ALLIED COUNCIL: WRANGLING OVER POLICY ON JAPAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 September 1949, Page 2

ALLIED COUNCIL: WRANGLING OVER POLICY ON JAPAN

Largely because of the general deterioration in the international situation, the Far Eastern Commission now yields only diminishing returns from its exhaustive and protracted discussions, states the annual report of the Department of External Affairs, tabled in the House of Representatives.

At the end of the year, the most important outstanding question before the commission (and one with security implications for New Zealand) was the problem of reparations and the level of economic life, on which a declaration of United States views was still awaited. Other questions under discussion were the review of the Japanese constitution, labour policy in Japan, the dissolution of the great industrial combines, civil aviation, and the policy to be adopted towards Japanese aquatic industries.

The New Zealand delegates continued to concentrate particularly on the encouragement of democratic tendencies and the security aspects of current Allied policy towards Japan. The Allied Council, which it was intended should advise General MacArthur on the implementation of policy, virtually ceased to fulfil a useful function, and on the infrequent occasions when its meetings were other than purely formal, discussion generally consisted of a series of sharp exchanges between the United States and Soviet representatives.