Structural Newness

This winter obedient Japanese millions, reading the Government's vague phrases in their newspapers, may not know exactly what Premier Fumimaro Konoye means by the New Structure he is building in Nippon, but they know something new is going on.

Every Japanese has been limited to one cotton towel a year. Foreign news films have disappeared from the theatres. There is strict rationing of gauze, absorbent cotton, condensed and powdered milk. Picture post cards or magazine pictures of Imperial and military buildings, factories, other landmarks, have been prohibited. Geisha girls cannot have permanent waves, fancy coiffeurs, heavy makeup, manicures, high heels or too bright kimonos. Tokyo Imperial University students must walk to school if they live within two kilometres, can go to the theatre only on weekends or holidays, can't go at all to mah-jongg parlors, billiard saloons, cafes, bars. Tokyo cafes can have only one waitress per six square metres of floor space, instead of one per four square metres as formerly. Gasoline is forbidden to the few thousands who own private cars.

Last week in Tokyo the Government went further. Laws were passed for total control of foreign trade, news reports, daily necessities, prices and uses of farmland.

Meanwhile the immediate cost of Structural Newness began to come clear. For fiscal 1941-42 Tokyo experts foresaw the greatest of Japan's many huge budgets, calling for more than ten billion yen--five billions for war purposes alone--and requiring more than six billions of new borrowing. Such a budget would be greater than Japan's entire funded debt in 1937 when the Sino-Japanese war started.

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