EMPEROR'S DIVINITY
NOT GENERALLY BELIEVED IN BY JAPS. REVERED AS SYMBOL OF GOVERNMENT (Rec. 8 a.m.) HONOLULU. Feb 12 Sir George Sansora, British member of the Far East Commission, on his arrival from Japan said the tremendous physical devastation wrought in Japan was matched by the peoples' spiritual upheaval. Sir George, who before the war was Counsellor at tha British Embassy in Tokio, said the Japanese did not have the same trust in the _ Government as previously. That disillusionment had nothing to do with the Emperor, but applied to civil and military authority. The Emperor's denial of divinity was generally well receivedbut some were puzzled.' "It is my impression," he said, " that the Japanese before the war years as a whole did not believe in the Emperor's divinity, but revered him as the symbol of their Government." Japanese unrest thus far had not crystallised, the people being too occupied with the problems of food and housing, but when those needs were satisfied they would begin to think politics. Intelligent Japanese felt that the sanest type of Government -was a constitutional monarchy along the lines of the British system, under which the Emperor would have little power, but would be able to exercise certain moral leadership,
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Evening Star, Issue 25716, 13 February 1946, Page 5
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205EMPEROR'S DIVINITY Evening Star, Issue 25716, 13 February 1946, Page 5
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