Japanese Peace Aims -
Mr. John Foster Dulles. President Truman's special ereoy, 'is working.with a will at the task of explaining to the Japanese just how a Pacific defence pact between the United States. Justralia and New Zealand (the defence, obviously, being against apan) can be 'squared with his proposals for a peace treaty, the object of which is to restore Japan to the responsible control of her own affairs and even, eventually, to the possession of an armed force of her own. He has managed to make the case sound quite reasonable, helped by the fact that the stage at Which Japan will be entrusted with her own defence is regarded as distant. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Yoshida. has publicly referred to this arrangement with apparent satisfaction. But he has also said that he looks forward to the day when the ,Japanese economy will be freed from certain American-imposed restrictions. These restrictions include guarantees—against which the more old-fashioned industrialists are already murmur- . ing—of a living wage and specified working conditions for Japanese workers. The time for explaining Western policy to the Japanese is passing, and the time when the Japanese will have to do some explaining on their own account is rapidly approach- ing. Nobody outside Japan seems to have any idea how the old evils of cheap exports based on terribly low living and work- , ing conditions are to be averted. Nor has any answer been found to the difficulty that Japan is one of the few places in the . world where the specificially economic causes of war are still potent. Have the Japanese an answer of their own ? If they have, they ought to be asked to give it quickly. It would be a disaster if the rest of the world, and in particular the Americans, woke up one day to the realisation that the creature they had been nourishing was the same old viper.
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