Windows of the World

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 14

Windows of the World

International Scenes and Affairs

THE NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS.

JAPANESE AT HOME.

MILITARY DISCIPLINE.

STRICT DAXC'E HALL RULES,

TOKYO. The Japanese public is beginning to feel the effect of having two strict military disciplinarians in the Cabinet as Ministers of Home Affairs and [education—Admiral Xobumasa Suctmi<_'U and General Sadao Araki. The police are kept on the jump to curb what the <iovernment denounces as ■■shameful moral laxity in a time of national crisis." lhe police started raiding dance halls noon atter Admiral Suetsugu became Home Minister, and have nightly been rounding up "suspicious" couples. Dance hail regulations are strict in Japan, and it is forbidden for a man to bring in a stra: w _ partner. Dancers usually are supplied by the house. Until Admiral fsuetsugu became Home M inister, however, the police were lax in enforcing this regulation. In the latest raid on a popular donee hall lti couples were arrunted after the police found them "not quite in order." At the station further investigation revealed that among those arrested was a 42-year-old professor of a school for training priests accompanied by a '!■>- year-old salesgirl of a fashionable shop, who had been in one of his classed formerly. Another man, a 47-year-old director of a mining company, accompanied bv a woman 27 years old, whom he told the police was his fiancee. It was found, however, that he has a wife and a 10-year-old eon. "Such Scandalous Conduct." A man 30 years old was found to be with the 24-year-old wife of another man. m Tokyo s staid public was horrified by "such scandalous conduct." After General Araki'e appointment as Minister of Education the police started rounding up university students who had been spending their time in bars, tea rooms and soda fountains rather than in their class rooms. There is no co-education in Japanese universities, and it has been a custom for students to frequent bars and other places where they can be in the coiuI«ny of young members of the opposite sex even during class hours. Most universities do not require students to attend cla«ees thev dislike and frequently a student will spend only one or tw-o hours a day in the class room. _ The rest of the time, or during intervals between classes, lie often will spend in gay company. On General Araki'a orders students were brought by the carloads to police stations. The youngsters were held for B ? Ve .^ m hours and told to confine their studies to the class room.