WAR INDUSTRIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 September 1939, Page 9

WAR INDUSTRIES

DISASTERS IN JAPAN.

EFFORT FOR SPEED BLAMED. Japan has lost hundreds of lives in a record series of industrial accidents recently as a result of speeding up production for prosecution of the war-in China, reports an Associated Press dispatch from Tokio to the American Press. The and coal-mining industries, both of which have been running at white heat since the war started, have been the scene of one disaster after another. Investigations have indicated that machinery is wearing out and that the emphasis on speed, instead of safety, is a large factor in problem. Official figures show that there were 379 industrial accidents, mostly fires, in 1938. This exceeded any known total by 66 per cent. Since the beginning of the year 200 similar accidents have occurred. The astounding frequency of these disasters put Japanese detectives on the alert for sabotage. If they discovered any evidence of sabotage it never was announced. A police survey listed three general causes for the increasingly bad industrial record:— z 1. The use of unskilled workmen in the mines and munitions factories. 2. Over-hasty conversion of factories into munitions works, without installing proper safety devices. 3. The dissolute lives being led by workmen, who are receiving unprecedented wages from war. Japan, lacking skilled workers to feed her guns on a scale as large as that demanded by the war in China, rushed thousands of people, both men and women, into the mines or munitions plants when these industries were placed on a 24-hour basis. SMOKERS’ CARELESSNESS. Carelessness with lighted cigarettes was given as the official reason for two of the worst munitions disasters,. An experienced workman, the operators reported, never would be so careless in his conduct around high Japan also lacks the industrial machinery for such a protracted war and one on such a large scale as that in China. Hundreds of factories were made over for the emergency, and they have not been able to stand the wear and tear.’ . The third reason given is particularly interesting. Munition workers today are earning more than Ministers of the Cabinet. Ordinary factory hands have reached the 10,000 yen-a-year class (£560) while high Government officials receive only 6,700 yen £(375) annually. Police investigators said the workmen are squandering most of their new money on wine, women and song, with a consequent loss of efficiency and greater tendency towards carelessness. Calamity has twice visited the munitions industry this year. On March 2 a series of explosions in an army powder factory almost entirely wiped out the industrial town of Hirakata. The property damage ran into millions of yen, and sixty-two persons were killcd. On May 9 three blasts obliterated an ammunition factory near Tokio, a celluloid plant which has been hastily converted to produce cellulose for munitions, and a chemical works that was allied with both. Five other factories and many warehouses and sheds either were blown to bits or burned to the ground. At least twenty-five per-. sons were killed. The story in the coal-mining districts has been even worse. Explosion, fire, collapsing tunnels, and landslides have killed in the neighbourhood of 200 workmen since the beginning of the year.