CHEAP LABOUR

Wairarapa Daily Times, 19 August 1933, Page 2

CHEAP LABOUR

JAPANESE INDUSTRIES. BANFF, Friday. Desperate measures will be forced upon Japan as a means of finding a way out of the dilemma if high tariffs are imposed against Japanese goods because of cheap labour, Dr. Komsliichi Takahassi, director of the Takaliassi Economic Research Institute of Tokio, declared at a round-table conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations on Thursday.

Mr Takahassi was dealing with complaints by British members that the low wages paid textile workers in Japan were illegitimate competition with Lancashire spinners. He did not take seriously the complaint that Japan had been dumping her products in foreign markets by virtue*of an abnormal drop in the yen exchange, describing this factor in the situation as merely temporary.

“The deciding factor in Japanese wage conditions,” said Mr Takahassi, “is the key industry of agriculture. When there is a demand for labour in industry there is a flood of men and women from the farms. This tends to influence manufacturers in keeping down wages. If the Western nations raise their tariff barriers on the ground that Japanese products are cheap because of cheap labour, the situation will be aggravated, and labour cost in Japan must become even cheaper. The only solution of the problem is a settlement on the basis of fair play. If the capitalists of Japan harbour the mistaken notion of competing with foreign countries through cheap labour, we must first get at the capitalists. At the same time there is need for interests in Britain and the United States to study the question more thoroughly, and not act on surface indications only.” The discussion indicated that Britain and the United States were the countries keenly concerned with Japanese industrial production and the living standards of the Japanese Avorkcr.