rationing. And the advent of rationing raised new demands that an 'economic general staff' be empowered to plan for the whole economy. This economic general staff, in the form of the Cabinet Planning Board, came into being on October 23, 1937, under the added impetus of the China Incident.
Since the creation of the Resources Bureau in 1927, and especially after passage of the Important Industries Control Law in 1931, the military economists' primary efforts had been to enact individual laws in conjunction with MCI for particular strategic industries. The first industry law to be passed that had explicit military implications was the Petroleum Industry Law of March 28, 1934; it remains interesting to-
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TABLE
8
(1929 = 100)
Country
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
Wholesale Prices
Japan
82.3
69.6
77.2
88.5
90.2
92.5
United States
90.7
76.6
68.0
69.2
78.6
83.9
England
87.5
76.8
74.9
75.0
77.1
77.9
Germany
90.8
80.8
70.3
68.0
71.7
74.2
France
88.4
80.0
68.2
