The Rising Sun
Stridently from General McArthur and persistently from the American Press comes the assertion that the Japanese are turning to democratic ways and earning their right to free co-operation with the United States. In season and out of season the Australians urge upon the world the need for an early peace treaty, and for the continued control of Japan after that treaty has been signed. The right season is drawing nearer. The Pacific peace conference is not yet clearly in sight, but it is likely that there will be a preliminary consultation of Commonwealth countries, probably in August and possibly at Canberra ; and Mr. Bevin made it clear at Margate.that, in his opinion, the practice followed in the making of the European treaties is not appropriate to the Pacific, and that all countries which fought against Japan wlth substantial forces should take part in the drafting. As to the Russians, they are behaving in the manner appropriate to people who have nothing to lose and a great deal to gain by a policy of effrontery and obstruction. General Derevyanko has already shocked the Allied Council in Tokyo with a sweeping aiticisin of the Allied administration and accusations of sabotage by Japanese industrialists, and a Moscow broadcast has indicated that there will be a Russian claim for reparations—and out of current production at that. Well' in the background are the Japanese, studiously giving offence to nobody. The new Govern- ment, completed last Saturday, is a coalition of Democrats and the People's Co-operative Party, led by a Mr. Katayama, who favours excess only in caution. Of a genuine abandonment of feudal and rigidly authoritarian ideas there is no evidence whatever. Those whose innocence requires them to accept the truth, or relevance, of Mr. Katayama's admiration for British Fabian Socialism, and the Emperor's revelation that the idea of democracy is found in the old teachings and practices of Japan, must do so. But others, with the Australians and those Americans who still remember Pearl Harbour, will not readily leave the Japanese once more to their own devices.
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