EFFECT OF BLOCKADE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 58, 6 September 1945, Page 7

EFFECT OF BLOCKADE

JAPAN'S SHORTAGES BEFORE

SURRENDER

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. 11 a.m. TOKIO, September 5. The Japanese Prime Minister, Prince Higashi-Kuni, using the word "surrender" for the first time, told the Diet that the instrument of surrender had been signed only after it had seemed almost impossible to carry on. He pictured Japan as virtually prostrated by the Allied bombing and by the blockade, which Was drawn td choking point. Prince Higashi-Kuni declared thau there was little use in going back into the past and trying to put the blame on,one person or another. Traversing Japan's increasing difficulties, he said that the country's production dwindled to the point that any swift restoration was considered beytfnd hope. The shortage cf imported salt left Japan without sodium for explosives. By last May the carrying capacity of Japanese ships had dwindled to about one-fourth of the pre-war total. Finally came the atomic bomb, which was considered likely to result in the obliteration of the Japanese people. The Soviet declaration of war brought Japan to the crossroads of uncertainty whether to hope against hope in a desperate struggle or to stop fighting. It was Emepror Hirohito who had decided in order to save millions of his subjects. Prince Higashi-Kuni pictured the Emperor as reluctant to begin the war and deeply distressed with the thought that should Japan cross swords with Britain and America it would bring on incalculable destruction. The* Premier said there would not be a quick return to the easy prewar life and that laying the foundation for a new, peaceful Japan would be grindingly hard. The war situation began to go in favour of the Allies, he said, after the Japanese defeat at Guadalcanal in November, 1942. By the spring of 1943 a great part of Japanese production was crippled. As a result of the air attacks. 3,200,000 houses had been - destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people had been killed and injured.