The Bay of Plenty Times FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1949. Re-educating The Japanese

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 15058, 19 August 1949, Page 2

The Bay of Plenty Times FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1949. Re-educating The Japanese

Kipling onec wrote a poem on the futility of trying to hnrry the East. Since lie die! so. the tempo of events in Asia has risen so sharplv that today, the rest of the world is finding it difficult To keep pace with the people of the Eastern countries in their sudden resurgence of national development. While this applies particularly to the Asiatic comment and to the East Indies, there are eight-one million people in the islands o'i -Japan who. scmewhat bewildered by the sudden change from cenmries of feudalism to the free atmosphere of democracy winch thev are in process of absorbing from the British and American forces of occupation, may lake a little longer than their continental neighbours to settle down to a completely new way of life. What wilt be the ultimate effect on the rest of the nations oi' the Pacific including New Zealand, of their doing sn is a maner tor conjecture, but we cannot afford to ignore the fact that -Japan, with a population increasing at the rate of a million people a year, is certain loeexereise enormous influence on the Pacific area in the years to come.

AVhoibor this influence will be for good r.r ill depends upon how successful General MacArthur and Hie officers and men under his control, prove to be in their stupendous task of re-edneat mg a whole people with such a background as the Japanese. Interesting light on this major post-war'problem was shed in a recent broadcast address by Lient-Colonel 0. A. Gillespie, a New Zealander who has recently returned home after three years in the Public Relations Service of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. As this well-known journalist points out. centuries old and deeply ingrained ways of thought and behaviour cannot be altered in a few months, or even in a few years. The Japanese people will only cnange their process of thought through education. Sneh education, it is obvious, must be carried out in an atmosphere of mutual cooperation. Under what Colonel Gillespie describes as tin' most benevolent'occupation in the world’s history, its prospects of success seem good. For tin> Japanese have seen that the Western way of life lias so many real, advantages advantages which their toreiathers never knew under the despotic rule of the shoguns. Instead ol serfdom, ninety per cent. of I heir peasant farmers now < wn their own few well-enltivated acres. Under tin 1 new constitution the labouring classes enjoy rights and priveleges never hid ore known by the Japanese masses. Today Japanese women, instead o! being; little better than slaves, are playing; an increasing part in the political, economic and cultural life of the country. Furthermore the Japanese people are being given a new sense of justice British justice. This example of justice and impartiality has, in this officer's opinion, made a deep and enduring impression on a eompiered. and disillusioned people. It is sincerely to be hoped that this impression will pay dividends of peace in the Pacific.