The Britain of the East

The Japanese economy, under the control of a militarist-monopolist class, has been girding for a world war for a decade, but it was never cut out for the role. Japan lacks:

Oil. She has stocks enough for about 15 months of all-out war. Normally consuming 28 million barrels a year, she can command from Manchukuo. Sakhalin, Formosa, and her own wells and synthetic productions only some 7 1/2 million barrels.

Scrap and Iron Ore. From 1936 to 1940 she got from the U.S. 8,222,259 tons of scrap; none since Sept. 30, 1940. For iron ore she depended mostly on imports too. Japan is now confiscating manhole covers, gutter pipes, name plates, old railway cars to build her scrap stockpile.

Aluminum. Japan used to get 75% of her supply from Canada, since 1934 has increased her own production sharply, but it was only 23,000 tons in 1939 (last available figure).

Copper. From the U.S. in 1938 she got 110,000 tons. She also got a lot from Chile until early this year. Her own production is about 85,000 tons a year.

Lead. Japan produces only 7% of her consumption.

Zinc. Japan produces about 40% of her consumption.

Machine Tools. Most of Japan's tools were made in England, Germany or the U.S.

These are the materials of war. and Japan lacks them all. Her cruel war machine and impressive Navy make her look like a world power; but they were built by another power--the power of world trade.

Half of Japan's 72,222,700 people are farmers, living on four islands whose area is smaller than California. When Japan began to industrialize, she soon found her specialty to be light industries and consumer goods. One-fourth of her population last year was either growing or manufacturing silk, 25% of her factory hands worked in cotton mills--but the raw cotton was imported from the U.S., Brazil and China. Her cheap manufactures undersold the world; the American Legion bought Japanese-made American flags; Japanese beer was sold in Berlin. Japan's future lay obviously in a world of free trade. Economically she was the Britain of the East.

Instead she decided to become its Prussia. This led her into one economic predicament after another, to the final suicide's-way-out. Last week Japan cut herself adrift from the nations that supplied 80% of her war materials.

When Japan began to build a war economy, she met her first predicament: having virtually full employment already, there was no slack for the new arms industry to take up, and it began to drain civilian goods, food and man power from her factories and farms right away. In the five years 1936-40 her standard of living fell by an estimated 40%. Industrial production, which hit its peak in 1939, has gone downhill ever since. At war with the U.S., Japan cannot increase this production. Only change likely in her dervish economy is the removal of some cotton and silk workers, their markets gone, back to the rice paddies, to try to feed the population.

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