GRAVE SITUATION

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22992, 8 September 1944, Page 5

GRAVE SITUATION

Future Of Japan Koiso Addresses Diet By Telegraph—N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright (11.30 p.m.) NEW YORK. Sept. 7. “We are now in the midst of a grave situation, upon the outcome of which depends the rise or fall of the Empire,” said General Kuniaki Koiso (Prime Minister) in an address to the Diet, broadcast by the Tokio official radio. “I believe that now is the time we must safeguard national policy. It is my earnest desire, with 100,000,000 countrymen, to hold fast to our faith, certainly victory, and with a mighty concentration of our total strength, in conjunction with the grand plans of our military forces which are poised resolutely for action to crush Britain and America, soon to co-ordinate thoroughly the administration stage of affairs to that end. The war m Greater East Asia is one on which the life and death of the Yamato race is staked. It is also a war to decide the destiny of a billion people in East Asia. “At the present stage, when enemy attacks against the homeland are likely to increase in frequency and scale —we might do well to consider the possibility of their landing on home soil —we must exhaust every move in our possession.” General Koiso added, that the time had come fox - Japan to turn from the defensive to the offensive. The Government had found it necessary to suspend all establishments and industrial activities which could not be converted into effective fighting power. The labour service and mobilisation of the people required that the existence of a single idle person should not be tolerated. It was urgently necessary to protect important industrial establishments. In addition to seeing that the aii' defence of the principal cities was further strengthened, it was also necessary to devise means to ensure effective defence positions that fully meet actual situations, besides dispersal of the people from the cities, which is steadily proceeding. Strengthening Home Defence General Koiso said that the Government recently made clear the necessity of arming the entire nation, and would see to it that concrete measures for strengthening the home defence structure were enforced. Japanese foreign policy aimed at further strengthening collaboration with Germany, which was continuing to fight with firm faith in ultimate victory. Japan was also mobilising her total resources in Greater East Asia.

General Koiso praised the Puppet Governments of Siam, Manchukuo, Burma and the Philippines, and also those followers who were conducting a life and death struggle for India’s independence. He announced the bringing down of an extraordinary War Appreciation Bill to meet the present grave situation.

Emperor Hirohito, in an Imperial rescript, claimed that Japanese forces overseas had fought bravely and energetically and, by smashing a formidable enemy everywhere, had greatly enhanced national prestige, but a further increase in the violence of the enemy’s resistance was seen daily. “There is, in addition to the urgency of the critical war situation, an opportunity fox- Japan to engineer a victorious settlement. At this stage you must all give the populace a lead. Throw yourselves closer together and wreck the inordinate ambitions of the enemy countries, thereby guarding and maintaining the prosperity of the Imperial Throne.” .