The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-03-08

through Ma service UrFt pNNnFAtn
lights Of the Fortune survey
Copyright, 1885, by Time-FOrtune
Corporation
JAPANESE business men don't
j bellyache. But YOU don't want
10 be fooled by this face-saVlng.
Just because a japanese business
man doesn't howl is no reason TO
suppose ne isn't in pain.
Consider the japanese raw silk
industry. for instance:
You will see about as serious an
industrial Jam as you can find IN
the world today. You will see
lam that Is desperate not only for
Japan's raw silk industry, but for
the whole economy of the empire.
When Japan vas opened TO
world trade-it was only IN 1884,
remember-one of the very first
things her precociously smart
business men did was TO buy the
farmers silk Ohey had been rails
ing II for their own use since
NEUROLOGICAL tines and resell 1t
TO the world.
The japanese farmer could i've
on few cents day; he gladly
took the smallest. medieval pay
for his silk; the business man was
able to get it unbelievably cheap
aud lluderSpll the world
Their cheap SILK became
Japans biggest business, and with
their silk profits they set them
selves up IN heavy industry, they
moderni7ed both Japan and them
selves.
MEANWHILE they kept selling
wi silk. and particularly TO the
rich. luxurv-loving United States.
After the World War. the United
States had such a boom as had
never been heard Of. The GAM
orous silk industry became more
clamorous than ever-Selling four
times It's pre-War volume. and
selling these enormous quantities
almost entirely to the United
States.
The japanese business men,
who controlled the silk trade, took
huge profits.
On these, and on the profits
from the other industries that silk
had made possible. Japan became
virtually drunk with the splendor
of big business. Meanwhile the
actual raising Of the silk remained
on the tiny farms. Japan still
paid the farmer his minimum,
medieval wage, and it had almost
forgotten that his silk was the
foundation of the empire.
Since 1929 the bOomtime United
States that paid IS pound for
SO per cent OF Japan's raw silk
has become the penny-and-credit
pinching United States that Won
ders how it ever got that way. 1t
still takes 90 per cent of the silk
expOrts-this is important TO re-
member-but it takes it cheap or
not at all.
90 between 1929 and July, 1884,
- the silk price plunged from IS
to Sis. Since then 1t has crept
up to $3.50 But the japanese
silk men are still wondering
whether they can possibly have
reached the bottom. And you
can't make money on raw silk at
$50 a pound.
Having used the silk farmers as
the lowest stepping stone to its
industrial greatness, Japan also
taxed them heavily, while going
light on industrial taxation. And
today Japan's militaristic govern
ment taxes them still more in
order to keep swelling Japan'S
prestige with newer and more
deadly war machinery and an ag-
greSsive policy on the continent Of
Asia.
So the farmers taxes are almost
inevitably ~ and dangerously ~ in
arrears. and there is a hard SYM
Dol of the fact: he sells his oaugh-
tiers to work in the empires cot
ton mills And very often he sells
his daughters into prostitution.
And when you have seen all
this, there is still worse-the sec
ond of the hard unglamorous
facts Of the silk industry.
In those same boom days when
silk had its fanciest successes,
rayon-artif1cial silk squirted out
Of cold mechanical nozzles-waS
getting up great momentum.
GO far the Japanese business
- men. the MitSui and Mitsu-
bishi and the several other great
commercial houses. have PLAYED
their usual canny roles. They
have cody diagnosed the trend
and have gone into the rayon
business themselves.
AS a matter of fact, rayon got
its japanese start in the early
twentieS but in three short years,
working at their usual miraculous
tempo. they have built Japan into
the second largest rayon producer
IN the world following the United
States. and the nozzles OF Japan
squirt their fibers all over the
Orient.
But no intelligent japanese can
calmly accept the misfortune of
the 100000 farmers who tend
the worm. who comprise 20 per
cent of JapanS population.
Today silk is produced on p
100000 Of Japans 5.5OO,OOO farms.
1 is thus the whole or partial
livelihood Of 40 per cent Of Japan's
agricultural population. or of 49,
100000 people. Silk is sometimes
the farmers only cash crop and
the only other cash crop he is
likely 70 have is a small output