A PLEA FOR DISCRIMINATION Snt„—May I raise a point which
I fear may cause a stormy correspondence, arid yet it is one on which I feel it is not right to be silent? It is a common saying' that truth is the first casualty in war. Since Japan came in against us, I do not recollect seeing in the Press a single word (other than plain narrative) which is not abuse of what she says or does or is. With your readers I detest as much as anybody the act of the Japanese military leaders which brought their country into the war. I watched with growing anxiety the way in which they fastened themselves on the people and finally gained control both of bodies and minds. Equally have I abhorred many of the things they have done since, things which go against both the rules of war and the standards of common decency. On these matters I imagine I am on common ground with all your readers.
But because of these things, judging by what one reads in the Press, everything she does is evil: her people are wholly corrupt, devoid of any redeeming virtue. Everybody who can say something bad about her rushes into Press or on to platform. Only rarely do we get anything which tries to take a more balanced viewpoint. If my memorY is correct, until Japan started on her downward path in the Manchurian venture in 1931, the average Englishman's attitude was on the whole one of admiration. We certainly appreciated the way in which she !tood by us from the first in the last war, while in her war with Russia at the beginning of the century England was wholly on her side. But in order to condemn the actions of her present controllers, is it Lecessary to have a short-lived memory?
One further point. I read in our papers that when her torpedo- bombers sunk the 'Prince of Wales' and the 'Repulse; no attempt was made to interfere with our destroyers in their work of mercy in picking up survivors. Yet when we sank the Japanese warships and transports in the Coral Sea, both legitimate objects of attack, we followed it up by sinking the rafts and lifeboats by which the survivors were trying to get to the nearest land. And yet nobody protested against such action.
While resolute in our determination to overthrow the military party which have gamed control of Japan and to inflict upon her the defeat which in the end may prove her salvation, do we not at the same time need to remember what Mr. V. C. Crow, for nine years U.S. Ambassador in Tokyo; says in the preface to his book, Report from Tokyo—there are others whom "we admired, respected and loved. Though powerless to prevent war, many of them worked to avoid war, and were deeply shocked when war came "? A further illustration of that side of Japanese life is given in Bishop Heaslett's moving book, From a lapanese Prison. Such people in the years to come may prove the forces for reconciliation which time and conditions will demand. But in the meantime, cannot we continue to recognise that they exist and that they may prove a valuable force for reconciliation when the present trouble is past?—
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