arrogant Japanese leaders are not blind to the instability of the foundations upon which Japan has constructed her war machine. The United States for instance, takes 25.1 per cent, of total Japanese exports, and the United States and the British Empire, together buy 49.7 per cent., and four Powers associated with the Nine Power Pact—namely the British Empire, the United States, the Dutch and French Empires—take 61.4 per cent, of the total Japanese exports. In one of Japan’s most vital exports, raw silk, the proportion is still higher, the United buying 85.6 per cent, and all four Powers together taking 99 per cent. The most cursory examinaton of the trade figures showing the relations between Japan and the four principal western signatories to the Niue Power Pact, will indicate how effective the economic quarantine of Japan might prove if merely confined to the refusal to purchase Japanese goods. If this form of economic action were adopted alone by Great Britain, the United States, France and Holland, or even by the British Empire aud the United States together, it would appear adequate to halt the Japanese army in its tracks within a few months by irresistible attrition on the home front. As a matter of fact, there appears little doubt that the signatories of the Nine Power Pact, who are now facing a diplomatic deadlock in Brussels, or even only the British Empire and the United States have the power to halt Japanese aggression in the Orient by concerted economic action that would unquestionably exert telling pressure on Japan, first, on her ability to continue long her present large scale invasion, and second, on her capacity to consolidate the Chinese provinces her armies have overrun.