THE FAR EAST

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 229, 28 September 1931, Page 6

THE FAR EAST

HIT BY DEPRESSION. A GENERAL slump. An account vf ho" the depression has affected the Far East was given tv a Wellington i’vst reporter this week, by 11. Bcianger, a business man stationed in America, vvbo is making a world tour. AL Bcranger has visited Japan, China, Erenca Indu China, Siam, Federated Malay States, Sumatra, and Java, lie arrived by the Maunganui from Sydney, and expects to be in New Zealand for about a month. Business in the East was very bad, he said, and the depression was acutely felt there, more especially in such countries was rice of which there was a suiplus. In the Federated .Malay States the depression was felt acutely by rea son of the fact that the two major industries, rubber and tin. had slumped. Europeans felt the depression more than the natives, as the Europeans had a certain standard of living. The natives had all they wanted —scanty vlothing. and rice to eat, and there was no reason why they shotnd starve. Many European firms had felt the de-

ptessiun badly, and they had dismissed . many uf the staff who had been rej nonie country. As an example, M. Beranger said that the Borneo Company, one of the biggc-t firms in Siam, which carried on business as general merchants, shipping agents, and' importers, and which controlled a teak wood forest, was not replacing any vacancies on the staff. The Borneo Company was one of the most powerful firms in the Far East. In Japan there was trouble in the silk industry, and firms exporting s’.lk were making just a living and no mor . There was practically a very small demand for silk throughout the world. Weavers and spinners in Frame. America. Italy, and Germany *<■ ■“ overstocked, and the artificial silk business having slumped to a great degre the demand for the new silk crop <.f 1931 had been very much curtai'«<!, with the result that there had been a great deal of hardship. He knew <»f one firm in Japan which usually ported 3000 to 4000 bales a year, b (which had not exported one bah; in 11931.