Press translations [Japan]. Editorial Series 0056, 1945-12-02.
Date2 December, 1945
RepositoryRauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
Call Numbereditorial-0225
Call NumberDS801 .S82
Persistent Identifier
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EDITORIAL SERIES: 56
ITEM 1 A Bad Dream at DAVAO - Yomiuri Hochi - 2 Dec 45 Translator: B. Ishibashi.
Summary:
I have recently returned home from DAVAO. I wish to state herein the things I experienced
there. The Japanese troops in the
PHILIPPINE Islands were poorly equipped and some of them were equipped with only bamboo
spears. No sooner did the rumor spread
that the Americans were coming than the Japanese forces fled to the mountains and
abandoned the Japanese civilians. In a word,
they had no fighting spirit. When the American Forces actually arrived, the divisional
commanders, their staffs and remaining
high Japanese officers retreated through the narrow jungle paths, accompanied by Korean
prostitutes. Such was the spectacle of
the depraved Japanese military that I saw in the PHILIPPINE Islands. Along jungle
paths fleeing in disorder were thousands of
Japanese troops and civilians. In addition to bombardment by the American air forces
severe rifle was received.
The cruelties committed by Japanese troops were unbelievably inhuman. Many innocent
Filipinos were slaughtered. Even some of
the Japanese civilians were threatened by bayonets and often stabbed to death and
robbed of what foodstuff they possessed. I
thought that the slaughter of our own people would never lead our country to victory.
Far from repenting for their misconduct,
these Japanese soldiers seemed to be self-satisfied. Tears ran down my checks as I
witnessed the rapid withdrawal of Japanese
soldiers resulting from an attack by only 500 Americans. After clearing out the Japanese,
the Americans soon built an airdrome
100 kilometers from DAVAO. It was then said that some reports of hard fighting by
Japanese troops at DAVAO had appeared in the
home papers. Of course, it is to be hoped that the Japanese had really fought bravely,
but, on the basis of what I actually
witnessed, I can only repudiate those reports. Many of them, without fighting, surrendered
voluntarily to the Americans, The
officers had a full supply of food while the common soldiers and Japanese civilians
were on the verge of starvation.
Once we had been received in American quarters, the sick could lie on clean beds
and were given injections which cost nearly
300 yen. From the hands of the former enemy, we were benevolently supplied with several
useful commodities such as, canteens,
blankets and clothes. In comparison to this, I can only stress that morality has completely
lost its significance in JAPAN.
Now, we are at home in our country. Not a few of us die because of the climate and
lack of clothing. The roof leaks
continuedly and the house is quite dirty. It is hoped that appropriate measures will
be taken.
ITEM 2 Japanese militarism and Our Common Sense - Mainichi Shimbun- 2 Dec 45. Translator:
K.
Nagatani.
Full Translation:
EDITORIAL SERIES: 56 (Continued)
ITEM 2 (Continued)
JAPAN has become a disarmed nation. If the Government grasps the significance of
this fact, it should not have established the
First and Second Demobilization Ministries. Acknowledging the fact that it requires
three years to complete demobilization of
Japanese servicemen, one bureau or section within the Cabinet should be sufficient
to handle the demobilization task. It is
unnecessary to appoint a minister for this task alone. However, in this connection,
the government's statement that the
Premier will assume the concurrent posts of First and Second Demobilization Minister,
appears to have calmed public opposition
Nevertheless, the people remain doubtful as to why the Government deemed it necessary
to establish two ministers for
demobilization, that is to say, for the remaining business of demobilization.
Although JAPAN has become a disarmed nation, her ideals should be different from
those entertained by other disarmed nations.
It is not JAPAN but Japanese militarism which has perished. In the event that JAPAN
is given an opportunity to be a military
power in the future, even then, the Japanese should not reconstruct the Army and Navy.
The principle that strength is
essential in order to fight aggression, is the premise of an outdated world order.
We must construct a new world order without
military power.
JAPAN should by no means return to the past and repeat her mistakes. Since the MEIJI
Restoration the ideal of JAPAN has been
to gain riches and power. Consequently, it may be natural that at a time when JAPAN
has lost both riches and power, the
Japanese Nation has also lost its prestige. That mental collapse of our people which
continued for a time after the surrender
is accounted for by the drugging effects of militaristic education's. It can not be
denied that the Japanese were affected by
an inferiority complex as regards western people, even though our people outwardly
appeared to possess prestige as one of the
great world powers. Our aggression against Western Powers was intended to demonstrate
JAPAE'S greatness before the world. This
childish, silly vanity is based upon our inferiority complex regarding the West. The
so-called "Japanese way of thinking"
which had been stressed these years was merely propaganda of Japanese militarism.
Our militarists were busily engaged in the
introduction of militarism from EUROPE, in armament races and meaningless competition
with the Western powers, and they
professed that JAPAN was not a militaristic nation. This egotistical, self-complacent
theory was the so-called "Japanism"
which the military clique and its cohorts inspired in our people during the war. Consequently
it was not surprising that
Japanese militarism was characterized by its utter lack of common sense and reason.
The defeat of JAPAN means the defeat of Japanese militarism which lacked common sense.
Our nation had been a race of people
with common sense, moral enough to refrain from being dragged into aggressive hostilities.
In this respect educators as well
as commentators should be held responsible and accused of having aided militarism.
We could not help laughing at the military clique because of its utter lack of common
sense. Their haughty, arrogant attitude
was a cause for our laughter. Therefore the more militaristic JAPAN became, the wider
a gap grew between the Nation and the
Military. It is up to the post war Japanese people to remove their inferiority complex
and to restore common sense in
politics.
ITEM 3 Signal for Re-opening The Peace Industries - Nippon Sangyo Keizai - 2 Dec 45.
Transactor: S.
Ota.
Full Translation:
It was revealed by Finance Minister OGASAWARA in his reply to the Diet
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EDITORIAL SERIES: 56 (Continued)
ITEM 3 (Continued)
that: 1. Food and other imports requested to Allied Headquarters is estimated to
total approximately 2,400,000,000 yen; 2. The
scheduled sum of collateral materials for these imports is about 3,000,000,000 yen
for this year and next. When compared with
the total sum of 3,[illegible]75,000,000 yen and 3,783,000,000 yen, respectively for export and import in
JAPAN Proper for 1937, it is clear that the above figures occupy the greatest importance
in the economics of our country.
Moreover, if compared with 1,298,000,000 yen and 1,944,000,000 yen for I944 or to
353,000,000 yen and 831,000,000 yen for the
earlier half of this year, respectively, it is unnecessary to repeat that our country
must make extraordinary efforts to
achieved a 2,765,000,000 yen export during the next year. Such a simple comparison
will be somewhat misleading because the
price level has been considerably raised during the war both in our country and abroad.
Despite the fact that complete
reconversion from war industries to peace time industries is made possible, if we
take into consideration such circumstances
as the lowering of production capacity and the supply of urgent commodities for domestic
use, it isn't an easy task to execute
the scheduled export production in return for indisponsable commodities such as food
which must be imported.
It was stated by Allied Headquarters that in view of the delay in resuming the manufacture
of consumer goods, General
MacARTHUR issued a second signal for immediate reconversion of industries. The factors
which hinder the reopening of peace
time industries are, of course, not few. In some cases reopening of production is
impossible regardless of desires, or, in
other cases, such circumstances exsist which prevent the desire for production. Some
of these may be inevitable and in other
cases there may be remedies. Often they talk about the "sabotage" by enterprises,
but, surely, there exist some other causes
which prevent productions.
We often stressed, without waiting for orders from the ALLIED POWERS, that active
Reacetime production must be reopened,
removing, if possible, a obstructions. To provide for this, all supervision of production,
distribution, and price must be
abolished except that over special basic materials. Moreover, the problem of indemnities
for munition enterprises must be
solved rapidly. As to the Supervision Law, the Government decided on its abolition.
Yet the positive actions of enterprises
are hindered by the pettiness of officials or by the officially created "Autonomous"
controls.
The official supervision during the war set up innumerable supervising organizations
on the basis of the Economic Supervision
Laws. Although these Supervision Laws were abolished after the war, many of the supervising
organizations still exist as in
war time with only their names altered. These organizations could not exert their
expected functions, but they succeeded in
stretching the controlling network on all sides. This resulted in the self-contented,
inefficient Control similar to that of
the officials Hence, even if the Supervision Laws have been abolished, as long as
these organizations remain, the same
controls are continued with substantially the same war time inertia. Moreover, officials
interfere with these organizations.
In some cases the existence of such organizations hinders the autonomous actions of
civilians, for some of them, especially
middle or small enterprises still depend upon such organizations or the government
offices. Therefore, these war time controls
exercised by these organizations should be wholly dissolved following the abolition
of the Supervision Laws.
If some autonomous organizations are to be established, they should not be merely
the reformed or camouflaged control
organizations of the past, but should be entirely renovated both in their forms and
character.
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EDITORIAL SERIES: 56 (Continued)
ITEM 3 (Continued)
The present control organizations or unions which involve the residue of war time
controls in their character should be
drastically reformed or abolished for the production of collateral materials, for
the import of foodstuff, and for the
reopening of production for domestic use.
DISTRIBUTION "X"
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