Proletariat's Spokesman

Japan's pacifists and Communists have been largely driven into hiding but still extant is the National Council of Japanese Trade Unions and in Manhattan last week arrived its chairman, doughty Mr. Kanju Kato. Ever fearless of the "patriotic" assassins who have often tried to get him, Mr. Kato bluntly answered a Herald Tribune newshawk's question: "Have

Japanese workers benefited by the occupation of Manchukuo?" "The only ones who have benefited," said Mr. Kato, "are those in the munitions factories. For others conditions have been very bad. Generally speaking, since the Manchurian invasion, the gulf between prices and wages in Japan has been considerably increased, and as a result the workers have suffered.

"The peasants too have begun to disapprove of Japan's policy with respect to China," continued Proletarian Kato. "At first the Japanese peasantry were under the influence of Japanese nationalistic propaganda. However, as a result of the acute agrarian crisis of 1931-32 and the ensuing famine in the northeastern parts of Japan, the peasants have recently grown more rebellious and the number of farmer uprisings has been increasing."

"I am not a Communist," declared Kanju Kato, who was nearly barred from the U. S. on the assumption that he was. "I am a militant unionist. I should per-haps explain that a left winger like myself in Japan is actually much further to the right than a left winger in America. I adhere to the left wing group of workers' unions in Japan who are striving to overthrow Capitalism by means of the class struggle. Organized workers in Japan number 380,000 out of a total working class population of 5,770,000. Naturally the proletariat of Japan is opposed to the Government's activities in China."

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