THE ARMY WILL SAVE JAPAN.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 October 1925, Page 4

THE ARMY WILL SAVE JAPAN.

( Hugh Ilyas in "Daily Mail”) On a line spring morning as I walked to my office in Tokyo I suddenly t bought l was ill and was about to 10! lapse on the pavemet. But 111 a second flash f realised that it was iml I Inn the street was wobbling. Instinctively I got into the middle of the road, noting the swaying houses and making an extraordinary rapid calculation of how far they were likely K> ('all. [ll a moment the street was tilled with people from the shops and olliees around, all gazing at the slinking walls and making the same mental (all-illation as mysell. The shock was tint a. single up-and-down movement and it did tin damage worth speaking of. beyond shaking down a lot of plaster and one or two dilapidated houses. Most buildings ran stand one shake. It a second shock had come while they were still quivering the weaker structures would have reeled down by scores. Last. Saturday’s catastrophe consisted of six and a half minutes of sharp up-and-down shocks. To describe the elicit on buildings, the only handy comparison 1 i-an think of is that ol a terrier shaking a rat. When I reai lird my ofliee I found a lot of plaster down, hut nothing else wrong. Tokyo 1 bought itself hardened to earthquakes ill those (lays, and we all took it very coolly. “Your farewell earthquake.” said the .Japanese manager in the same voice as he would have said "’lour farewell spree.” An earthquake itself muses little damage in a country like Japan. Ml'.eie the houses, lightly built of wood, with In> plaster to fall or chimneys to crash, are almost earthquake prool. Rut it lets loose the most violent ol natural forces, water and tire, in their most destructive forms. The really murderous part ol an earthquake is the tidal wave which sweeps through the low-lying riverside districts, smashing houses like matchboxes, si milling people with its violence. and drowning them by districts. And after water, fire. Every house in Tokyo has electric liglii and many have gas tires. Fused wiles and torn gaspipes start tires in a hundred places at once, and the wooden houses, dried lill their boards cml in tbe Munincr beat, blaze like tinder. Tbe earthquake has torn up the water mains and the firemen are helpless. By hard experience the Japanese have become adepts in the art of sloping fires by tearing down houses. The army 0111ployed this method to stop the fires of Tokyo. The army will save Japan. When every other instrument was broken in its in mils, the Japanese Government had si ill the army. It had its own transport, its ample medical supplies, and its own commissariat. It is intelligently otlirerod and manned, largely by tanners' sons. Next to Tommy Atkins, the Japanese Tommy. liTierosan. is the mo-l goiiil-nat ni'eil, obliging fellow in the world. Fur three days various provincial divisions have been converging on Tokyo, carrying medicine, dnelors, organisation, and disciplined man-power. Hungry folk will loot, no doubl, but the Japanese army is in control now. and it is safe tu (iiseanl nine-tent lis of the lurid stories which are reaching us from a> IdresM-s other than Tokyo. Belief i- lining organised and order enforced. And I predict I hat. sooner than we think possible, the Japanese will rebuild their capital and its port and will resume the ordered current ol their life, for they possess two qualities <.f supreme value in a crisis like the present organising capacity and discipline.