FUTURE OF JAPAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 6

FUTURE OF JAPAN

THE PROPOSED TERMS CRITICISM IN LONDON Abolition of the institution of Emperor, dethronement and exile of Hirohito, and the Japanese then to have " free elections ” as a preliminary to rewriting the Constitution of 1889 — these are the first items in an extraordinary list of terms to be imposed on Japan which the recent eightnations’ conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations at Hot Springs, Virginia, is reported to have agreed upon, writes O. M. Green in the London Observer. What is so remarkable is that a body of the character of the 1.P.R., regarded by most people as academic, and which has always emphasised that it exists only to exchange views and collect information, but never to propose any particular policy, should suddenly have come out with so drastic a list of proposals. The chairman of the British delegations was Sir Andrew McFadyean (who, it is fair to recall, insisted earlier in the conference that Japan must be enabled to export in order to exist), and among the other members were Sir Frederick Whyte and Mr G. E. Marden, a well-known Far East business man. as economic expert. No Animosity from Chinese The severity of these terms contrasts strongly with the earlier reported plea of the Indian and Chinese delegates for a “mild peace” with Japan, whatever were the Indian delegates’ motives, those of the Chinese were clearly in keeping with the Taoist maxim, “When peace is made after fighting there always remains a surplus of animosity. Therefore, the inspired man. when a creditor, does not exact his claim.” It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, the Chinese, for all their sufferings, evince no animosity toward the Japanese people, seeming rather to regard them as the victims of their military caste, as China herself has been in time past.

Of the other terms, some are obvious. The military caste must unquestionably be broken up, though to list a number of “ big business ” men as war criminals—notoriously as “ big business ” has stood in with the military for its own behoof—strikes one as a practical impossibility. Emperor Hiroliito

China should justly claim Manchuria and Formosa; America means to keep Japan’s mandated islands. Korea will regain her independence, though who will look after her until she can stand on her own feet is one of the Far East’s most awkward problems. But the I.P.R.'s proposal to abolish the institution of Emperor and to exile Hirohito will excite much controversy. There is no doubt that the present Emperor is naturally a liberal-minded man, who came to the throne full of ideas of becoming a genuinely constitutional monarch. One writer who knows Japan particularly well thinks that, on the day of Pearl Harbour, there was no more miserable man in the world than Hirohito.