THE JAPANESE MIND

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 85, 8 October 1945, Page 7

THE JAPANESE MIND

A DOCTOR'S ESTIMATE

P.A. AUCKLAND, October 7. "lt is my considered opinion that Japan is not fit for and must not be allowed to have any voice whatever in world affairs for at least the next 50 years," said Lieut.-Colonel J. W. Craven, medical superintendent of the Auckland' Hospital, who returned to Auckland by tiying-boat on Saturday. Lieut.-Colonel Craven.was in command of the Alexander Military Hospital at Singapore when the Japanese captured the city in 1941, and till May; 1944, he was in command of the prisoner-of-war hospital camp at Changi. He had to relinquish that post for health reasons and from then till his release he lived as an ordinary prisoner in the overcrowded Krangi camp, near the Johore causeway. The camp at Krangi was grossly over-crowded, said Lieut.-Colonel Craven, for the Japanese took half of it away to house working parties, and the other prisoners had to find accommodation in what was left. „ At one time the camp held 2800, and the men had to sleep beneath the huts fpr shelter. "I think we ran into some good Japanese, but- the trouble was that they were completely undependable," he continued. "For a period one would get the impression that things were going comparatively smoothly, and that the Japanese were being reasonable. Then suddenly, usually over some very minor matter, they would swing to'the opposite extreme and things would become very difficult. It seems that when a Japanese has come to a decision to take a certain action or to inflict some punishment, even if later circumstances prove him to be completely wrong in his first assumption, he refuses to change his mind and remit the punishment." All the Japanese seemed to have an innate streak of cruelty and were very ill-balanced in this respect. Their early training and peculiar philosophy were probably to a great extent responsible for this, and, therefore, the entire nation was in great need of an extensive period of training. Japanese of all ages required to be reeducated and the process would probably have to be spread over several generations. Till that process was complete, Japan, as a people, should not be permitted to re-arm or have any voice in world affairs. Japanese medical men with whom he came into contact were highly untrained and inefficient. Lieut.-Colonel Craven continued. They offered no help to prisoners.