JAPAN’S LOOT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1942, Page 4

JAPAN’S LOOT

GIVING HER ECONOMIC STOMACH ACHE LOST MARKETS & PLETHORA OF RAW MATERIALS. BAD SHIPPING JAM. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, June 29. “Japan’s effort to digest her newly-won empire is giving her an economic stomach ache,” says the “Standard’s” Nev? Delhi correspondent. “This is not wishful thinking; it is a hard deduction from facts collected from very reliable sources and correlated by experts with the latest Japanese propaganda. Japan has pocketed the world’s richest sources of raw materials, but in so doing she cut off 90 per cent cf her own markets and those of the occupied States. She is unable to absorb more than a fraction of the vast rubber, tin, sugar and rice output of these States. “In a bad shipping jam, Japan is desperately trying to readjust the internal economies of the conquered countries. An analysis of Japanese radio propaganda proves that the readjustment is not based on a scientific programme, for the good reason that there is no short-term cure for the situation, because of the ruthless debasement of living conditions and purchasing power in the occupied areas. Since the present hardship and discontent among the vast conquered populations may turn into a tide of hate, Japan obviously faces a serious problem.”