SHABBINESS A BADGE OF HONOUR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 54, 6 March 1939, Page 12

SHABBINESS A BADGE OF HONOUR

Economies in Japan

(gHABBINESS will become a badge ol honour among Japanese official! if a "no new suit’’ movement, whicl has just started in tTie Ministry ol Finance, spreads and includes all Gov ernment employees within its scope. The sponsor of this movement is the Vice-Minister of Finance, Mr. Sotarc Ishiwatari. In the course of a confer ence about means of reducing Japan’s payments abroad he suggested: “Let us begin at home. Let us resolve tc buy no new suits for the time being.” No one opposed the proposal, and Mr. Ishiwatari calculated that if the 26,001 employees of the Finance Ministry all adhered to this self-denying ordinance, a sum of 390,000 yen (over £20,000) would be made available for such patriotic purposes as donations to the army subscriptions to the huge issues of bonds which are financing the war. As a practical means of carrying out his suggestion, Mr. Ishiwatari intends to turn the suit which he was wearing when he made his proposal inside out. There will be many forced as well as voluntary economies for the Japanese public during the coming months. Permits for the importation of “non-essen-tial’’ goods are being systematically withheld. Foreign films have been among the first sufferers from this policy; the importation of new films has been forbidden for an indefinite period. It is also anticipated that foreign beverages and foodstuffs will be lacking for convivial evenings as soon as supplies in stock run out, since these fall within the category of non-essentials The quality of clothing also seems likely to deteriorate. It is the present to limit as far possible pur-

chases of wool ami cotton and to encourage the use of wood pulp in the manufacture of staple fibre. This will then be mixed with cotton and woollen goods. The Cabinet has just decided to reduce travel expenses of officials abroad to a mini mum and to cancel all trips which are not absolutely necessary. So study abroad and travel on leave abroad and travel on leave abroad by officials will be discouraged and probably stopped altogether for the duration of the crisis. Even before the hostilities in China broke out, Japan was tending in the direction of a controlled economy similar to those of Germany and Italy. The actual outbreak of fighting has greatly accelerated this progress, although the yen is not yet so jealously guarded as the mark or the lira. Travellers are still permitted to take out out of the country sums up to five thousand yen (a little less than £300). One of the quaintest examples of popular economy at the present time is contained in a letter from a frequenter of the Tokyo yoshiwara, or licensed quarter, to his sweetheart, which fell info the hands of the police and was published in one of the local newspapers. It read as follows: I haven’t gone to see you lately not because I am tired of you, but because of the China incident. When I see soldiers going to the front 1 feel that 1 >h» uld be lacking in patriotism if I continued to frequent such a place of pleasure. I am saving up the money’ I would have spent at the yoshiwara in order tc contribute to the national defence funds.