Lasting peace built on justice and understanding among nations. This is the objective of the United Nations. This is another program in the United Nations series of the Pacific Story, one of the five special series presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations to further world unity and world peace through understanding. For hundreds of years the Pacific and the lands it touches have been the scene of struggle, conflict for gain and power, people against people, western nations seeking to dominate and exploit the people, and the millions caught in the political and economic crosscurrent. Today with most of the world's population concentrated around and in the Pacific, the events of the Pacific are a vital world concern. The Pacific Story dedicates this series to the objective of the United Nations, lasting peace built on justice and understanding among nations. Our job in Japan. Hey, rich man, look here too. He will have rice in his cellar. Break open the door. Yes, break open the door. This is mob violence, but the mob isn't bloodthirsty. It is hungry. Its objective is the store of rice, caught in the rich man's cellar. This is a mob in Tokyo in the year 1946. It is only part of the problem puzzle United States occupation must solve in Japan. Our job does not begin or end with this mob. Rice. Here's rice for everybody. Two policemen, though armed, stand quietly aside, watching the raiding party. They make no attempt to halt anyone. It is the starting transition in a land where not so long ago men were imprisoned and even executed for harboring dangerous thoughts. You will pay for this outrage. You are thieves. The food belongs to the people. We are sorry to break your door. Theives! You will pay! Their sacks, kettles, or boxes loaded with rice, a few members of the mob are dropping out. Others travel on to the next bonanza. One of those who drops out wears a shabby uniform. He carries his rice in a pot reconverted from an old steel helmet. Oh, excuse me. Oh, that's all right. Got a good haul there? Oh, yes. How much rice? I see you were in the army. Where did you serve? I fought a noble fight in Seraphine, but was taken prisoner in Manila. I was recently released and returned to Japan. You are here with occupation forces, yes? Oh, he's a social worker. My name's Daly. Oh, so happy. I am Kay. The United States will send us more food soon, huh? Maybe. Say, aren't you afraid you'll get arrested for stealing that rice? Oh, no. The food belongs to the people. This is new democracy. Oh, well, that's news to me. Also, the military police are no more. Gone, too, are the thought police. Oh, tell me, how do you feel about Emperor Hirohito? Oh, son of heaven, our living God. Kay, ex-soldier, seeing the road back to peace in a new life is typical of the problems facing a majority of the 70 million Japanese who have been learning modern ways but cannot unlearn medieval tradition. The Japanese emperor in his New Year's rescript said, quote, we reject legends and myths and the false conception that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world. Also, the false conception that the emperor is divine, unquote. There were mixed reactions to this remarkable rescript. The emperor's New Year's statement pleased me very much. By it, he undertakes a leading part in the democratization of his people. He squarely takes his stand for the future along liberal lines. This was General MacArthur's reaction, but some valuable Japanese minorities had other reactions. The emperor still keeps his riches, and he still works hand in glove with the Taipatsu. Yes, Japan can have no democracy without a republican form of government. But the average Japanese, reared in the mystic air of a state religion with the emperor as its head, has no desire to dethrone Hirohito, and the average Japanese admires the modesty and humility of Hirohito's statement. Such sublime abnegation proves, if proof were necessary, the special nature of the Tenno, our heavenly sovereign. Our first job in Japan was to root out the dangerous elements. This done, the job was to re-educate the Japanese, to turn them away from the thinking that led them to their destruction. This long, painful process, with obstacles of a hundred kinds, is now underway. The average American GI sees the scene in transition. Handball sessions in Japan aren't much different from those of the GI at home. The spade calling, same weariness and military restrictions, same yearning to return to civilian life. Oh, you don't know what you're talking about, do you? Hi, Daly, what's cooking? Oh, hi, fellas. Well, for a social worker, you're a pretty anti-social guy, where you been? I've been pretty busy. You're lucky, you get more time to get around. I've been practically punching a time clock for the ten months we've been occupying this dopey place. Oh boy, what wouldn't I give to be back in St. Louis and hailing some of that good beer? That sounds like you don't care for sake. You're not just clacking your gums. I don't like their rice wine or their rice or any part of this country. I hope they speed up my discharge, I want a scram out of here. Sure, and it's guys like you that make it tough for the rest of us here. Well, you listen to him, Daly, the fathead likes it here. Do you, Bill? Oh, no, I guess I'd rather be home, too. You signed up for another hitch, didn't you? Oh, sure I did, and I'll tell you why. Because it's a big job here, and if we run out on it, our kids will have to fight these people again someday. Oh, don't be a jerk, we licked them, didn't we? Yeah. We set them back in their four home islands, didn't we? We're knocking off their military big shots and scrapping all their war industries. They're not gonna fight again. How do you know? If we pull up stakes, how do we know they won't ever try it again? There's still an army of occupation here. I figure guys like us have done enough fighting and enough occupying. Let the guys who have been holding down cushy jobs at home come out here and play policemen. So where does that get us? The officers and men with the know-how get shipped back home, and the greenies who don't know from nothing come out. You think demobilization's been too fast, Bill? You're darn right I do. To handle administration here, you need experienced men. We've got enough problems without having to waste our time giving newcomers basic training. That's not my headache. I've done my share. Let the next guy do his. Oh, that's fine. That's why our kids maybe will have to finish the job. Oh, what are you squawking about? Kids, you don't even have any. Well, I expect to. Someday. Bill has a point. Part of the problem out here is getting the right people to do the job. Well, listen, Japan still has the most powerful concentration of trained workers in the Far East. That's outside of Russia. Yes, and they're trained to work together like they've been doing for the last half a century or so. Yeah, that's what I said. The thing is, the war's over and they want jobs that pay off. Ah, pay off is right. A $15 a week stenographer wants $5,000. A $45 a week schoolteacher wants $15,000 a year. Well, there just ain't that kind of money around. Well, I want to get out of here and go home. Well, I'm going to stay here and see this through. Even though the home islands of Japan were battered and blasted, the Japanese themselves admit that they still have within their four home islands facilities that surpass the largest capacity ever devoted to serving their people alone. Most of their losses were in the land they'd taken over. Besides this, the Japanese are still fanatically patriotic. They work together. They're patient. They have a cohesiveness that no other nation in the Far East has. From where I sit, it looks to me that Japan is still going to emerge as the manufacturer of the Far East. This is a reporter. Well, I'd say that remains to be seen. What nation in the Far East can compete with the Japanese? What nation's tooled up and trained for it? No nation right now, but China's certainly going to... Well, it looks to me we've got to watch for, if not beware of, a peaceful expansion of the same Far East-Asia co-prosperity sphere that we heard so much about just before the war and during the war. With smart, industrious Japanese in the lead, working like beavers, I think Japan will salvage a good part of and maybe all of her war losses. That's one view. But to the average Japanese, there are more immediate concerns. The average Japanese is concerned about his relations with other Japanese. Oh, Mr. Davy. Welcome to my humble place of dwelling. Well, hello, Kay. What are you doing? Making more pots to cook in? Oh, these are to sell. You see, I scraped paint off helmets, hammer into shape, and fit with wooden handles. Very good pot. Do you buy one? Well, I'm afraid I wouldn't have much use for it. Do you sell many of these? Not enough. Price of rice is very high. Government orders farmers to furnish quarters of rice at 50 cent a show. A show? That's about one and a half quarts, isn't it? It is. But the farmers do not furnish the quarter. It goes to the black market where price is 50 yen a show. Farmers sell to the black market. But what about the quarters they're supposed to meet? Well, it is very easy to say his crop will be smaller or he will need more for seed. How about the new economic police? Yes, but the farmer give them a show of rice or two and they forget what they see. Farmer now has best food and best clothes in Japan. How does he get the clothes? From city people. When they visit farms, farmer will not sell them rice unless they give something extra. They fill their market bags with best clothes, dishes. They bring bags back filled with rice and sweet potatoes. Pretty soon they are hungry again and without clothes. Farmer still has food and clothes and Kai still has little rice. No more raiding parties on rich men's hordes of rice, huh? No, government says we cannot take such food, that it does not belong to the people. What good is new democracy? Well, democracy doesn't mean you can do entirely as you please. Is not democracy freedom? Of speech, thought, religion, but you still have to respect property rights. Oh, democracy is for the rich? No, for rich and poor alike. Rich man has property, poor man has none. In a democracy the poor man has a chance to work for another or himself as he pleases and to try to improve his lot. By the way, Kai, how do you like your new government? Oh, fine government will protect property of rich men. On a farm not far from Tokyo, a union organizer talks a new language to a group of tenant farmers. You ask me how you can get rent reductions. I say this only by acting together. You must organize a union and build your bargaining power as your city brothers have begun to do. Yes, we must organize. We must with you to give up the land we have worked so long. The taxes from our farms must no longer be given to industry. Why should we be taxed to support industry? Farm taxes should be turned to the farm. And so they will, my brothers. In good roads, machinery, health clinics and such improvements. But not unless you organize to speak in a voice as strong as thunder. And what does this man know about farmers like us? He is not one of us. He will only make trouble for us. Let us set him away. Do not listen to him. You all please remain silent. We know what you are. Yes, observe who speaks, a fine farmer. And a more prosperous one than you, but not through a union. We know how you have prospered. You are one of the cheaters, the black market sellers of rights. It is men like you who have given all of us a black name. If you build a union, you will be driven from the land. You will remove yourself from our land, property. You cannot speak to my dogs. You all will regret this all of you. Bring your present here again. You all will regret this. You will drive it away. Selfish ones like this prevent the progress of the many. My friends, now is the time to make your voices heard. Under Allied occupation, there are new thoughts in the land. Things that were not possible before may now come to be. We need more acres to raise more rice. Yes, but where will we get them? I will tell you where. By asking the government to break up the vast estates of the great men of industry. Such men control the government. Would they give up their own land? Yes, the new government like the old is run by the lords of money, factories and land. Would they give up their land? In time, these too may happen. In time, the three million acres of the emperor may also be turned into farms. Lord Honore, the tenor desires that it be so. One does not seize land from the tenor. If enough asked, the tenor may do so freely. But we must make our wishes known. We must make our voices heard. We must make our strength felt. We must organize. Yes, sir. We must organize. We must organize. Nazi is the problem of food, both to occupation authorities and to the Japanese citizens. The basic necessity of life has also become a strong political weapon in the growing struggle for power. The present conservative government holds back and hides foodstuffs from the masses in order to convince General MacArthur that more imported food is needed for Japan. The government is prompt in its reply. They who say that are greatly in error. The Japanese should reject such ideas. The truth is that we must import at least 20% of the food we consume. Come in, please. Hello, Mr. Akaki. I am honored, Mr. Daley. Will you have tea? Thank you. Tea? What is trouble, Mr. Daley? No trouble. I'd like you to tell me something. You're an economist. Do you believe Japan must continue to import food now that the overseas empire is gone? I have studied much on this problem. It is possible for Japan to grow her own food, enough to feed perhaps 100 million people. At present, food is somewhat scarce. I'm speaking of the future, of course. Could this self-sufficiency be accomplished with the current setup? No. Much change must come about. More land must be tilled. Greater states must be broken up into small farms. The emperor's land must also be worked. Oh, here is our tea, Mr. Daley. Thank you. Good. The emperor has three million acres of land, I believe. Yes, fine land. Oh, this is not all. We would have to use land that is now poor. I estimate five million additional acres can be cultivated. Perhaps two million of these suitable for rice culture. You need scientific working, wouldn't you? Oh, yes. Use of machines, fertilizer, rotation of crops. Uh-huh. What about cattle raising? Have you seen the bamboo grass of the great upland? Yes, it's tough and sharp. That is why we have little cattle raising now. The grass cuts mouths and stomachs of cattle and chokes out good grass. But if we can root it out, then we can raise much cattle in Japan. All of these things are possibilities. Will they be realized? Who knows? That depends on many things. But the problems of the occupation authorities are many and complex. Members of the Far Eastern Commission of 11 nations all do not see eye to eye. Progress at this stage must be forced to be slow. Before the Commission, the representatives of the various nations air their views, the American member expresses a view. Russia has removed perhaps 700,000 Japanese troops from Manchuria to Siberia, presumably for use as a labor force. We have asked Moscow about this but have received no reply. Gentlemen, the Potsdam Declaration states that Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives. The failure of Russia to repatriate the troops to Japan is a violation of the promise made by the Allies before VJ Day. A Philippine member of the Far Eastern Commission airs another source of irritation. We are concerned over the United States' decision to send more than half a million tons of food to Japan in the first six months of this year. Our concern, of course, is over Japanese issues and does not imply criticism of the Supreme Commander for the Allied powers. The problems of policy and tactics facing the Allied powers in Japan are not always clear to K-Average Japanese. We are more rice coming to Japan. Maybe more people will soon need pots to cook rice in, yes? I hope so, K. You see, international friendship pays. Oh, yes, that is so. Only, your democracy hard for us to understand. Well, yes, I can imagine. We like democracy if democracy help us. Well, of course. We learn democracy by what you show us, by what you say and what you do. Well, you have a new government of your own, a new premier and cabinet, and a diet you helped elect. Oh, yes, new government. But democracy not something you can give us like presents. No, it's not. It's something you earn. Yes, that is what I mean. We must earn, yes. So you help us most by helping us earn, instead of putting democracy in hands of few Japanese on top, must start from bottom with us, too. Well, first things must be done first, K. Oh, yes. Yes, you show us the way we follow. Then maybe someday we have democracy. The Industrial Future of Japan The industrial future of Japan is a matter of deepest concern, not only to the Japanese but also to allied occupation forces and inevitably to the people of every nation in the world. The Japanese have shown themselves to be more than mere imitators. They have proved themselves excellent in original design as well as in adaptation. Our objective here is simple enough. Primarily, it's to destroy Japan's industrial potential for making war. An American officer considers the basic occupation aim. It's all here in the Potsdam Declaration. Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the payment of just reparations in kind, but not those industries which will enable her to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of raw materials, shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted. You see, it is beyond salvage. The bombings made scrap of machines like this. This is a Japanese industrialist showing allied engineers through a factory gutted by war. The bombing was not the only trouble. As you know, our equipment was poorly maintained. We were forced to use substitute materials, and this shortened the life of many machines. Also, much of our good peacetime machinery was taken by the army for scrap. Therefore, we will need much steel and also machines to make machines. What about all those idle machines hidden during the war? Oh, yes. They will be of great help. They are returning to some factories already. Well, it looks to me as though you still have great productive capacity and plenty of technically trained personnel. Oh, yes. The future is not hopeless, even without empire. It may be that Japan will become the manufacturer for Far East. No doubt this would result in much greater prosperity for entire Far East. Come, we look at other equi... Did you hear that, Mason? The presumption of the bounder. Do you see what he's planning for the future? A peaceful expansion of the blasted Far East Asia co-prosperity sphere. Yeah, I got it. Well, Whitley runs up against the Union. They're growing here, and they'll be asking for more money and higher living standards. If reforms work out properly, labor won't be dirt cheap anymore. And Japan will no longer be able to flood world markets with cheap goods. Right. Or maybe they'll be able to enter world trade on a parody, perhaps become some kind of converting manufacturing nation like Switzerland. Are you coming, gentlemen? I would like to show you very bad state of some other machines. With help of your great nations, however, Japan can again become self-involved. In the offices of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, newspaper men question the information officer on a newly authorized export program for Japan. Colonel, is it true that the Japanese international trade will be revived? In a limited way, yes, until it becomes large enough to pay for living essentials that cannot be produced at home. Oh, that would cost relief costs here, wouldn't it? Definitely. This relief burden is now being carried in full by the United States. Well, what products will Japan export into what countries? Raw silk, cotton, and rayon fabrics, textiles, chinaware, pottery. The principal markets will be the United States, China, Korea, and Formosa. Other markets include Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Russia, Southern Asiatic countries, and the Philippines. Well, Colonel, does that mean that the U.S. won't be flooded with any more Japanese light bulbs? It does. Five million electric light bulbs are to be exported, but to Korea, Formosa, and China. Japan's metal products will also be sold to the Orient, with the exception of some lamp reflectors that will be sold in the United States. What about canned foods? About 10 percent of the canned and bottled goods Japan shipped around the world before the war will be permitted. That means some 11,000 tons, all going to China, Korea, and Formosa. Mm-hmm. Well, now, what imports will Japan get as a result? Mainly food. Colonel, do you think Japan will be able to complete the export program schedule for this year? Well, that depends on how rapidly idle plants can start humming. And there are other obstacles, too. Suzuki, the occupation authorities say to go ahead and make goods for export. A Japanese manufacturer discusses the prospects with his form. We still have good machines hidden away. We could move them in, Suzuki. Oh, yes, but there are difficulties. Yes, great difficulties. The victorious powers have not yet spoken as to what equipment they will seize for war reparations. If they see my machines, they may find them desirable. Also, it is not easy to get workers now. Yes, this is so. Good workers went to the army or war factories. Not so easy to bring them back to our factories. Many who return are now making unions. Yes, this is worst of all. These unions are very bad for us. Consider with what audacity they try to tell me what I should pay them for working in my factories. Evil days. Most evil days. No, Suzuki, we will not reopen the factory yet. Let others go first. We will wait and see what happens to them. The G.I. in Japan, in spite of personal concerns, is often aware of the fact that how well allied objectives are attained in Japan determines how long he or other Americans will have to stay there. Hey, Bailey. Welcome back to Most Humble Office, please. Hello, Gus. How are you, Bill? Very straight. Gus got a letter from his girl. Yeah, she says she's tired of silk kimonos. She wants me. The gal's crazy. About me she is. But if I have to stay out here much longer, she'll find herself another guy. I wouldn't blame her if she did, but I'd break her neck when I got back. And your discharge hasn't come through yet, huh? No, C.O. tells me any day now. Any day now I'll be tripping over my long white beard. Well, we'd better get the job done here, or a lot of us will be playing policemen here for the rest of our lives. You think we're making headway? Bill's always getting himself tangled up trying to dope out the score. We want to keep Japan from ever going to war again, and we're trying to make her a democratic nation. Those are the two big things we have to do here. And if we make sure she can't fight again, she'll have to turn democratic. It's the only chance she'll have. In a street in Tokyo, K. sells pots made of old helmets. Like millions of Japanese, he views the future only in personal terms. Soon I will have no more pots to sell. Where will I work, and for how much? What is my future in the new Japan? This is the thinking of the average Japanese. The allied job is to think in terms of an entire nation and to rebuild it for self-reliant, peaceful reentry into the family of nations. This is our job in Japan. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations, to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. May I repeat, for a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is produced and directed by Arnold Marquis. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. The principal voice was that of Howard McNair. Programs in this series of particular interest to service men and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.
