“KID GLOVE” METHODS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25964, 3 October 1945, Page 4

“KID GLOVE” METHODS

TREATMENT OF JAPANESE SUPPORT FOR MacARTHUR’S POLICY (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 2. There has been a lot of criticism of the “kid glove” treatment of the Japanese, but General MacArthur’s methods of treating them were the best and had his full support, said the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-mar-shal L. M. Isitt, in an address to the Wellington Rotary Club to-day on the Japanese surrender, at which he represented New Zealand. It was very hard, he said, to be anything but reasonable to a people who were docile and extremely anxious to assist the occupation forces in every possible way. When a Japanese had done everything asked of him and bowed from the waist down, it simply was not Anglo-Saxon to clout him with a club. They just could not bully a man in those circumstances.

General MacArthur did not like the Japanese, but was doing a good job with his present methods of treating them Air Vice-marshal Isitt continued. In spite of their keenness to help, the Japanese were a dangerous people. They were hard to understand, even by people who had lived a lifetime with them. The Japanese )Jlindly followed the principles laid down by their leaders. The leaders should be punished and the people given new principles to live by.