GRAVE SITUATION

Waikato Times, Volume 195, Issue 22448, 8 September 1944, Page 4

GRAVE SITUATION

VITAL TO JAPANESE “NOW IS THE TIME” STATEMENT BY PREMIER (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright NEW YORK, Sept. 7 “We are now amidst a grave situation, upon the outcome of which depends the rise or fall of the Empire,” said General Koiso, Japanese Prime Minister, in an address to the Diet, broadcast by the Tokio official radio. “I believe now is the time we must safeguard national policy. “It is my earnest desire, with 100,000,000 countrymen, to hold fast tc our faith in the certainty of victory and, with a mighty concentra-

tion of our total strength, in conjunction with the grand plans of our military forces, which are poised resolutely for action to crush the British and Americans soon, to co-ordin-ate thoroughly the administration of State affairs to that end. “The war in Greater East Asia is one on which the life or death of the race is staked. It is also a war to decide the destiny of a billion people in East Asia. “At the present stage,” Koiso continued, “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 our home soil—we must exhaust every move in our possession.” From Defensive to Offensive Koiso added that the time had come for 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. Labour service and the 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 air defences of the principal cities were further strengthened, said Koiso. It was also necessary to devise means to ensure effective defence positions that would fully meet actual situations, besides the dispersal of people from the cities, which was steadily proceeding. He said the Government recently made clear the necessity for arming the entire nation and would see concrete measures for strengthening the home defence structure enforced. Japan’s foreign policy was aimed at further strengthening collaboration with Germany, which was continuing .to fig.’it with firm faith in ultimate victory, and also at mobilising the total resources of Greater East Asia. 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 that he was bringing down an extraordinary war appropriation bill to meet the present grave situation. Message from Emperor Emperor Hirohito, in an Imperial Rescript, claimed that the Japanese forces overseas had fought bravely and energetically and, by smashing the formidable enemy everywhere, had greatly enhanced the national prestige. However, he said, a further increase in the violence of the enemy’s resistance was seen every day. “There is, in addition to the urgency of the critical war situation,” Hirohito added, “an opportunity for Japan to engineer a victorious settlement. At this stage you must all give the populace a lead and throw yourselves closer together to wreck the inordinate ambitions of enemy countries and thereby guard and maintain the prosperity of the Imperial Throne.” Another Minister frankly said that, apart from local successes in the first six months of the war, the situation was unfavourable, and further attacks were expected. Japanese losses* he said, must not be underestimated.