WAR BURDEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 65, 18 March 1942, Page 4

WAR BURDEN

EFFECT ON JAPANESE PEOPLE AMERICAN JOURNALIST'S OBSERVATIONS This is the ninth article in Janies R. Young's “inside Japan’’ series. Young was in Japan for 13 years. He was gaoled by the Jap Gestapo last year and charged with spreading “false news and rumours.’’ In this article he tells how devastatingly Japan’s war in China affected the life of the Japanese people. in M;iy. 1940. to i everyday life in Tokio after two months in a Japanese Gestapo gaol. I was able io see with sharper, clearer perspective what the army fanatics had actually done to Japan and the Japanese people. War with China cut. an eighth of an inch from Japanese matches. Wood was a war material, and had to be conserved. Oranges cost over 6 - each. American lemons more—if you could get them. Eggs, potatoes, butter were scarce. Meantime, the armies of the Rising Sun sat in their own shadows in China. Permanent waves had been forbidden to the Westernised women of Japan. They were “not in the spiritual trend of the times." Lipstick and rouge were frowned upon. Odorous hair tonics, which the Japanese love, were curtailed to conserve cash which might be needed. I sold my car to a diplomat, in the Turkish Embassy in Tokio. To me it was useless. Automobile owners were no longer allotted their one gallon of petrol a day. Pleasure riding wa.s discouraged, and seventy million Japanese maintained only ninety thousand private cars, taxis, and trucks. The few resident foreigners suffered with the Japanese. We were forbidden to import any of 26(1 items, including canned foods, preserves, whisky, and sports goods. No one, foreigner or native, was allowed more than two golf balls and two tennis balls a season if they were obtainable. A golf hall cost 12/-. Tobacco shipped into the country was charged duty as high as 450 per cent. You smoked native cigarettes costing fivepence a pack and not. worth it. I quit smoking. Steel gramophone needles and everyone who could possibly raise the cash had a gramophone—were banned. Bamboo needles had to be used. Public dances in hotels were prohibited. The American Negro and Hawaiian bands, formerly immensely popular, were ordered out of the country. In Tokio. a city of 6,250,000 people, the taxi-dance halls were closed. Patrons. before the dance ban, were urged to go home “to meditate on the war.” The 18 Government-operated radio stations offered mostly military music. There were radio lectures throughout the day by army and navy officials, patriotic addresses and talks urging conservation of resources. The stations went off the air at 9.15 p.m. with a closing injunction to listeners to join the “spiritual mobilisation of the people’s mind.” or to assist the “Imperial Rule Assistance Association." Radio speeches attacked the Chines.'. American, and British, who were charged with being “warlike and aggressive." Army men cited the “provocation” by which the Chinese and foreign Powers forced Japan to “defend” herself—by, of course, invading China. One thing was certain. War against, Britain and the United States was coming—fast! The land of the cherry blossom was no longer a tourist mecca. Its tourist trade, which brought million’ of dollars annually, had almost vanished. Travellers feared and resented the constant surveillance of the secret police. They did not like being shadowed by obvious sleuths wffierever they moved. In to-morrow’s article, the final one in the series, Young traverses the rapid deterioration in relations between Japan and the United States, and reveals further instances of the effect of the “undeclared” war with China on the Japanese.