JAPAN IN BUSINESS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4651, 21 January 1924, Page 2

JAPAN IN BUSINESS.

COMMERCIAL MORALITY. TRADERS ALTERING METHODS. At the Wellington Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week Mr Michael Shattin gave a most interesting address on Japanese life in relation, 'o commerce and the difficulties the nation had to face in endeavouring t-c conform to modern business methods. .M. Shattin explained that he was speaking with five years’ business knowledge of Japan, and had left there after the big earthquake. It would be remembered that after the expulsion of Christianity from than country in the seventeenth century it was not only closed to outside religions, but to all trade and commerce and interchange of people for over two hundred years, and it wai* not until 1853 that Japan was thrown o,pen to the outside world again. The people were ignorant of trading methods, and, as a matter of fact, merchants were classed amongst the second lowest human strata in the country. With the influx of a class of trader from outside which possessed little honesty and less commercial morality, preying on the susceptibilities of the Japanese merchant, it was no wonder that their standard of trading was a low one and had given good reason for the reflections made by other countries on the methods in vogue- One great obstacle to the maintenance of a hign standard of rectitude in the fulfilment of trading obligations was the fad that goods required were manufactured by families, and it might take the output of a dozen families, residing at distances'far apart, to fulfil a single order. This condition of things was not conducive to satisfactory supplies. He detailed instances of dishonestly inflicted upQii the Jauanese by outside traders, especially in relation to gold and silver exchange, when the ratio was fixed at 1 to 5, instead of 1 to 15, quantities of gold being thus acquired at one-third the real value. Considerable alterations were being made in the trading operations, however, and everything was being done to impress upon the Japanese not only the advantage but the necessity of reforming the old methods of trade.

Sir Alexander Matheson, representative of the ‘‘Morning Post,” said he was personally interested in New Zealand’s prosperity. So far as he could see the only commodity we could send to Japan in any quantity was wool, and Australia “filled the bill” because they could .send their wool to Japan by a direct ilne of steamers, , hrn the Dominion was hardly likely to be in.