AN ECONOMIC PEARL HARBOUR

An Economic Pearl Harbour ~ 223 ~ competition. The resulting situation can be approached in two entirely different ways. One is to collide with anything which obstructs our path. The other is to circumvent obstacles and then to go on our way. Clearly, the first is self-destructive, while the second, in avoiding confrontations, is much more likely to prove advantageous. A ship which sails straight at a rock or an iceberg is doomed to disaster. It is the ship which veers temporarily off its course to avoid the reefs which will eventually sail safely into harbour. Similarly, Japan, by giving up ideas of military supremacy, has reached a much more worthwhile objective—economic supremacy. It is worth remembering that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, once Symbols of Japan’s total annihilation as a military power, are now symbols, forty years later, of Japan’s stunning economic success.