The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1920-05-21
JAPANESE MAKING
STRONG BID FOR
. FOREIGN TRADE
Increase of Trade Threefold
Since Outbreak of
4 Great War

- (By International News Serv1ce)
London, May 21.-"Japan has IN
creased her foreign trade three1olo
aimee tho outbreak of the great war.
She has abundant and well-disciplin-
"A labor. gladly accepting about one
fenth the rate asked by the English
vorkers. Her textiles and silk goods
aell from Lancashire to the heart OF
Brazil. Her shipping lines are tax
ing the place in world trade once
Held by Germany" writes F.. A., MO
Kenzie, in the London Express.
..Her great weakness is that many
~ the Japanese goods are slight,
trurnpery and unreliable. The world
took them when it could buy no bet
ter, but the world Is already return
ing to its old producers.
"The experienced East India mer-
chant laughs at japanese competl-
ton. They will never do anything
really big he tells you They are
commercial hogs and want to grab
everything for themselves. You can
not trust them. Permanent business
cannot be built up without trust.
Their expansion is mere fash In the
pan
1.-THE old-timer is partly right in
his facts. But wholly wrong In MS
conclusions. The Japanese conduct
business according to standard OF
their own, which is not altogether
our standard But their methods are
improving, and every year we feel
Tht0 ID fhn
more remarkable because of the tre-
mendous handicaps they have fmpos-
ed on themselves. =. r.
. "The great Japanese industrial or
ganizations work hand-and-glove
with the government cooperation,
between politicians and traders, to
the mutual interests of both, is car
ried in Japan at least as far as In
any country in the world. The Mi
kado's government, when it became
firmly established. recognized that
foreign trade was essential for
world greatness, and so it started to
foster it. High protection, heavy
subsidies and liberal orders to infant
industries were inaugurated. Pick
ed young men were sent at govern
ment expense to manufacturing CEN
tiers all over the world, particularly
to England-to Newcastle and Shelf
field, Oldham and Bradford, Thames
side and Glasgow. They noted ev-
erything. A certain amount of ma
chinery was imported. In some cases
one machine was enough. The Japan
ese took it to pieces and made it
their model to build others.
"A factory system was introduced
without factory laws. Child labor
and girl labor were driven to the
maximum. Young women from the
country came under contract to the
great mills that sprango up around
Osaka. They were herded in COM
pounds, paid about two-pence a day
and their food, housed sometimes in
the toughest sheds, warksd twelve
hours a day. The factories ran the
whole twenty-four hours round, sew
en- days week, on two tWelve-hOur
shifts. Here was 4 happy land where
there were no strikes, no unions, no
organized labor troubles. 1t was an
industrial parade-for the employers.
A few people did try to introduce So
cialistic doctrines among the work.
ers: they were arrested in bunch
convicted of plotting against the En-
peror. and executed.
1.-The factories grew to a hunded
thousand workers, half a million
workers, seven hundred thousand
workers.! Eventually factory laws
had to be passed.
81. AT the same time the Japanese be-
gan to make sure of exclusive mar
gets outside their own country. They
were hampered by European and Am
erican diplomatic supersitiOns about
the maintenance Of the "open door,
in the Far East. Now, the Russian
in his attempt to monopolize The Far
East, Dragged lot about how he was
, while actually his advance helped out
p trade. The Japanese tried another
plan. They solemnly promised that
the door should be open, then shut it,
declaring that their meaning of
open door was different from our
meaning of the same words.
Europe, after time, gradually
awakened to the fact that Japan was
building her own ships in place OF
buying them from us; that she was
selling to our own customers, that
she was making machinery not only
q for herself, but for her neighbors
/ and that the output at the Osaks
J mills was underse1ling Lancashire IN
\ Lancashire itself. 10 81
Then came the war. The world
was now forced to go mainly to two
countries, for Its supplies. aAmerica
and Japan.
.tHad Japan been five years fur.
sther forward she might then have