The strongest point in Japan's war-time economy is self-sufficiency in food. Japan and its colonies and dependencies, with the adjacent seas, produce in abundance everything that the masses of the people eat: rice, fish, soya beans, fruits, vegetables, sugar. After a year and a half of war Japan is less pinched for food than Germany (allowing for different national habits of diet)
The Japanese have not been compelled to go on the very short rations which were the lot of the Russians between 1929 and 1933, when everything was being sacrificed or the altar of industrialization at a dizzy tempo.
And experience shows that acute food shortage is the only sure means, apart from decisive defeat on the battlefield, of breaking down the morale and working capacity of the men and women behind the lines.
People ín the grip of war psychosis and war controls do not, revolt pr quit because they have to stand up in buses that run less frequently on account of gasoline restrictions or because they can no longer buy imported cameras or because house repairs are harder to effect for lack of materials.
It is too soon to pronounce final judgment on the success or failure of Japan's drive for Oriental Empire. It may prove, in the long run, that the effort to turn the clock back in China, to substitute imperialism for nationalism at a time when nationalist tides are rising in other pacts of Asia, Was beyond Japan's strength Japan's policies may lead up to clashes with stronger countries than China.
But, given the present situation, I think the lesson which people interested in the Far East should take to heart is: Don't underestimate Japan. Any policy framed on the assumption that Japan is near its last gasp, ready to crumble under slight pressure, is likely to prove foredoomed to disillusionment
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.