THOUGHT PROSCRIBED

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

THOUGHT PROSCRIBED

Japanese Methods :: Rigid Suppression

(William Henry Chamberlain.)

THOUGHT OF a dissident leftwing character, always suspect in Japan, has now been almost completely proscribed. Hundreds of supposedly dangercus thinkers, including a high proportion of university professors, wi iters and publicists, have been arrested and are being held in prison. Almost every day brings the announcement of some new mean devised by the ever vigilant police to check the infiltration of ideas which might undermine the war morale of the it bar ecentlv been reported that officials, to whom the Japanese press has given the picturesque and suggestive name cf " Thought Hawks," will be stationed in various large cities of Europe and America, in order to watch radicals who may be sending undesirable literature to Japan. It is the contention of the police that American Communists have been in active communication not only with the few Japanese Communists who are out of gaol, but also with persons of radical and liberal sympathies. “ Thought hawks" have already been posted in Harbin, Peking and Shanghai. A close surveillance is maintained over books, magazines, and newspapers which are sent from other countries to Japan. It Vis a general experience of foreign visitors to Japan that customs examiners are stricter with books and with magazines than with any other form of suspected contraband. Confiscations of objectionable magazines and newspapers in the mails are frequent and a milder form of censorship is to apply the shears and cut out offending pages. Control over Japanese publications is naturally still stricter. Even moderate and widely-read monthly magazines, such as the Chua Koron and Kaizo, suffer many eliminations at the hands of the censor. What happens to more definitely leftwing journals Is evident from the fate of a magazine called Jiyu (Freedom), which was edited by the young Count Harumasa Ito. It started about a year ago and endeavoured to camouflage its programme of social criticism by quoting a number of liberal precepts laid down by the Emperor Meiji at the time of the opening up of Japan to Contact With the Outside World. This method, however, was not effective; pages repeatedly had to be removed from the magazine before publication. A recent issue was totally banned; and the young Count Ito, finding that most of his contributors were in gaol, saw no alternative except to discontinue publication. At the same time a sort of official boycott is being enforced against the writings of persons *re suspected of leftist views.

Typical of the present policy of repression against individuals who are out of favour because of their views was the recent police order to Baroness Shidzue Ishimoto, well-known In America as a lecturer and the author of the autobiographical work, " Facing Two Ways,” to stop the birthcontrol clinic which she has been carrying on for some years. Apart from repressive measures the Government has Itself entered the propaganda lists by promoting a huge “ Thought Exhibition" in one of the large department stores. From a popular standpoint the exhibition was unmistakably a success; it attracted many thousands of visitors every day during the three weeks when it was held. Perhaps the most striking feature of the exhibition was a huge map of the world, in which present-day ideological conflicts were illustrated with differing colours and neon lights, which were periodically turned on and off. Japan. Germany, and Italy were shown as constituting one ideological bloc, while the Soviet Union, France, Czechoslayakia, Loyalist Spain and Kuomintang China were depicted as making up a sinister “ Red front.” America and Great Britain were given the rating of neutrals. Two other exhibits which attracted a good deal of attention from the huge throngs of visitors were a vivid depiction of the dangers of foreign espionage and a contrasted picture of the "right” and "wrong” kinds of young men. Foreign spies, comical figures with monocles and walrus moustaches, were shown coaxing military secrets out of unsuspecting Japanese girl dancing partners, listening in to the conversations of equally unsuspecting Japanese train passengers, going about with concealed cameras under their coats, blowing up munitions factories. This, one fears, may stimulate an already too prevalent suspicion of the foreigners within their midst on the part of the Japanese. A primary reason for the present intensified drive against " Dangerous Thoughts" (this phrase, incidentally, was coined bv a Japanese bureaucrat) is the state of war with China, with the consequent tension and desire to suppress any ideas and information that might dampen popular enthusiasm. A secondary reason is the closer contact with Germany and Italy which is a natural result of the anti-Communist pact. Anti-Semitism, hitherto unknown in Japan, is beginning to find expression here and there as a result of National Socialist influence. The exhibition also contained some :ng references to Freemasonry. And the Rotary International barely escaped being pilloried as a subversive internationalist organisation, thanks to the representations of some Japane s • Rotarians.