THE GENTLE JAPANESE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 69, 4 May 1943, Page 4

THE GENTLE JAPANESE

THE death roll in the massacre of the Chinese population of the Kiangsi province where certain of the American pilots landed after the bombing of Tokio in the early stages of the war is estimated to have been 500,000, according to a missionary, Father Vincent Smith, who escaped the carn-i age and fled to the hills. Here we have the phlegmatic terms of the cabled paragraph relayed from U.S.A. Itut nevertheless vouched for in all its utter Rightfulness by; an eyewitness who declares that the civilian mind could) not conceive the tortures inflicted by the Japanese fiends upon helpless women and children. Such tales of shocking barbarity make the massacre of Lidice in Yugoslavia pale into insignificance and yet the whole world was horrified at; the act. Why is it that this so-called Japanese reprisal upon the helpless civilian population of Kiangsi for the bombing of their sacred capital, should be delegated to a secondary position. Why is it? Simply because the victims happen to be a mere fraction of the teeming millions of China! That is the reason. But does this fact in any way detract from the enormity of the. crime, or the beastliness of its execution. Are not the Chinese our Allies human beings, with the; right to live and enjoy the fullness of life just as you and I? Are they not childrep of the Creator? Here then is one of the blackest crimes ever committed by a belligent pow;er. The systematic and cold blooded butchery of half a million people and yet it barely moves the press of the world to anything more than an incidental paragraph, which might easily be mistaken for propaganda. Look—here is something which we New Zealanders can take from the news We have now the clear-cut measure of our enemies—the 'gentle Japanese'—the chivalrous warriors of the Mikado. The Kiangsi massacre was not the act of battle-maddened

individuals, it was the act of an carrying: out systf tematically and mercilessly a war of brutal andd beastial extermination. Cannot we draw something from that. These blood thirsty murderers are our enemies! We may yet meet them face to face, though God forbid. But, by all the powers of commonsense let us come down to earth and gain a fuller sense of realisation. War is a bloody game at any time but to-day»we in the South Pacific face an evil which compared with Hitler's plans for the conquest of Europe, is an unspeakable monstrosity. The latest Chinese massacre should instead of leaving us coldly screwing up our brows and shrugging our shoulders, send us crying- to high heaven fo> vengeance and redoubling our efforts to meet and defeat the nation which when the day of reckoning comes can expect slight mercy in the face of its blood stained record in China and the of its occupation.