THE PEACE WITH JAPAN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 08, Issue 91, 20 July 1945, Page 4

THE PEACE WITH JAPAN

PEACE proposals for the conclusion of the war in the Pacific, allegedly emanating from America are today gaining prominence in the international press. The actual origin of the suggested terms is in all probability Tokyo itself, where the growing certainty of invasion has created something of a panic in the imperial realm of the Mikado. It is patent now to the world that the militaristic class has lost considerable cast in the face of the continued naval bombardment of Japan's major cities and the intensified air offensive which is fast reducing her capital to rubble. The definition of the suggested terms covering unconditional surrender have no official backing, but to those who have given the matter thought it is obvious that certain Japanese feelers in the direction of an armistice nave been made, and that the guiding thought behind it is to endeavour to protect Japan from a foreign invasion at any .price. Were th§ Allies to give even momentary consideration to such treating, it would be fatal to the establishment of a permanent peace in the Orient as far as Japanese are concerned. It would be a repetition of Versailles, and an open invitation for the rise of a Japanese; Hitler, keen and willing to stand on the shambles of the old Empire and to pledge the Nipponese race to a policy of avowed vengeance against the Occidental nations. The only way to bring home to the tradition-hardened Japanese populace the futility of war and of arrogant ambition is by giving them a taste of the medicine which they have so mercilessly meted out to the Koreans, the Chinese, the Malayans, Javanese and to all the island peoples over which they have had even temporary dominance. To strip Japan of her armed might; of her colonies; of heir convertable industries, and to leave her homeland untouched, is t<? court inevitable disaster. It was folly to halt the invasion of Germany in 1918, it would be fatal to leave Japan itself unscathed. The same monster which treacherously raised its head in 1941, when it deemed the opportunity favourable, would with redoubled fury, and ten-fold cunning threaten the very existence of the white races in a later decade or two. Such an action would be treated as a self-jijiposed sacred duty upon the burning conscience of the Japanese peoples and the only way it can be avoided is to utterly crush the national ambition to rule and to dominate.