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11. COMMENTS AND PROPOSALS REGARDING NEW ZEALAND POLICY UPON CERTAIN ISSUES OF THE JAPANESE PEACE SETTLEMENT This section records certain issues of the Japanese peace settlement as they present themselves to the New Zealand delegation which attended the Canberra Conference, and ■sets out the broad lines which it is proposed that the New Zealand delegation should follow in the forthcoming international peace discussions. While this outline of policy, as modified by any discussions in Parliament, would guide the delegation, it can naturally not be considered final, because tht views of other Pacific belligerents—and in particular the United States of America, whose part in the defeat of Japan and in the future control of Japan was and will be almost decisive—have not been definitively stated. 1. PRIMARY EMPHASIS ON SECURITY New Zealand's primary interest in the Japanese settlement is security. We have no substantial investments in Japan to safeguard, and no desire to extract large reparations payments. We do not wish to cripple Japan's economy needlessly, and we do not wish to go out of our way to injure Japanese susceptibilities. But the history of Japanese preparations, for aggression, the evidence that militarist projects won the almost unanimous support of Japanese politicians, businessmen, and workers (even though it is true that liberal elements existed in a most unpromising atmosphere), and the record of Japanese atrocities upon uniformed soldiers and defenceless civilians, make it imperative that our chief aim should be to support the imposition of the most rigorous security control upon Japan. 2. SECURITY AND DEMOCRACY The two chief problems involved in ensuring that Japan has no chance of renewing her aggression are — (a) To remove from Japan the physical means of aggression ; (b) To remove the Japanese will to aggression. It is not enough merely to disarm Japan physically. There could be no better guarantee of security than a spontaneous will to peace among Japanese policy-making circles. It is obvious, however, that in a defeated country such a condition must inevitably be hard to obtain, and even if obtained must be precarious. Moreover, although wise Allied policy towards Japan and the vitality of democracy elsewhere would have an important influence in strengthening democracy in Japan, we