MacArthur Opposes Japanese Migration South To Australia

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27384, 9 May 1950, Page 7

MacArthur Opposes Japanese Migration South To Australia

NZPA —Copyright SYDNEY, May 8. The Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, General MacArthur, told the first Australian press party to visit Japan since the war that he was opposed to Japanese migration southwards towards Australia. The interview was given on condition that nothing was published until the newspapermen returned to Australia. When told by members of the party at his headquarters in Tokio that there was uneasiness in Australia because of statements by some of his staff that Japan could survive only by migration southwards as far as New Guinea, General MacArthur said these fears were groundless. He added that Australia and America would not stand idly by while the Japanese returned unopposed over the bloody road from New Guinea to Tokio, along which they had so recently been driven back. He could well understand Australia's uneasiness, because the Japanese had driven to the Commonwealth doorstep, but fears of the Japanese return seemed somewhat exaggerated. In his view there would not be considerable Japanese migration southward, even if all barriers were removed. The Japanese had demonstrated that they did not make good colonists. When the ordinary Japanese colonist made some money he went back to his native district.

Told that Australians were puzzled by the view attributed to him that the Japanese had undergone a change of heart, and could be trusted not to go too far again, General MacArthur said that if that view was being attributed to him there had been a big misconception. He was not naive enough to believe that there had been any miraculous change of spirit which had transformed the hard-fighting Japanese Army of a few years back into so many sairits. General MacArthur said he believed Japan did not wish to make war again, but the view was based op hard, practical considerations and not on any simple belief in miracles. The Japanese had been given a most convincing lesson that war did not pay. They were not fools, and he felt they had learned this lesson. In any future war, no matter what side Japan was on, she would be destroyed, and the Japanese knew it On the other hand, a policy of neutrality could be very profitable to Japan—and the Japanese knew that, too.