MYSTERY SHIPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1938, Page 12

MYSTERY SHIPS

REPORTS FROM PHILIPPINES. RICH SPHERE OF INFLUENCE. A great deal of speculation and not a little concern surrounds the reports from Manila that a number of mysterious ships, like Japanese destroyers, appeared off Mindanao, which is the second largest and most wealthy of the Philippines Group. The obvious interest of the United States Government in the incident might be better understood in the light of a statement by Mr Willard Price in his recently published book, “Japan Reaches Out.” He states:—“Today at the front door of the Philippines (Manila) the Americans are going out. At the back door (Davao) the Japanese are coming in.” Mindanao is the richest island of the Philippines, Mr Price says, and its port of Davao is four to seven days from Manila. In Davao 15,000 Japanese live and, in fact, dominate the island of Mindanao. They have made fortunes for themselves and created prosperity for the Filipino population by their signal success in the two great industries of the island —hemp and lumber. JAPAN’S INTEREST QUICKENED. Eighty per cent of the imports of Davao Province are from Japan. Promises of independence quickened Japan’s interest in 1934 and, during that year, 279,000 dollars’ worth of goods came from Japan, as compared with 11,900 dollars’ worth from the United States. Ninety-eight Japanese vessels called at the port of Davao, and four American. In the fishing industry Japanese are predominant. Every day the port and the island become more thoroughly Nipponised. According to the Japanese Year Book, more Japanese emigrants now go to the Philippine Islands than to any other country, except Brazil and, of course, the foster-State of Manchukuo, which receives the largest number of migrating Japanese. Mindanao’s climate is superb and, although closer to the equator than Manila, it has no hot season and no rainy season. And every season is a growing season. Mr Price explains that 70 per cent of the roads in Davao Province were built by Japanese industrial interests. Japanese stores are competing with Chinese,,' Filipino and Indian concerns. The former have fixed prices, the latter sliding prices and in a Japanese store the treatment is so fair and the prices so astonishingly low that even the thrifty Chinese is being forced out of business. The few Americans left in Davao see their business fast disappearing. CONSIDERATION FOR FUTURE. After reviewing the history of Japanese development in the Philippinsh, Mr Price says they are not in Mindanao to snatch a few easy earnings and depart. They are there to do a scientific and painstaking job in the development of the resources of Mindanao for the sake of a long future. Now and then a land commission comes feverishly down from Manila to investigate charges that the Japanese are acquiring land in spite of the fact that sale or lease to foreigners is forbidden under Philippine law. He gives an authoritative opinionthat more than half of the 164,000 acres of cultivable land in Davao Province is controlled by Japanese. Moreover, it is doubtful whether they would surrender their holdings at any price as no temporary advantage could compensate for the loss of the future. The supplies of timber, chromite, iron ore, oil, rubber, cotton and foodstuffs available in the Philippines are mentioned by Mr Price and he considers that, if there were no Filipinos to complicate the question, the Philippines would be the natural answer to Japan’s problems. Moreover, no statecraft can nullify geography and, while the Philippines are more than 8000 miles from San Francisco and 5000 even from Hawaii, the nearest important Japanese territory is only 80 miles away. Economically, as well as strategically, the Philippines seem to be made to measure for Japan.