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Hokitika Guardian, 10 November 1920, Page 2

As indicating commercial and trading bondii titans in btlier oonjntries, it is interesting to note that during August, a Japanese paper recorded, apparently with satisfaction, tlie passing of a typhoon over Formosa which had done so much damage as inevitably, to raise the price of sugar. This is what protection, carried to the. Japanese degree, comes to. The Forpiosan crop is not one of the major crops of the . world, and it is Japan’s very own. Yet we have

i i ( coma to the point vyhere tho merchants | f would rather have a small crop than a i large dtie, because even( no they can , , make a laigOr profit by forcing up tho price, there being such a liberal margin before the foreign sugar begins to compete. Of course, in this, as in many ' other trades, there are constant agree- ( mente, even in normal times, to reduce output, in order that the price may lie kept high. If there is anything left over for export, that is sold cheap. An--1 other trade in which -comparable conditions are found is that in paper. Every- | thing possible has been done during the past tivo months to encourage the reexport of pulp as well as the export of paper, so as to produce an artificial | shortage. And an exporter can buy j paper very considerably cheaper than I the biggest Japanese consumer can get . 1 it.. TMe exports are not for profit, ! hut to produce a local shortage, so that j the home consumer can be squeezed u> I I the uttermost. Sugar and paper have 1 j been mentioned as typical examples of . ! goods of which the price is kept up. \ , I Generally speaking, there has been a decline. It is noticeable, however, that ' ‘"the colliery OAvners are seeking to check 1 the production of coal so as to meet I the coming Avinter with a shortage. In I these circumstances the ordinary worker ! does well to try to keep his wages up. i in spite of the fact that rice, cloth and ■ even rents (in some cases) have declined. • | Japan is not the only ©punti-v where it • has been found easier to /raise wages than to- reduce them again, and at ; present there are many industries where :tfTdre is a struggle going on which is al-Ava-ys on the verge of a strike or look- - sput. Tile mills have cut doivn their t output by half, and the loss? has been • put on, the mill-owners, the brokers l insisting on being let off 65 per cent r of their contracts. This applies alike j to ynirn, piece goods, flannelette, and' so on, with slight variations in the ..percentages allowed. And the .milll owners naturally seek to pass the loss , on to the work people. Altogether, 3 the prospects are anything but bright |. just at present, though-., the threatened collapse in exchange has not come j about. Indeed the yen was never so high, but it is a height that is rather hectic, and there is a tremendous loss |if money Is retransmitted. All of which j shows that every country has its own troubles very much akin to one another, ’ and that there is no royal road to the j normal times Avhich the world enjoyed -in pre-Avar days. Every country must ' cut its oivn pathway to more stable e times through the tangled undergroAvth ‘ 'of conditions created by the war, and Avhcre possible, still maintained artificij ally bv the avaricious trader, sales- , man or producer. fc ' .. __