LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
WHALE-HUNTING FOLLY
Sta,—In his article of October 3rd, entitled Whale-hunting Folly, Mr. George Godwin is right to call attention to the whaling situation in the Antarctic, but I feel it is only fair to draw attention to the other side of the picture with regard to Japanese activities in these regions. I have spent the greater part of these last twelve months in Shimonoseki, Japan's chief fishing port in Southern Honshu, and have frequently had cause to study the whaling activities carried out by the Taiyo Gyogyo Company and the Nippon Suisen Company, the two chief whaling organisations in Japan. Mr. Godwin admits that the Japanese "are mainly concerned with whale-meat, for this has long been a staple article of Japanese diet " ; then he seeks to condemn them for the low tonnage of oil obtained in last year's expedition. I interviewed Mr. Nakabe, head of the Taiyo Company, before the fleet set sail and he stated that the chief purpose of the expedition was to bring back meat. That this object was achieved was very obvious to anyone reading the Japanese newspapers last year. Great prominence was given to what one paper described as "a voyage to save us from starvation," and in April this year an allocation of whale- meat was made through the Prefectural authorities to every area in Japan and was warmly welcomed.
I cannot believe Mr. Godwin when he writes, "The Japanese operate their whaling ships with crews of boys and youths," for I saw some of the crews in Shimonoseki and all those in a position of any responsibility had been on whaling expeditions before the war. However, if the Japanese system of catching is unduly wasteful, then now is the time to call for its reform, now when the expeditions are subjected to a considerable measure of control by the Allies and when Allied observers actually travel with the ships. If, in their notes of protest this June, the British and Australian Governments had suggested that the Japanese should be cautioned against reckless prodigality, then I feel that the McArthur headquarters would have listened to them more favourably. But to have suggested that the Japanese should be forbidden to send a whaling expedition was surely unnecessary. The cutting off of supplies of whale- meat combined with a mediocre rice harvest would bring food stocks in Japan down to starvation level. No doubt their 80,000,000 inhabitants would be saved from actual starvation—but by the U.S.A., "the universal provider," and not by Britain and Australia.—Yours sincerely,
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