JAPAN’S WAR ECONOMIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 3

JAPAN’S WAR ECONOMIES

Girls Give Up Stockings

Y HOST of means for consuming less and saving more were advocated during the War Economy Week celebrated at Tokyo. Hoardings were plastered with 30,000 posters, urging the people to refrain from buying or ,at least to buy as sparingly as possible. Some 200,000 handbills were distributed in factories, requesting the workers “to toil with their right hands and-save with their left hands.” Various women's organisations held meetings and vied with each other in suggesting war economy measures. Among these were the substitution of socks for stockings by girl students; the use of brown sugar instead of white; abstention from soft drinks; planting of vegetable gardnes wherever possible, especially in backyards. It was also recommended that expensive ceremonial clothing be discarded for the duration of the war. A white band, worn with ordinary costumes, is to mark festive occasions; a black band will signify mourning. Wedding expenses, which often represent a huge item in the Japanese family budget are to be restricted to 20 per cent, of the annual family income.

Side by side with these voluntary measures the Government and the local and municipal authorities throughout Japan are constantly issuing new regulations designed to enforce economy and to give a more austere and puritanical tinge to life. So the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has entirely forbidden fashion shows on the ground that such exhibitions “only excite feminine vanity and encourage customers to make unnecessary purchases.” Such amusement places as geisha houses, cafes am’ dance-halls, are being more and more frowned on and discouraged by increasingly severe police regulations, and the bright neon signs on the Ginza, Tokyo’s main thoroughfare, have been removed. The daily half holidays, which higherto prevailed in Government offices during the hot and humid summer months has been abolished, and the police, always quick to enforce what they regard as proper conduct in others, have set an example of selfdenial by pledging themselves to abstain from tobacco and sake (ricewine) one day every week. Seats are being removed in tramcars in order to provide more space for the hordes of passengers who are com-

pelled to resort to the tramcars now that buses and taxicabs are drastically restricted by the constant cuts in the allowance of gasoline. Private motoring has been made almost impossible since the allowance for private motor-cars has been reduced to a gallon of gasoline a day. Princes of the Imperial family and high Government officials are setting an example by ostentatiously forgoing the use of motor-cars and travelling by train whenever possible. A great variety of economic virtues has been discovered in the whale. Japan’s catch of these sea monsten every year is considerable. Whale meat is recommended as a substitute for beef and pork, which are to be conserved for the use of the Army; the skin of the whale is supposed to replace leather in the making of shoes, bags, and similar articles; it is even suggested that fibre for weaving cloth can be obtained from the whale. One obvious reason for this intensified drive for economy is the pronounced rise in retail prices which hai occurred during the first year of the war. Between June 15 and July 15 th® retail price level rose by 7.6 per cent. Food went up by 11.8 per cent., clothing by 2.3 per cent., building by 8.8 per cent., fuel by 2.3 per cent., etc. This has led to severe anti-profiteer-ing regulations, but the financial authorities hope for better results from economics in consumption which, it is hoped, will lead to larger deposits in savings banks. These deposits during June amounted to over two billion yen, showing a gain of 47.000,000 yen over the preceding month and of 329,000,000 yen over the year before. One element in the Japanese character which promotes the success of such a drive is the emotional feeling that the sufferings of the soldiers at the front make it morally obligatory for civilians to endure hardships, even when these do not serve any particularly useful economic purpose. In many cases popular initiative anticipates Government regulations. What places a limit on the efficacy of the process of tightening the national belt is not any recalcitrance on the part of the civilian population, but rather the fact that the country is econonmically too lean to gain very much by even the most rigid constriction of th® belt.—London Observer correspondent.