He Warned Us But We Took No Notice

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 333, 9 November 1945, Page 7

He Warned Us But We Took No Notice

when he returns to his own country whatever his address has been in his absence. We are sure therefore that James Bertram did not expect the band to turn out when he returned the other day from Tokyo; but some of us remembered that it was a prophet who had returned, and if we did not call for the band it was because we had other plans for his reception. We did not forget that he had warned us before he went away that Japan. was plotting our destruction; and had even warned Parliament in a private session, But prophets of doom are not popular. He was not, then; but he is one of the few people in New Zealand now entitled to adopt a "Serve you right" attitude. He does not do that, but is as modest and diffident as whén he went away, though he was not many months out of New Zealand before he was a prisoner in Hong Kong, and not many months in Hong Kong before he was marked for "special treatment" and sent to one of the toughest camps in Tokyo. That he is still alive is chiefly because there was not close enough co-operation between the civil and military authorities in Japan to make it certain that whoever was "marked" by one group would be removed by the other. otis prophet expects honour However, we want our readers to get the story from his typewriter and not from ours. He has agreed to write a series of articles for The Listener in which he will look both backwards and forwards. We shall not spoil the effect ~ rigid by presenting him at secondand. "The Truth Should be Told" But it may be necessary to .remind some of our readers that he is a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, was born in

Auckland and educated at Waitaki Boys’ High School and Auckland University College, and at Oxford took a first in English and Modern Languages. After Oxford came some journalistic experience with The Times, London. Then a: Rhodes Fellowship enabled him to go to China to spend a year studying Chinese at a Chinese University and the social conditions of China in the country itself. When we asked him how the Japanese got hold of him when we thought he was in Chungking he explained that he had caught typhoid, fever in Hong Kong and been in hospital there for two months. He was just out of hospital when the war broke, joined the Hong Kong Volunteers, and fought through the brief campaign until the surrender. "Did the Japanese know who you were?"

"No, I don’t think so. When I was taken prisoner they made all sorts of investigations and I was interrogated, but they never quite caught up on the facts." It was disturbing, he went on, that the Japanese were always able to find both civilian and army co-operators. "I don’t know how much of that story will be told, and, at the moment, I don’t feel inclined to enlarge on it. But the truth should be told some day."

Conditions in Tokyo : Bertram was in Hong Kong for two years before he was sent to Tokyo, where, he says, conditions were tough rather than horrible. The chief trouble was the complete lack of medical supplies and equipment to deal with malnutrition diseases. People were dying all the time. Camp conditions were very strict of course, but those who were sent out in labour gangs, as he was, contrived to steal enough food to keep going. "Did the Japanese know. your name?" "Yes, I kept my surname, but did not ‘use my Christian name.’ "You returned through Manila. What were the conditions there? Have the Filipinos already taken control?" "It is military control to a very large extent, but the Filipinos are having a great time. They are making hay while the sun shines and while the American troops are there. The town was badly knocked about when the Americans fought their way through it, and the Japanese also destroyed a good deal of t" The Communists in China "Ts the situation in China between the Government and the Communists serious?" "T think it might be. We had Chinese working with us and rhy best contacts were members of crews of ships on which we worked, loading and unloading. The present position is something like that in the Balkans and Eastern Europevery unsettled. I am inclined to think the Communists will be manoeuvred right out." "It astonished us in New Zealand to hear the term ‘war lord’ used recently of China. We thought they had all disappeared." . "In North China there have been several war lords right through the conflict, but they have been looking after their own provinces." . "Do you think that any kind of democracy is possible in China?" "Yes, in the north, The Communists have limited themselves to about a third of the posts, so that there is a real basis for the election of a popular government. The Chinese'can work a democracy; the Japanese can not." "How long will it be before the Chinese can interest themselves in any problems but their own?" "All I can say is that China is in for a few rough years and will have to give all her attention to her own affairs for some time. She will look for, Russian support in the North and will probably get it." "Will Russia surrender Korea?" "What the Russians want most is control of the railways and the ports. This they are getting. And by the way, if there is ever a Chinese Navy again, it will be a Russian model."