JAP. CABINET GOES OUT

Grey River Argus, 6 October 1945, Page 5

JAP. CABINET GOES OUT

MACARTHUR’S COUP To Throttle Police Dictatorship (Rec. 10.50) TOKIO, Oct. 5 General MacArthur has precipated a Japanese crisis by demanding that the Home Minister, Iwao Yamazaki, be removed, because he (MacArthur) thought the police were gagging public opinion. As a result the Prime Minister and Cabinet have resigned. Some believe that Prince Konoye is the likely successor to Prince Higashikuni as Prime Minister. The resignation is regarded as evidence that the latter lacked the power to force the resignation of the so-called war-time Ministers, while still retaining office himself. (Rec. 11.30) NEW YORK, Oct. 5 The New York “Times’s” Tokio correspondent says: General MacArthur’s drastic order, so far as it affects the man in the street, is probably the most sweeping of all controls on Japan. It strikes at the root of the Imperial totalitarian system by dis-establishing the police arm whereby the system has enfored its will throughout towns, villages, and farms in Japan. Brigadier General El R. Thorpe, head of the Counter Intelligence section, said that the directive would effect the liberation of several thousand political prisoners, including large number of Communists and would lead to the dismissal of approximately five thousand police officials, including the entire special police. The Home Affairs Ministry was charged with the censorship ship, the supervision of public meetings and thought control. The American Army immediately began to take over many spots in the police system in order to safeguard records of political prisoners which might otherwise be destroyed and provide security for prisoners themselves. (Rec. 10.30) TOKIO. Oct. 5 Yamazaki, whose removal has been demanded by General MacArthur, had just been appointed head of a new committee to improve Japan’s police system. The Minister of Justice, Iwata said that just before General MacArthur’s order, his Department had not intended to comply with Japanese requests for the release of "political prisoners. He added that the Department would strictly control any Communist movement advocating a drastic change of Japan’s national policy or the abolition of Mikadoism. . ; Yamazaki evaded the interviewers Questions about more than three thousand political prisoners ordered to be released by October 10, claiming they were arrested before he came into office and were under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, Yamazaki said the Japanese thought the police were not as harsh as before the American occupation, said an Associated Press correspondent, but his description of their duties revealed that there was little change in the policy, which suppressed all anti-Government ideas. Yamazaki claimed that he .suppressed the news of Hirohito’s visit to Geneial MacArthur because he feared P .V resentment, but he admitted theie was no public reaction when the news was finally published. He added that although there was grumbling throughout the country oyer food shortages, there was no evidence o restlessness regarding the surrender or the occupation.