Hard Fight Faces United Nations In War Against Japan

Taranaki Daily News, 25 August 1942, Page 4

Hard Fight Faces United Nations In War Against Japan

Warning against underestimating enemy strength. Auckland, Aug. 24. A serious warning against underestimating either the industrial or the military strength of Japan was given on his arrival in New Zealand by Mr. Ramji Ram Saksena, Indian Government Trade Commissioner. Mr. Saksena was in Japan for four years before the outbreak . of war and witnessed the progressive and drastic conversion of the country's internal economy in preparation for the waging of war on the largest scale. In 1940 the Government was energetically closing down industrial plants engaged in production for civil use and converting them to materials for war. To European eyes the result on' the population of Japan would appear to ne great distress, but it had to be remembered that Japan was a peculiar country. The feudal system that other countries had shed centuries ago still Eurvived. The common man had no right to a say in the conduct of affairs, did not expect any and did not even grumble. Privations Supported. In a country where the subsistence level was so low that the toiling millions required only a little food and no comforts on which to maintain industrial production, what would appear in other countrties to be great privations could be supported without loss of efficiency for a long time. Japan in , this way was at a great advantage in regard to her more "civilised" opponents. Whereas they had hardly made a beginning on the path of sacrifice for victory, the majority of Japanese had never known ordinary comforts and did not think in terms of luxuries. Any thought that the Japanese war effort might break down because of internal economic coqditions was therefore illusory. In materials of war Japan had had great accessions of strength since she declared herself on the side of Germany, said Mr. Saksena. Three commodities she had sorely needed— tin, rubber and petroleum. In a lightning and by no means expensive war she got the tin mines and the rubber plantations of Malaya almost intact. Although the oil wells of the Netherlands Indies had been destroyed as thoroughly as possible. it took only three months to get such oilfields back into production, The United Nations had an extremely hard fight ahead of them and could win only by putting everything into the fight.