NO ARRESTS YET

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21809, 4 September 1945, Page 3

NO ARRESTS YET

JAP. CRIMINALS AUSTRALIA’S PROTEST STRONG ACTION URGED (Special Australian Correspondent.) (10 a.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 4. Dr H V Evatt, Minister for External Affairs, leaves for England by air to-day to represent Australia on the Council of Foreign Ministers. In London Dr. Evatt is expected to raise directly with members of the British Government the question of Australia’s dissatisfaction that no Japanese war criminals have yet been arrested. The Australian Government’s feeling on this matter was made evident by Dr. Evatt’s statement that “Australia would not let Japanese criminals get away with anything.” The Australian Government in the last few days has exerted strong pressure on the United States and the British Governments for the arrest of Japanese war criminals and, according to an officer of the External Affairs Department, will continue to do so. The Government's views have also been communicated to General MacArthur and the United Nations War Crimes Commission. The publication of Japanese atrocities and the ill-treat-ment’inflicted on Australian and other Allied prisoners of war has aroused wide support for the Government’s attitude. Gordon Bennett’s Views

Lieutenant-General Gordon Bennett, former Commander-in-Chief of the A.I.F. Eighth Division, said: “The punishment cannot be too severe for those who indulged in animal lust for cruelty and terrorism.” Mr. I-I. R. Redding, general secretary of the Australian Natives' Association, said: “All Australians will back the Government’s protests to the last angry syllable. Kid-glove methods are wasted on the Japanese.” While agreeing that the guilty men of Japan must be brought to justice, the Daily Telegraph says vengeance alone is useless. “We would do little for the future peace of the Pacific if we failed to realise that Japanese bestiality is a form of perverted religion,” says the paper in an editorial. “All the tri-’s ! n the world will net help iin'r"

we can succeed in re-educating Japanese youth along entirely opposite lines. No matter how great the temptation, we shall not achieve this if we think more of vengeance than of correction. We cannot kill 70,000,000 Japanese. We have to live in the same ocean with them. We must therefore try to make them fit to live with. “To do that we have to weed out every shred of influence by the military caste, who hav'e been moulding the bodies and minds of a slave nation. The tendency will be to punish and forget. The Japanese war lord can take punishment and exploit forgetfulness. Our determination must be to eradicate the war lord and his creed and to remember long enough to see Japan converted to a peaceful neighbour in a prosperous Pacific.’’

The importance the Government attaches to proper expression of Australia’s external policy is such that there is no option to Dr. Evatt leaving for London forthwith. The Prime Minister, Mr J. B. Cliifley, in a statement on Dr. Evatt’s task, said: “Dr. Evatt has undertaken several very successful wartime missions abroad on behalf of the Government. His present mission will be of even greater importance because of the bcaiing it will have on the final peace settlement and on the security not only of Australia in the Pacific but of the whole world.”