UNEXCELLED SAVAGERY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 09, Issue 07, 18 September 1945, Page 4

UNEXCELLED SAVAGERY

THE Chinese have an ancient saying—'lf a man defrauds you once shame on him, but if he defrauds you twice—shame on you !' The point is obvious and the stories of unprecedented cruelty and barbarity as practised by the Japanese soldiery upon helpless prisoners and civilians in all theatres of the Pacific war make it clear that the words of General Wainwright, hero of Corrigedor, should be taken as a world slogan—"The Jap. must never be allowed to get on top again." The veneer of the smirking Japanese industrialist of the pre-war period can be quickly and conveniently dropped when it suits him. In the treacherous and total war which he initiated, the Japanese can become a veritable fiend. He is capable of descending to the lowest depths of sadism; of becoming beastial and treacherous to a degree ; and of instituting the most hideous code of studied torture which has ever decorated the sad annuals of human history. Today the world sees him beaten & whining for the first time in his arrogant history. Will not America forget Pearl Harbour; will not England forgive the invasion of Malaya—the plausible plea is from the Japanese spokesman, who still apparently harbours the hope that the Allied nations wiK bury the hatchet and speedily assist to restore the Imperial Empire to her eld status. Could anything be more theatrical or ridiculous in the face of what the world knows of Japanese methods during the fleeting years of her triumph. We, who have learnt of the wholesale murder of Australian prisoners of war, of the bloody road to the Thailand railway, of the death march of Bataan; of the cold-blooded butchery of tens of thousands of civilians, of legalised rape, rapine*, bloodshed and destruction, we would be faithless to future generations if we failed', now that we have the chance of disarming the monster and removing the danger to the Orient for ever.