Japan surges ahead

Japan will be the second most powerful nation in the world by the year soo and her surging comic growth is already the envy of every y. Yeta hondred years ago Japan was a poverty-stricken fendal nation; wenty-five years ago the experienced real defeat in the Second World Wa

How has this transformation from the devastation of war to great industrial power been achieved? How has Japan created a society in which real wages double every eight years whereas in most countries this takes a generation? How has she rebuilt her aircraft industry? mounted her own ambitious space programme? become the world's greatest shipbuilding nation? How has an overcrowded volcanic island-with few natural resources risen so fast in so short a time?

For one thing, she has exploited technological dvance; in shipbuilding, for instance, she has pioneered a new kind of launching system; in cameras, she has developed a medical camera so small that it can be swallowed by the patient without difficulty; and at a time when the railway as a form of transport is seemingly in decline, she runs the fastest and most attractive railway in the world, the 130 m.p.h. New Tokaido Line; in chemistry she has developed the world's most successful man made leather.

Part of her success can also be attributed to the structure of her trade unions which is such that demarcation disputes are unheard of; to the prominent role played by the Civil Service in industry; and to her own working classes who display a loyalty to their paternalistic employers that is rare in the West.

Basing his book on visits he made to Japan while science correspondent of Statist, Peter Stone has examined and analysed Japan in close detail - her institutions and industries, her finances and people.