Far-Reaching Developmental
pp. 24-25 · Read in the full issue
Japan Busy In Her
Islands
Plans
THXTENSIVE plans for the develop -LJ ment and utilisation of the land and resources of Japan’s Pacific mandate (Marshall, Caroline and Mariana Islands) have recently been announced by the newly-organised South Sea Development Company, said a report of the Institute of Pacific Relations, in August.
Beginning operations the first of this year, the company’s programme includes the fostering of agricultural production, fishing, mining, and shipping. Over 1,500 agricultural families are expected to be sent to the Islands and funds and mater ials will be supplied for overseas develop ment.
This company is capitalised at 20,000, 000 yen, and, like the Formosa Develop ment Company which was organised last
August, 10,546,000 yen will be furnished by the Government. The remaining 9,454,000 yen will be taken up by public subscriptions and the company will be privileged to issue debentures amounting to three times the paid-up capital.
The mining of phosphate ores will be undertaken with the company expecting to raise the production on Anguar Island from 20,000 metric tons to 90,000 annu-
ally. On Fuais Island production esti mated at 50,000 tons is expected to be reached.
A 2,000,000 yen company to operate the pineapple plantations is planned to be organised and the fishing interests of Japanese industrialists will be acquired by another subsidiary, the Ocean Pearl Company, which is capitalised at 1,200,000 yen. An annual catch of 2,000 tons of mother of pearl is planned to be exported.
The financial affairs of the South Seas
The Governor-General of the Caroline and Mar shall Islands, Kitashima Kanjiro, recently paid an official visit to Jaluit, and was ceremoniously welcomed. The photographs show:—Top: The native people, massed on the pier, are waving Japanese flags in farewell as His Excellency leaves a town in Jaluit. The young men are wearing the brown uniform of a social welfare association. Bottom: Decorative pylons erected ashore, at the end of the wharf of the chief town on Jaluit. The Governor-General is in the centre, with his hand at his cap. On the right, the people can be seen, bowing low.
Government, which has an annual budget of 8,000,000 yen also will be handled by the new company.
At the present time the South Seas Development Company is reported to be negotiating with the South Seas Trading Company (Nanyo Kohitsu Kabushiki Kai sha), in which the Oriental Development Company is heavily interested, to take over its marine activities. The Trading Company, sometimes called South Seas Development Company Ltd. (but not to be confused with the enterprise now being set up), is an old private company which was established in 1922 following the consolidation of several companies which began their existence in the 19th century.
The South Seas Development Co. and the Mitsui Mining Company have pro moted the South Seas Aluminium In dustry Co., to mine bauxite in Yap and in adjacent islands of the Eastern Caro line group. It is estimated that there are bauxite deposits there of about 5,000,000 tons —enough to ensure that Japan shall have a sufficiency of aluminium. Produc tion operations will begin immediately.
A Japanese naval commander in a broadcast talk on Pacific questions in Tokio in September alluded to the “sparsely populated countries of Aus tralia, New Zealand, and Canada.” He said that Japan’s constantly increasing population, “quite naturally and ever more strongly,” was expanding overseas by immigration, and commercially and industrially: and that the duty of the Japanese navy was to guard these expan
sions, particularly the vital interests of Japan in the Western Pacific.
EDITORIAL NOTE: It is impossible to escape the reflection that, while Japan thus is busily developing her mandated territories in the Pacific, Australia is doing comparatively little to establish industries and encourage commercial progress in her mandated territory of New Guinea. Just imagine what would be happening in New Guinea if it were controlled by Japan instead ot Australia!