The Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1945. Japan and Her Emperor

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 191, 14 August 1945, Page 4

The Times TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1945. Japan and Her Emperor

The answer as to whether or not the Emperor can be held responsible for Japan’s crimes, as given by the best-informed students of Japanese history and politics, is that the Emperor himself cannot be held personally culpable for policies imposed by the powerful militarist and industrial groups who are the real masters of Japan.

Emperor worship is the centre of the political system of the Japanese nation. By it the whole national and religious life of the people has been integrated to serve the purposes of the ruling caste. The fiction that the Emperor personally guards the destiny and security of all the Nipponese race has been ingrained in the minds of the people for perhaps two thousands years. It cannot be swept away overnight, but it can be turned to good uses just as the militarists used it for evil ends.

It was the Emperor’s orders that set the armies of Japan forth on their campaign of terror and conquest throughout Asia and flashed the message to launch the attack on Pearl Harbour. Only the Emperor’s orders will compel the Japanese everywhere to laydown their arms and cease that fanatical resistance which has, and still may, cost the lives of numberless Allied fighting men. The first prerogative that the Emperor must exercise is to order the surrender of his armies and navies everywhee. If that is done, then it will be the signal to the Japanese nation that the militarists have been overthrown. Then it will be for the Allies to take such steps that never again will the authority of the Emperor be used to direct the Japanese people into war-making activities. The proof of the genuineness of the Japanese offer to surrender should, therefore, not bo long in forthcoming. If it is not, then it must be regarded as an oriental trick, and the war will go on. The Empei’or has certainly good reason for assuming that he has been criminally deceived by those who directed him. He was assured by his military chiefs that the “China incident” would be settled in six months, and he has almost certainly lived for years in an atmosphere of intrigue and deception. He cannot escape entirely the responsibility for the policy that brought Japan into alliance with the Axis and launched the nation treacherously into a war that has brought a once great Power to disaster. Nevertheless, allowance must be made for the facts of history and for the gulf that separates the political mind of the Japanese from that of the Western democracies. Historically, the Emperor was for hundreds of years a prisoner of the Shogunate, a group of feudal lords who determined his every action while keeping alive the legend of his divine powers. The westernisation of Japanese industry and army and navy merely shifted the domination from that of'the feudal barons to that of the industrialists and militarists.

Whether the Emperor survives or not, the future of the Japanese nation for many decades, if not centuries, will be determined by the terms the Allied Powers have laid down. The Potsdam ultimatum clearly stated the terms upon which Japan could have peace. This means the end of the Japanese Empire overseas, but it does not mean the end of the Japanese as a nation. Within the islands of their homeland they can work out their destinies so long- as they use their talents, not entirely despicable, in the ways of peace. All militarist power is to be destroyed, though, and the Allies will establish areas of control that will ensure that militarism does not again raise its head. Japan Will not disappear from the industrial world, and other nations must in due course be prepared to resume trade that will enable these island people to work and live a peaceful existence. Japan will be stripped of all the Pacific and Asiatic territories she seized since the first world war of 1914. China will be liberated, and the great republic will be free to work out her political destiny. According to the Cairo declaration, made by Britain, the United States and China, Formosa and Manchuria ai’e to be restored to China. Whether Russia’s entry into the war against Japan will result in the Cairo decisions being revised, remains to be seen. Korea, since the end of the last century under Japanese domination, will presumably achieve independence. Probably before these lines have been read the world will have the final word that the war has really ended. For the prisoners who still languish in grim compounds behind Japanese guards, the hour of greatest rejoicing will have come.