JAPANESE PROBLEMS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 614, 19 August 1933, Page 5

JAPANESE PROBLEMS

(Press Assn.-

a desperate case TARIFF BARRIERS WILL CAUSE LOWER STANDARD FAIR PLAY WANTED

— By Telegraph — C-jpyright).

Banff (Alberta), Aug. 17. Dealing with complaints by British members that the low wages paid to textile workers in Japan aiiiounted to illigitimate competition with Lancashire spinners. Dr. KomSehichi Takahassi, director of the Takahassi Economic Research Institute, Tokio, deelared at a round tahle conference at the Institute of Pacific Relations to-day that desperate measures would be forced upon Japan as a means of finding a way out of her dilemma if high tarlffs were imposed laglainst Japanese goods because of cheap iabour. He said he did not take seriously the complaint that Japan had been dumping her products on foreign markets by virtue of the abnormal drop of the yen exchange, describing this factor of the situation as merely temporary. Dr. Takahassi deelared during an argument respecting cheap labour that unless the situation were clarified the nations of -the world would raise their tariffs against Japan even higher than at present. Unless they did so, he contended they would have to lower wages and standards of living so as to compete with Japan. Aggravating Position He continued: "If the Western nations raise tariff barriers on the grounds that Japanese products ar'e cheap because of cheap labour the situation will he aggravated and labour cost in Japan must hecome even cheap er. "The only solution of the problem is a settlement on the basis of fair "If the capitalists of Japan harhour the mistaken notion of competing with foreign countries through cheap labour we must first geb at the capitalists. "At the same time there is need for British. and United States interests to study the question more thoroughly and not act on surface indications only." The discussion indioated that Britain and the United States are countries keenly concerned in Japanese industrial production and the living standard of Japanese workers.