JAPAN’S ECONOMICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 December 1938, Page 5

JAPAN’S ECONOMICS

DEMAND TOR SUBSTITUTES. HOME-GROWN DRUGS. The Japanese demand for substitutions, in the interest of war economy, has reached the medical field. Peasant women are being encouraged to scour the valleys and hillsides for herbs and roots which are supposed to possess medicinal properties, says- the Tokio correspondent of the "Observer.” These will supply the raw materials for drugs to replace foreign imports. In cases when alcoholic stimulants are prescribed for patients, red wine must give place to Japanese sake, while Japanese whisky will be a substitute for cognac. It is interesting to notice that, while the ultimate purpose of the present war is to enlarge Japan’s industrial and political power (the War Minister, General Seishiro Itagaki recently predicted that China as a market could keep the Japanese heavy industries, now expanding under the stimulus of munitions orders, busy after the end of hostilities) the immediate effect is to throw the country back to more primitive ways of life. The geta, or Japanese clog, is replacing the modern shoe, which requires imported leather for its manufacture. Simple Japanese foodstuffs are pushing out the imported Western food to which a part of the city population had become accustomed. The bicycle is also becoming increasingly popular, because of the constantly more severe restrictions on the use of petrol. According to a recent story in the Japanese Press, a high diplomatic official, Mr Naotake Sato, who occupied the post of Foreign Minister in 1937, and has recently been appointed advisor to the present Foreign Minister, General Zazuthige Uaki, has decided to cycle to and from the. Foreign Office, because he cannot obtain sufficient petrol for his motor-car. Mr Sato was warned that cycling is a dangerous practice in Tokio. where there is a good deal of vehicular congestion, and where neither taxicab drivers, nor cyclists, nor pedestrians observe the traffic rules very closely. However, the former Foreign Minister out in a period of practice during ' his slay in the popular summer resort | of Karuitwa, and professes confidence ■in his ability to steer a safe course through Tokio’s crowded streets.