depression of 1929 and the resultant collapse of international trade. Japan started its own depression with a bank crisis in 1927, but it was of little consequence compared with the raising of protective tariffs throughout the world as an aftermath of the 1929 depression. This seemed to spell ultimate disaster for Japan’s foreign trade. The business man’s program of continued economic expansion and prosperity through a growing export trade was suddenly revealed to be no more than a vain dream. Huge political units like Russia, the United States, and the British Empire could ride the storm of world depression, for they had their own sources of supply for most raw materials and their own consuming markets. But a smaller unit like Japan, which depended on other lands for much of its raw materials, and on China, India, and the Occident for a vital part of its consuming market, was entirely at the mercy of the tariff policies of other nations.
The problem was all the more acute for Japan because of the tremendous increase in population. There were now more than 60,000,000 Japanese, far more than could be supported by a simple agricultural economy, and with government encouragement the rate of increase was about 1,000,000 persons a year. For the maintenance of this expanded population in the narrow islands of Japan, foreign markets were essential for Japanese exports. Consequently, the Japanese viewed any threat to their overseas economic enterprises with concern.
In the early 1930’s many Japanese believed that the only answer to rising protective tariffs in other lands was for Japan to resume its old program of colo-