RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 232, 28 June 1945, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

Optimists say that.it may be a Simla conference, but this time it will be ditferent.. ?

It is stated, that the Government has commandeered all cement supplies. Maybe they’ll he used for concrete proposals about that bank. * > ;

New Zealand, it is announced, is contemplating a step-by-step telephone system. Prospective possessors of a telephone say it couldn’t be worse than the present, never-never system.

Regarding the Picton coal field, “R.H.W.” writes: “From the interesting letter of a correspondent we learn that when seepage through the strata occurred the sponge was thrown in, apparently without effect. It is a matter for regret that no other absorbent seems to have been tried.' such as, for instance, blottingpaper.” Maybe Red Tape could do this job just as well?

Tokio radio states that if the crisis grows worse the Emperior Hirohito may assume personal leadership of administration and defence. Things must be getting pretty bad in Japan, because this is about the same as if Churchill had handed over to God after Dunkirk. If H.I.H. Hirohito, the only “Son of Heaven” on earth, 124th direct descendant of the Sun Goddess, has to take control. the blunt truth is that Japan is ended. Is he not the descendant of the Goddess who created the “Eight Great Isles which will exist through age eternal.” None must look down on him in Japan, none must approach near him, and none must shout hurrah in his divine presence. He is a god expressly in this world to guide the people of Japan in their great destiny. If the great descendant of thq Emperor Jimmu. great-grandson of Nini-gi-no-Mikoto, who was the grandson of the Sun Goddess, who was the daughter of the God Iznagi and the Goddess Izanami, has to do so worldly an act as run Japan, the people of Japan would just about fold up- and die.

Hirohito lives for 10 months of the year in his palace at.Tokio as a recluse in the heart of a city of six millions. For two months each summer he takes a holiday at his country palaces St Hayama and Wusa. Tens of millions of his subjects have never seen him and never will. Yet in over a hundred thousand factories, mills and workshops throughout the Japanese islands the day begins and ends by managers and employees bowing in the direction of the Imperial Palace. The knowledge that he exists is sufficient. Hirohito himself neither smokes nor drinks. He makes no tours of iudustrial areas. He never attends a public theatre. An occasional visit fo his army is about his only task, except for the annual opening of Parliament, But then a god cannot be expected to go to theatres an'd the like. It is certainly going to be a shock to the people of Japan if things get so bad a god has to run earthly affairs to help them. It is going to be a worse shock when, his Ministers having found the scapegoat, it is discovered that not even a god can save Japan.

In reality the history of the Japanese Imperial Family has been somewhat varied. Some of the Emperors were, forced to beg in the streets. Some were hounded as refugees. They have been deposed, exiled, assassinated. A number, in fact, were but vassals of military rulers and were treated with contempt. Indeed, at one time there were two Emperors. Yet from birth the Japanese have been taught t<> believe that the Emperor is a god. If he travels along a street the route is cleared and all blinds have to be drawn lest impious eyes look on a god. Cynics declare that Hirohito is somewhat of a half-wit, due .t° centuries of in-breeding, and his advisers take care that his divinity is never in danger of being put to any sort of test by bis subjects. Telephone linesmen have been known to kill themselves because they inadvertently looked down on the Imperial presence. A policeman performed hariyliiri after £e had directed the Emperor’s car down the wrong street. Indeed, the Minister of Home Affairs apologized to the Emperor when a huge fire in the residential area of Tokio became visible from the palace. One’can therefore understand the Minister of Home A-ffairs committing honourable suic.de when an American Super-Fort dropped a bomb near the palace of the bon m Heaven.

Though Hirohito is sacred and lives as a god, he is but a puppet through whom tlje real rqlers of Japan enforce their control on the Japanese.. The Emperor cannot initiate legislation/ He cannot remove any of bis Ministers. He cannot appeal to the people over the heads of his advisers. He is, in fact, a prisoner in bis palace. ;As a young man he was brought up by tutors. For a period he was educated abroad. Prince Saioniji, the famous Liberal of Japan, was a close adviser. Saioniji hated the reactionaries now in control m Japan. Hirohito selected as personal attendants those opposed to the -military clique. It is thus by no means impossible that a series of successive, deteats might well bring the militarists into open conflict with their Emperor. It is not impossible that unexpected developments could take place in Japan. In theory Hirohito could remove the war party by putting down his god-like foot. In that case it would be well nigh impossible tor the present leaders in Japan »o carry out their plans. .In actual fact action would have to be less crude than t b at * because it is doubtful if Hirohito could ever .find opportunity to make his views known to the people of Japan. Anyway, the military rulers of Japan, it would seem, are prepared to throw their Emperor to the wolves, leaving him to carry the war baby and to receive the kicks.

Army arrogance in Japan first became rampant in 1932 when Manchuria was gobbled up on pretexts anything but convincing. Since then clusters of young Japanese officers with Axis leanings have tried to save their Emperor from urbane advisers in the- Palace. On February 26, 1936, the Tokio garrison mutinied, led by Fascist firebrands. Whatever changes have taken place in Hirohitos views it is only fair to record that on that occasion he signed a personal order commanding the mutineers to surrender to loyal troops. The revolt collapsed. Moreover in order to discredit the h ascist movement the Emperor surprised Parliament by sorrowfully mentioning the incident in his formal opening address. He finally rubbed in his disapproval by publicly announcing the naughty behaviour of these wayward Imperial soldiers to his Divine Ancestors. It would thus seem that Hirohito, god or man, is against war, and a believer in peace. Nevertheless, since then he must accept responsibility for a series of outrages against humanity perpetrated in his name.

Efforts on the part of the Japanese to scatter mines all over the Pacific by making use of ocean currents passing Japan will probably be no more than a nuisance. The Pacific is large and even a million such mines would lose themselves in its vastness. Indeed, it has been shown that ocean currents can take floating things for voyages right across the world. In fact, one official bottle thrown into the North Sea, it is claimed, spent 25 years nt. sen. Duripg that time it circled the globe more than once. The average speed of drifting mines or bottles is five miles a flay. The fastest recorded is eight miles a day over a long period of time. Perhaps the record for a complicated journey belongs to a bottle thrown in the sea at San Francisco. It finally turned up at Charleston on the opposite const, having completed a circuit of South America. Moreover, bottles cast adrift in the South Seas usually end up on Canadian or American shores a few years later. An Anstralinn colonel who cast bottles adrift while travelling from Vancouver to Sydney was surprised, however, to get information regarding them from such scattered points as America, Argentine, Japan, and China. » * * Autumn to winter, winter into spring. Sprin- into summer, summer into fall,— So rolls the changing year, and so we change > Motion so swift, we know not that we move. . —D. M. Muloch.