WAR CRIMINAL TOO

Evening Star, Issue 25563, 15 August 1945, Page 5

WAR CRIMINAL TOO

HIROHITO AS BAD AS HITLER AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT'S VIEWS SYDNEY, August 14. Dr H. V. Evatt’s statement that Japan’s surrender , offer was entirely unacceptable to the Australian Government is the official view of the Government. Senior Ministers are reluctant to amplify Dr Evatt’s statement, but said that Australia had made its attitude clear in communicating‘with the Big Powers in the past five or six days. Australia’s objections to any form of protection for the Emperor Hiroliito are: As a war.criminal the Japanese Emperor is in no different a Eosition (from Hitler, who, if he had een caught, would have had to stand his trial. Unless the myth of the deity of the Emperor is exploded 80,000.000 Japanese fanatics are likely to rally around their god-head and 6tage another Pearl Harbour, this time, perhaps, with atomic rocket bombs. Any suggestion of a soft peace will encourage the Japanese militarists to indoctrinate their people with the belief that Japan never lost the war; and that Japanese youth has a sacred duty to prove that Japan was victorious. v

Australia can never forget the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese on Australian soldiers at the behest of their leaders, including the Emperor. In placing its view's before the rest of the w'orld the Commonwealth Government is relying on the advice of its experts on Oriental affairs, who have made a close examination of the peculiar Japanese ways of life and psychology. To support its ease Australia is likely to press for' the immediate publication of the report by Mr Justice Webb, of Queensland, to the War Crimes Commission on Japanese atrocities in the Pacific Islands campaign.