MORAL REARMAMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27112, 21 June 1949, Page 4

MORAL REARMAMENT

ENTHUSIASTIC SUPPORT IN JAPAN

WORLD UNITY ENVISAGED PA WELLINGTON, June 20. Tetsu Katayama, leader of the Social Democrat Party of Japan and ’ Japan’s first Prime Minister after the new constitution of 1947. invited Dr Buchman at the recent Moral Rear- . mament Assembly to take a Moral Rearmament task force to Japan. Re- . ports of the assembly, including Kata-■-yama’s speech, jiave been received by I -Moral Rearmament representatives in New Zealand. ■Katayama spoke particularly to the’ representatives of Burma, Indonesia, ‘lndia, Malaya and Australia. He said: '.“I would like to take this opportunity of asking forgiveness for.the great ' crime committed by us against our neighbours, especially the peoples of ■ the East. We are fighting to build a new Japan—a peace-loving and democratic nation. Japan/for years was /'dominated by the militarists, but we '■hre fighting to build a nation democratic in politics, economics and its social daily life. Such a democracy can- ' hot be built on materialism. In moral /rearmament I see something that will / unite the world because it builds on firm moral standards.” Another Japanese representative, Shinso Takahashi. executive editor of the Tokio newspaper Mainichi, said a series of articles on moral rearmament ■.published in his newspaper, which had a circulation of 3,000,000, had produced .such a response from the people that • the newspaper had come to believe that moral rearmament “must be the answer to Japan’s problems.” Eighteen Japanese representatives attended the assembly.