Evening star., 1942-07-30
Truth About Jupun

TIUIU GIle SuIlOdhcO EdSI AlIlCdIl
port of Lourenco Marques comes a
food of first-hand testimony on con-
ditions in Japan since the veil Of
complete censorship closed down
after Pearl Harbor. Hundreds of
Americans interned In Japan, in
cluding trained observers and long
term residents, are at last free to
give us their views and impressions.
The result is highly interesting and
valuable symposium similar to that
afforded last spring, when the Amer
leans interned in Axis-dominated
Europe reached neutral Lisbon,
homeWard bound.
This mass of inside information"
about wartime Japan, though i'm
portant and informative, contains
little that is genuinely new. The
basic picture conforms closely with
that already given by qualified stu
dents of Japan during recent months.
The most significant additions to our
knowledge concern fresh sidelights
on japanese popular reactions to the
war and last-minute official maneu-
vers which brought it about
There seems to be little doubt that
the blow at Pearl Harbor, which pre-
cipitated war with the United States,
was secretly prepared and delivered
by the group of military leaders who
have been consolidating their grip
on the japanese state for several
years. These ruthless militarists,
with their boundless ambitions, have
had the active backing of fanatical
patriotic societies, together with GER
tain civilian officials who favor a
pronounced form of state socialism.
These theories, infused with mystic
ism, aim at theocratic totalitarian
order under the technical sway of a
divine Emperor. To large extent,
this movement is a reaction from the
Westernizing trend which set in
when Japan emerged from her iso-
lation some eighty years ago. 1t is
thus no mere Nazi or Fascist i'm
portation, but an attempted return
to the despotic, hly-regimented
society that prevailed in Japan from
the most ancient times.
Indeed, beneath a deceptive veneer
Of Westernization, the ancestral spirit
of Japan has lived on, basically
little altered. The chief opposition
to this militant reaction has come
from the small educated class which
knew the outer world. Those rela-
lively few diplomats, businessmen,
and scholars have been terrorized,
imprisoned, or aSsasSinated. The
mass of the people, traditionally do
cile and intensely patriotic, have
obeyed their war lords with stolid
unanimity. At the first shock of
war, the city population seems to
have been bit apprehensive at the
challenge flung down to America
and Britain, but the astounding VIC
tories gained in the early months Of
the war appear to have reassured
them.
The latent savagery which turks
behind the elaborate veneer of for
malized courtesy has revealed itself
in tho u,i1d oroicc of 1,,ef opI cr,,o1fx,
indulged in by japanese troops in
the hour of victory on several notable
occasions. 1t is equally shown in the
treatment of prisoners by individual
policemen and officials. Yet many
of the atrocities reported seem to be
due to cold-blooded policy. The OBJ
ject has been to humiliate and dis
credit Westerners throughout the
Orient.
Those deliberate outrages form the
blacklist page of black record which
shows the true nature of Japan's
present rulers. There is no evidence
that these ruthless policies have ex-
cited repugnance or genuine oppo-
sition among the japanese people
Nothing short of bitter disillusion-
ment, due to crushing defeats by
land, sea and air, will weaken the
grip of the war lords over their
countrymen,