NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 226, 21 June 1944, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

Striking proof of the alarm felt by the Japanese at the American penetration of the Mariannes has been provided by their efforts to frustrate the Saipan operations. On Saturday last a strong amphibious counter-attack by the enemy was repulsed, and it is now reported that within 48 hours of this engagement the Japanese vainly engaged' the Americans in the “greatest air battle of the Pacific war.” According to the latest news at the time of writing at least 300 enemy aeroplanes were destroyed, with small American naval loss, and in the meantime the invasion force on Saipan is steadily consolidating. This being the position, time should soon show whether the Japanese are prepared to take the further, more crucial risk of a major naval engagement in a final effort to turn back this menacing United Nations thrust into the heart of their north-western Pacific defence area. No doubt the enemy command is biding its time in the hope that weaknesses will he discovered in the American offensive plan; but so far Admiral Nimitz’s forces, in spite of their attenuation, are displaying remarkable strength and defensive power. Saipan is, aS it were, an advance bridgehead of the American invasion. If it is held and transformed into an offensive base, an enormous additional area of the Pacific, embracing nearly 1,000,000 square miles of ocean and island eastward and southward of the Mariannes, will be wrested from Japan and eventually become a trap for her isolated garrisons.

When the super-Fortresses struck their first blow at Japan the target for the night had evidently been most carefully selected. The Yawata iron works are the most important that Japan possesses. For many years their output of steel, pig iron and steel material has far exceeded that of any other producing unit. According to some, reference works, the Yawata installation is the oldest in Japan. It is, or was, a State undertaking. When during the war of 1914-18 British and American supplies of steel to Japan were drastically reduced the authorities at Tokio embarked on a programme of expansion, and the Yawata output was nearly trebled by 1930. In 1934 a great merger of Japanese iron and steel works was authorized, including the State establishments, and the Yawata plant became of even greater importance. By striking at this important industrial unit the American aircraft will have reduced the output of commodities of which the Japanese have always stood in sore need. Japan’s iron ore sources are very poor. The deposits are comparatively small and not of good grade. The need, of course, was never greater than it is at present, so that if the Yawata works have been badly damaged by ,the Allied air-raid the effects may be exceptionally serious for Japan.

Many people will doubtless be in sympathy with the protest voiced at a recent meeting of the Auckland District Council of Primary Production against the issue by State departments of "confidential” letters on matters of public importance and interest, which do not merit secrecj. Seemingly this has become a habit in the Department of Agriculture, and presumably it is a legacy of the regime instituted by Mr. J. G. Barclay, now High Commissioner in Australia, whose dislike, on occasions, of publicity was a feature of his term as Minister. Seemingly, too, the habit has become so ingrained as to lead to the dispatch of “confidential ’ letters about dog chains, disc ploughs and rural housing. But the department in question is hot the only offender; indeed, the war has been made an excuse in many quarters for the setting of a seal of secrecy upon official correspondence concerning matters which often could, and should, be frankly and publicly discussed. The obvious danger of this bureaucratic practice is that it could become a permanent and serious handicap to groups and individuals who have a duty to report to various sections of the public on their negotiations with administrative State departments. . There should be good and clearly-sufiicient reason for imposing a condition of secrecy upon communications between one circle of public service and another. If the long-established custom, respecting written confidences, is to be abused, it will tend to be despised and finally ignored—in which case a convention of great value, when rightly employed, will be destroyed.