JAPANESE LOOT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1942, Page 4

JAPANESE LOOT

IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES FOOD & RAW MATERIALS. GREAT ADDITION TO ECONOMIC „ RESOURCES. (By Walter Robb, in the “Christian Science Monitor.”) In taking the Philippines, Japan has added tremendously to her imperial economic resources. A catalogue of these resources might begin with the Philippines’ five developed goldfields yielding 50,000,000 dollars’ worth of gold a year, with the footnote that two of these fields are in their infancy, Surigao and Davao. The one best developed, Baguio, still turns up rich new mines quite regularly, with the older mines growing richer as the work of their exploitation proceeds. Next perhaps would come the Philippines hardword forests, an area of some 65,000 square miles, These are the people’s common property; they are perpetual in their value; under Philippine law, mills and loggers are licensed to cut mature and over-mature trees, but not to destroy the forests of younger growth. These forests provide abundant timber for every purpose, notably for shipbuilding and plywood manufacturing. The most’ abundant wood is Philippine mahogany, colloquially named in the Philippines lawan and tanguile. Borneo’s forests are similar, but Borneo’s lawans and tanguiles are softer than those of the Philippines that grow in a somewhat drier climate farther from the equator. (Japan also has'Borneo’s forests now).

HEMP AND' RICE. Next comes the world supply, of hard fibre, Manila hemp (abaca), for prime cordage. The world takes of this fibre some 1,400,000 bales a year, the bale weighing 275 pounds and eight bales comprising a long ton. The Japanese of Davao can perhaps produce a million bales of Manila hemp a year; for the time being at least, what fibre Filipinos might provide will not be provided—for the Japanese. America will f£el this pinch sharply, once her stock-pile of Manila hemp is exhausted.

Rice is the bread of the Orient. The annual Philippine rice crop is good when it weighs 55,000,000 cavans (of 44 kilograms each) of paddy, two, pavans of which produce a sack of milled rice weighing 57 kilograms together with a quantity of bran for stock feed and by-products. Small holders and tenants grow most of this rice. Production will probably slump materially, and remain low, as long as the Filipino peasant resists, Japan mayoffset this by ruthless confiscations and implantations of her own nationals in the Philippines. Rice, in point of value, is the Philippines’ primary crop. The Philippines have unrivalled cane lands for any quantity of sugar Japan may wish to produce. Ratooning (growing second and third props from the cut-off stools of the cane) cannot rival Cuba’s, but on the other hand, Philippine cane matures in about twelve months, compared with eighteen and twenty-four months elsewhere. Of late, the crop has been limited to about 1,200,000 tons a year, but it can be quickly raised to any desirable quantity. METAL SUPPLIES. An imperial conqueror of the Philippines finds as rich a haul as any other among the. base metals. In Zambales Japan has all the chrome she wants, and of course has already richlysupplied herself there. On Busu.anga she finds ample, manganese supplies, easily mined, ready to 'fill her transports as ballast. Philippine iron, always bought solely by Japan, is abundant and well satisfies Japan’s smelters. But the question arises, Can Japan do anything with the damaged mines? Most of them were flooded -when their rightful owners had to cease operating them, one at least was dynamited. Engineers say that reopening a mine that has been dynamited is equivalent to developing a new prospect, or nearly so. All the mines were worked by. Filipino labourers, Ilokanos and Igorots, and a lesser number of Bicayans from the middle islands. Japan will probably be a long time in getting any production out of them, because in all likelihood these peasants, will not mine for Japanese bosses. It has always been Japan’s intention to overrun the Philippines with Japanese immigrant labourers, once she got hold of them. If for two years Japan were left unmolested and unchallenged in the Philippines, she would by that time have the country pretty solidly at work for her, immigrants replacing Filipinos. Short of two years Japan can do little with Philippine industry, including farming.