Press translations [Japan]. Economic Series 0085, 1945-12-20.

Extracts:

The following is the reply made by the Commerce and Industry Minister to Mr. TAKEUCHI. Mr. TAKEUCHI had interpellated at the 15 December General Budget Meeting of the House of Peers on the production of artistic goods for export, the utilization of the Technological Instruction Institution and the creation of an exhibition for the purpose of introducing genuine artistic goods of JAPAN.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry appreciates the importance of the production of artistic goods in that it will contribute to the progress of Japanese civilization. Raw materials are available here, and the characteristics of the Japanese people make them suitable for this work. The Government will exert itself to the utmost in encouraging the production of artistic goods to overcome foreign competition.

The Technological Instruction Institute will be rearranged and enlivened. The Institute will employ the techniques abandoned during the war, as well as such techniques as were learned through the process of aircraft engineering, and will be more active in instructing traders. Also, an appropriation is being demanded for the creation of a training school to train skilled apprentices in this line. Permission for the import of lacquer has already been asked of Allied Headquarters. The scheduled production of handkerchiefs, mufflers and stockings has already been put into operation, but at the present it is impossible to meet all the demands.

An exhibition of exportable goods will shortly be set up in TOKYO to introduce various goods of superior quality gathered throughout this country. An appropriation is being asked to defray the expenses. Such exhibitions will be held not only in TOKYO but in the other principal cities such as KYOTO, etc.

Extracts:

Nation-wide attention is being focused upon what attitude the Diet members, those so closely connected with the present official, financial and industrial machinery, will assume toward the much discussed land reform initiated by the recent Allied directive concerning the emancipation of the farmer from the feudalistic economic system as typified by absentee landlordism and government discrimination against

ECONOMIC SERIES: 85 (Continued)

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farmers by taxation. The fact that all Diet members are quite indifferent to the bill for agrarian organization reform (NOGYO DANTAI HO) and are making little of it, despite its close connection with the land reform plan, seems rather incomprehensible. The lack of interest on the part of the Diet members may be seen more clearly in that only five or six committee members were present at the Agrarian Organization Revision Committee Meeting held on 8 December, compared with the jammed Land Reform Bill Committee meeting. In a situation such as that, negligence on the part of the Government is of such importance, and so fundamental a matter as would seriously effect democratization of the farm village. Thus, such action may well be subjected to the severest criticism.

Asked by committee members whether the Government has any intention of dividing the agrarian organization and establishing independent agricultural organizations. Agriculture and Forestry Minister MATSUMURA clarified the Government opinion in this regard saying that the time is not ripe for putting such a division into practice. Because of the importance of this matter in the emancipation of the farm village from its semi-feudalistic fetters, and its democratic development on an economic basis as part of a new JAPAN, it is to be regretted that no positive inquiry as to the government opinion in this regard has been made as yet. At the same time we can easily learn from above that the present Diet members consist of such classes as landowners, capitalists, and those who have great interests in common with officialdom.

Consequently they insist upon a very gradual democratization on the grounds that the outright reshuffling of the present agrarian organization, the members of which have been in charge of such important jobs as the distribution of agrarian tools, delivery of farm products, and farming finance, will aggravate the present food condition. Likewise, in their stand taken on the election of the executive staff of agrarian associations and on the land reform bill, these associations demand the right of cultivation for the larger farm investments and permission for unlimited landownership to large scale farming, and we can find quite easily of what sort of men the present agrarian associations are made of.

However the Diet members are careful to avoid direct opposition or criticism of the Agrarian Organization Law. Hence, although they may approve the Agrarian Organization Law, we must be ever on the alert for their actions afterwards.

Full Translation:

Welfare Minister ASHIDA summed up the revision of the Restrictive Regulation on Wages (CHINKIN TOSEI REI) at the 16 December Committee meeting of the Labor Union Law Bill, in the House of Peers. In view of the present sharp rise in the cost of living, the Government expects to revise the Restrictive Regulation on Wages so as to guarantee laborers their minimum livelihood. A wage increase of about eighty per cent will be received by mine workers, and a fifty per cent increase by factory workers through the revised regulation, but the matter can not be solved fundamentally unless the prevailing vicious wave of inflation is checked.

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ECONOMIC SERIES: 85 (Continued)

Summary:

In the SHIZUOKA Prefecture, the production of cocoons was estimated at 300,000 kan this year, about 230,000 kan less than that of last year, and plans are being made to yield 1,000,000 kan annually from this season. To achieve this scheduled production, sericularists are demanding the rise in price of cocoons from an average of twenty-seven and twenty-eight yen to fifty or sixty yen per kan. As for mulberry fields, the Agricultural Association has a plan to create such mulberry fields as are capable of producing paying crops as an addition to vegetable forming, instead of reconverting vegetable fields into mulberry fields. The Association expects to hold conferences throughout the prefecture to discuss this matter.

In the FUKUSHIMA Prefecture, sericulture by school boys and girls is still being emphasized by the Prefectural authorities in view of its past success, and the increased creation of mulberry fields in school gardens is being encouraged. For this purpose 95,360 mulberry seedlings will be distributed free of charge among 238 schools during next March.

In the EHIME Prefecture, sericulturists are about to begin operation, looking forward to larger supplies of cocoons, and will launch a movement for the enlargement of mulberry fields. Before the war 24,612 sericulturists reeled 250,000 kan of silk, valued at 22,950,000 yen, derived 1,726,000 kan of cocoons, with 9,200 chobu (chobu = 2.45 acres) of mulberry fields. With the outbreak of the war, silk factories decreased in number from seventy-four to eleven, the acreage of mulberry fields was reduced to 3,6l2 chobu, one-third of its former acreage, and the production of cocoons dropped to around 600,000 kan.

In the CHIBA Prefecture, it is planned to cultivate abandoned mulberry fields for the purpose of increasing the production of cocoons starting next spring. The Fibre Section of the Agricultural Association has a plan for distributing 1,700,000 mulberry seedlings among sericulturists during this winter and next spring for the rearrangement of mulberry fields. The distribution of the seedlings will be made free of charge in accordance with the demands of serculturists, through it costs one hundred yen per thousand seedlings.

Full translation:

The following is an extract from the report on the investigation of seven important articles of Japanese industry, made by Allied Headquarters on 15 December.

The estimated amount of silk for export will be 150,000 bales by December, 1947, including 46,000 bales in stock and 51,000 bales produced up to this June. To encourage the export of silk, the production of substitue wool for home consumption will be abolished. The amount of cotton cloth of single breadth is estimated at 410,629 pounds, and the amount of rayon at 121,176,000 pounds. The Japanese textile industry intends to convert all productive installations for silk goods into factories to produce silk for export.

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