Evening star., 1935-12-15
BY SEvELLON BROWN.

TOKIO (By MaiD Here one is
at the other side of the world.
not only geographically but
- socially, politically and eco
nomically as well. For Japan, facing
diametrically opposite problems for
the most part. is proceeding upon a
course almost the diametric opposite
of the New Deal. OF course, regi-
mentation and government control,
which are new issues with us, are old
and inevitable forces in Japan.
But here the control is being exer-
cised actively to increase export
trade, to force the unif1cation of in
dustry, to bring into being cartels and
trusts, to hold up prices at home for
the manufacturer and to lower his
costs for export trade. This policy
has captured markets despite world
depression and has kept up profits
and increased employment, but there
is no hiding the fact that it has put
its strain upon the Japanese people
in taxes and the high cost of living
The problems of both small industry
and Of agriculture in Japan are press
ing. Yet the policy remains to force
export, to stimulate industrial activ-
ity and, with the support of armed
force, to win through to special mar
kets in Manchukuo and North China
to that definite objective of affording
the dense population of this relatively
barren island empire a higher stand
ard of living through industrialiZa-
tion based upon foreign markets.
NatiOnalism Is Intense.
OF course, the Japanese scene is
criSs- crossed with rumor as to every
manner of ism, militariSm, Com
muniSm, extreme LeftiSm and extreme
Rightism, and the visitor is over
whelmed with the intensity of the
nationalism, with the extremes to
which, to his foreign mind, regi-
mentation is carried. and with the
Emperor worship that is inculcated
in the mass training of the rising gen.
Grafton.
To make sense of it, it is necessary
to try to simplify some basic national
objective. The one which struck me
as clearest is that Japan is trying
to build, not territorial, but trade.
empire as a national necessity for her
overcrowded area, and that she be-
lieves she can accomplish this only
through the possession Of military
power and through the complete dom
ination with that power of the East
ern markets, which are to be her first
line of economic defense.
From this point of view Japanese
militarism makes some sort of sense.
has some rational basis, at least;
whereas the Shanghai bombardment
to me at the time it occurred had
absolutely no sense and was to me
utterly incomprehensible. I think I
can now understand it, in the light
of this statement of japanese national
policy, at least as a miscarriage, and
a very serious, ugly and costly mis-
carriage, in a national policy which
the Japanese people rationalize for
themselves as the only means whereby
they can maintain their increasing
population at a decent standard of
living.
Objective Kept in Mind.
Similarly, it was necessary for me
TO hold in mind this objective of
the japanese government and people
to understand a good deal that saw
and heard in Japan.
This present Japanese national pol
Icy is, however, not very old. Our
own panic of 1929 and the world
depression played havoc, with Jap
snese Industry and finance. for. very
unfortunately for them, the Japanese
returned to the gold standard just
as the forces of the depression swept
as tidal wave against the empire.
In 1881 the government suspended
the gold standard and then began
the policy of fighting for industrial
salvation by depressing the yen in
foreign exchange, regimenting indus
try more thoroughly than ever be-
fore, turning loose the forces of in
fation and using the army as an
instrument to set up puppet states
on the Asiatic mainland as trade
vassals to Japan. 1t was a typical
Fascist program.
OF course. Japan had been ex-
pansionist long before this, had an
nexed Korea and was intrenched in
Manchuria. But as a definite and
immediate campaign to create quickly
O huge Asiatic trade empire for Japan
the present very concrete plan dates
from 1881.
1t is this policy which has carried
Japan out of the League of Nations,
which has produced the puppet state
of Manchukuo and which at the