Japan’s Economic Penetration
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
of Central Pacific
THE gradual peaceful penetration of Japanese commercial interests in Western Samoa and the Cook Is lands is causing concern in official cir cles in New Zealand.
Newspapers have published figures to show the recent rapid increase of Jap an’s trade with the islands administered by the New Zealand Government. Samoa, for instance, imported goods from Japan worth £895 in 1931; in 1936, the Japanese imports had risen to £17,781. In the Cook Group the figures, on a smaller scale, tell a similar story.
Officially the view appears to be that nothing can be done to combat this ten dency. Western Samoa is administered as a mandate and the N.Z. authorities be lieve that this involves no right to in dulge in discriminatory tariffs.