HOLD THE EMPEROR RESPONSIBLE
SIR,—We have just had another exposure of the barbarous treatment of our prisoners by the Japanese, and the only comfort the British and United States Government can offer to anxious and harrowed relatives is that the perpetrators will be punished after the war. What an exhibition of weakness such threats are when directed against ,people who will commit suicide in any case rather than fall into our hands! We know now how cheaply the Japanese hold life. their own no less than their enemies'. There is, however, one thing they do hold sacred and that is the life and person of their Emperor, who, they declare, is the source and inspira- tion of their acts. A joint declaration by London and Washington that they will hold the Emperor responsible for the treatment of prisoners and exact from his person the ultimate retribution for acts of barbarism against them would, I believe, be the only policy likely to have any effect on the twisted minds of the Japanese.
This has already been put forward. Why has this obvious line of action not been taken? Are official London and Washington still so trammelled by mediaeval thinking that such drastic action against a crowned head appals them? The war against the Japanese has still to be won. Many Allied fighting men may still fall into their hands, and unless something along the lines suggested here is done, will get no better treat- ment than has been meted out to others. The relatives of the men already prisoners in Japanese hands and the men themselves fighting against the Japanese have a right to demand that some more forceful action be taken than threats of punishment where such threats are so obviously useless. If such action as is suggested here is taken (as it must be sooner or later), joint declarations must be in such terms as to leave no doubt in the minds of our enemy that we mean what we say, and the widest possible publicity should be given to it throughout the Pacific war area.—Yours, &c.,
The Hazels, Bricker Wood, via Watford, Herts. H. G. LYALL.
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