Press translations [Japan]. Editorial Series 0073, 1945-12-08.

Full translation:

All of defeated JAPAN is now filled with unparalleled wretchedness. If foreigners observe the shameless attempts of Japanese to live on the sacrifices of others, compared with their former boast that JAPAN is a chosen country, they must be very surprised by the gaps between our present conduct and the former pride of the Japanese.

Indeed, morality has now forsaken JAPAN. Japanese dispute among themselves shamelessly. Most abominable are their attempts to shift responsibility upon others. General MINAMI, whom Allied Headquarters ordered the government to arrest, is reported to have said to an American journalist that he had never dreamed that he was a war criminal. He further stated that the responsibility for the war should be blamed, not upon the military leaders, but upon the whole nation. Is this the utterance of one who occupies the highest position in the army? The innocent people are not at all connected with what is called war responsibility. They were nisguided by the atrocious war loaders, suffered every hardship, yet cherished the futile hope of victory. When they wore disillusioned, the war leaders became the target of their indignation, hatred, and disgust. Some people say that the defeat is partly due to the indiscretion of the people. This is true. But we believe that responsibility for the war must be distinguished from responsibility for the defeat.

On 25 November, General MacARTHUR suddenly ordered the Japanese government to suspend the payment of pensions and retirement allowances to soldiers on and after 2 February of next year. The Public Relations' Office announced that it was aggressive militarism that led JAPAN into its present miserable plight, and therefore a double burden should not be imposed upon the people to stabilize the lives of the supporters of this militarism. Of course, some difference of viewpoint regarding Japanese soldiers may he inevitable between Americans and ourselves. But we can not deny that this directive is reasonable. It settled once and for all whether the war should be attributed to them or to the people at large.

The total amount of pensions and retirement allowances for servicemen paid until the end of September is 3,246,000,000 yen, which includes 1,500,000,000 yen for the Army and 2,240,000,000 yen for the Navy. In addition, the total to be paid to servicemen who will be demobilized in the future is reported to amount to 1,500,000,000 yen. Therefore, the average share of the burden for everybody is 20 yen. Such a sum may not be too much considering present economic circumstances. But

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if we think of tomorrow, when we must witness 10,000,000 starving people and the same number of unemployed, and if we consider the security of public finance, we can easily understand the important significance of that directive.

People have at times criticized the evil influence of the pension system. We do not want to repeat it now. Suffice it to say that the directive at last settled the war responsibility issue. Soldiers must think of General HONJO, who killed himself by his sword, leaving a will resigning his peerage, when he received the same order on the same day as General MINAMI. At the same time, we also must reflect upon ourselves and strive to strengthen our virtue.

Summary:

Mr. JITTORA*, the highest American authority on GERMANY, contributed his report on the lives of Germans to "The American Mercury". It suggests to us many points which we must consider.

GERNANY, under the occupation of the Allied Forces, is, generally speaking, the same as our country. The cities are ruined, black market dealings are rampant in cities and provinces, and many ex-soldiers have carried away munitions. Germans have no racial spirit or esprit de corps any more, and are extremely unpleasant towards Americans. JITTORA* wrote rather indignantly that there are few Germans who are earnestly trying to rebuild GERMANY. Are these facts none of our concern? We are in the same situation as the Germans. We are a people, who understand the existence of a state but not a society, and have found that conditions are chaotic when the state breaks down. But when viewed externally, JAPAN seems more advanced than GERMANY in her efforts to rebuild a democratic state. Yet, JAPAN does not recognize thoroughly that she has now fallen to the status of a fourth-class Nation. The Allied Forces permit us a unified government, and, in this regard, we, the Japanese, are certainly happier than the Germans. But because of this, we are unable to realize the extent of our destruction; hence, we live in an illusion of conceit, a life more unfortunate than that of the Germans.

It is true that the defeated should be miserable, but it is still more miserable that they neither recognize their situation nor cast away their conceit. We are afraid lest we might miss the chance for self - criticism, and bring about the reconstruction of JAPAN in vain.

Extracts:

We advise the Finance Minister to look at the directives which ordered the imposition of a war profits tax and a capital levy, and to consider the true meaning of them, namely the democratization of the economy of this country. His statements which have been recently disclosed seem to our great regret to be considerably away from this trend. He suggested in his statement an increase in the rates of indirect taxes, excises and general taxes. A period of great unemployment and serious deflation

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is approaching. The huge national debt weighs upon greatly. The government should take advantage of this situation and sweep away those financial obstacles at once. If the government should content itself with only a temporary measure, the reform of the financial system which underlies the whole reconstruction of the country would be ineffectual.

Full translation:

It is only as a last resort that even a non-democratic country uses force to control freedom of the will of the nation. Therefore, it goes without saying, that a democratic state which has regard for liberty should aboid this to its utmost. However, when the nation is confronted with failure because of dependence on the spontaneous will of the people, it is natural that it should take this last resort. If the nation fails to carry out such measures under the guise of liberty or democracy, the nation inevitably will be ruined. That is the reason why the law of conscription was formulated, and the National mobilization Law was established in a democratic state in war time when volunteers alone did not satisfy manpower requirements.

The present condition of the lack of coal in JAPAN is more of a crisis than the war. We are afraid that the Government is not cognizant of the situation. Notwithstanding the fact that 60,000 or 70,000 laborers must be sent to coal mines by the end of this year, up to the present only one-tenth of them have begun working at coal mines as a result of appeal. It is obvious that this will be a serious hindrance to the transportation of food under existing circumstances.

It is needless to say that the Government should, without hesitation, improve all conditions in regard to wages, food and clothes, and should provide all facilities and materials for increasing the number of workers. If the Government merely supports a temporizing measure to meet the present situation, the necessary number of workers will not be obtained. Moreover, as the Social Democratic Party insisted, it is also important for the Government to make colliers form a labor union in order to unite them in their work. We do not consider all these measures to be essential but the Government ought to make certain types of work compulsory soon if the Government is still hopeful of securing laborers.

A day's delay is nothing but wasted time. A government which can not make up its mind under the present circumstances can not understand what liberty or democracy is.

Summary:

A poster entitled "Freedom and Selfishness", has been put up at KANDA Station. This is far more effective than those numerous posters which the railway authorities have used so far. In fact, to my mind, many of the people are misinterpreting freedom for selfishness. The above poster not only asks the people to reflect on this, but also makes

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clear that true freedom can not be attained without friendly apirit. The sentences, written in it, are short, but I think that therein is a thought fully worthy of attention. Where there is no friendship, there is no freedom. As we know, fraternity was taken up as a slogan of the French Revolution, as well as freedom and equality. LASKI, the chairman of the executive committee of the English Labor Party, explains in his latest writings "Faith, Reason and Civilization" that altruistic actions of civilians my secure freedom. The more they exercise this freedom, the greater the extent of freedom they will have. On the contrary, it can be concluded that when all of them act selfishly the extent of freedom, they enjoy will become proportionately less. In a word, selfishness will put an end to freedom.

Meanwhile, Mr. HIRANO, Gitaro emphasized that the projected reformed constitution should include some items relating to the social order which is one of the requisites, of our Nation's recovery. I think it is a good opinion. No freedom would be enjoyed if social order were not maintained. Then, there would be nothing but disorder and confusion. After all, it would come to the point that everyone would consider freedom as something extremely inconvenient. Actually, examples of this are found everywhere in our country.

Those who wish to enjoy freedom must first learn the need of social solidarity and mutual aid, and should live in accordance with a well organized social order. Selfishness will put an end to freedom and disorder in social life.

Summary:

The number of war criminal suspects is increasing day by day and now totals 218 persons. All of them need not necessarily be adjudged guilty, as their accusation as "suspects" implies, but, looking at this list, the feeling is accentuated that their fate is unpredictable. At any rate, all those influential persons who have been so far prominent champions of our country, are now to be isolated completely from our national and social life. And it will inevitably force our country to make drastic changes in the fields of politics, economics and culture.

SHIDEHARA, in his reply to an interpellation during the Diet session, stated that the people were not responsible for the war and that ministers should assume full responsibility for its actual administration, executed in the name of the Emperor.

In that case, there are many more persons who acted in intermediate roles, between the Emperor and statesmen, and they, too, should share the responsibility of the past and of the war. Before the orders of the Allied Powers can be issued, they should all, without delay, punish themselves and ostracize themselves from society. Particularly is it necessary to wipe out those who, without any real conviction to oppose the opinions or the views of the world, quickly fawned upon the powerful and were engaged in silencing opposite parties. The result was maladministration and destruction of the Nation's life. Yet, there may be some criminals among the "small fry" who are now being overlooked by the Allied Powers.

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