HIROHITO’S TOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 March 1946, Page 6

HIROHITO’S TOUR

BOMBED-OUT SECTIONS OF TOKIO

COMMUNIST RESENTMENT

NEW YORK, February 28.

The Emperor Hirohito made a sixhour motor-car inspection of bombedout sections of Tokio, visiting schools, emergency dwellings, and large stores, says the correspondent of the New York Times. He was dressed in a European suit with a grey felt hat, which he raised to acknowledge the applause of the “banzai” . shouting crowds gathered at doors of the Ginza department store. The Communist Party handed to the Imperial Household Ministry a resolution attacking Hirohito’s personal appearance as “designed to help the election campaigns of the reactionary parties trying to frustrate the democratisation of Japan,” and demanded the Government to prohibit electioneering by “the Emperor and all other war criminals.” It was the first time the Communists have classed Hirohito as a criminal, although they previously demanded his abdication. The New York Herald Tribune correspondent says Japanese sources said Hirohito may risk his throne by holding a plebiscite at the general elections on April 10 to determine the destiny of the Tanno system. This revelation dovetails into Hirohito’s unprecedented public inspection trips, in which he renounced his hermit life behind the deep moats of the Tokio palace to chat with humble workers and air-raid victims. Observers termed the trips as popularity tests , whereby the Emperor is conducting his own Gallup poll.