Tokyo [1]

Jiro Shirasu (friend of John Keswick [2]) came to see me.

Intelligent Westernised Japanese, who has spent a good part of his
time in UK and Europe. He agrees as to future economic problem of
Japan. He will send me the 20 pre-war years emigration figures for
Japan.

Says the Koreans have never really been independent. The big
Japanese investment in Korea had never earned its keep. It was
extravagantly expended, at the instance of the Japanese army, to
serve military and national ends.

He says he is convinced that the principles of democracy have come
to stay in Japan-although they will have to be worked out by the
Japanese in their own way. It is not reasonable to expect that
democracy on the American model could be exported intact to Japan-
and accepted without modification.

He says that militarism will be impossible to revive in Japan for
well beyond ten years-as the people had had such a sickener of it,
and anyhow the demands on money and materials for the revival of
the shattered civil economy of Japan will leave nothing to spare
for armaments for a long time ahead.

He is rather fearful that an inspired Japanese Communist leader
may arise which he believes would be a real danger, as the people
might flock to someone who promised them a better life and who had
leadership in him. In a few years time, if things do not go too
well in Japan, this might be a definite danger. But he would have
to be a Japanese and not a foreigner.

He says the Japanese people work very hard. Their labour is all
they have, as Japan has practically no raw materials.

Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura (Japanese Ambassador in Washington in
194[l]) called(after having written me a very civil letter when I
arrived). We talked about our meetings in Washington in the few
weeks before Pearl Harbour. [3] He says that he consistently
warned his people about the folly of their taking on the Anglo-
Saxon powers. He was clearly sincere in telling me that he did not
know in advance that Pearl Harbour was going to happen. He heard
about it first on the radio.

He said that he was 'interned' very comfortably in a big hotel in
Virginia for six months after Pearl Harbour and was then returned
to Japan on exchange. He is now aged 73, same age as Yoshida-and
looks much like Admiral Joy. [4]

Colonel M. M. Class came to lunch. He deals with raw materials,
resources and development in SCAR Intelligent, well informed-after
five years in Japan.

He agrees that Japan has to trade with China, but he fears that
any considerable trade contacts may lead to the introduction of
Communism in Japan, rather than the reverse. He says that even
now, Japan is probably doing 500 million dollars worth of trade a
year with China, mostly through Hong Kong (through British and
American merchants), but also through Macao and through a good
deal of smuggling through the Ry[uku]s, etc. All this with the
knowledge and consent of the Americans.

I said that in the light of this, the public statements of Bill
Bullitt and Dewey [5] were pretty bad medicine, which he agreed.

He says that what little remains of Japan's merchant marine is out
of date-and very little use. He says their calculations are that
it will take ten years for Japan to build a merchant fleet capable
of moving half the raw materials that they need.

He is much obsessed with the economic difficulties facing Japan in
the years ahead.

He surprised me by speaking of the armaments making and armaments
supporting industries that had not been destroyed, but had merely
been pr[o]scribed (and the keys locked in the doors) pending
decision (he said at the Peace Treaty Conference) as to their
disposal.

He says that ordinary unskilled labour in Japan now earn about the
equivalent of an American dollar a day-and that skilled labour
earns up to about three and four dollars. The Director of a
Company earns up to about 800 a year.

I had a press conference of the Japanese press this afternoon-
about 15 of them, which went quite well. I told them that I could
not pretend that Australia had forgotten the war and the extent
that we had suffered at Japanese hands. But we had been a party to
agreeing to the most generous peace treaty of all time. We wanted
Japan to recover her economy and a reasonable standard of living-
because we wanted her to avoid a resurgence of militarism and to
avoid falling prey to Communism. For these reasons, we had agreed
not to press for reparations other than for our ex-prisoners of
war, as we accepted the proposition that nothing would be taken
out of current Japanese production, if her economy was to recover
within a reasonable time.

They raised the White Australia Policy (which I explained-and said
we never used this expression in any official way)-their loss of
territory-and asked how relations with Australia could be
improved.

Their territorial losses are the most severe aspect of the Peace
Treaty.

They have lost Formosa (which they had had since 1895), Korea
(since 1905), Manchuria (since 1905), the Ryukus, etc., (which
they've always had).

They asked many other questions-the representative of Mainichi [6]
being the main questioner, as he'd been three years in Australia
pre-war.

We must do some serious thinking about our Migration Policy before
long. It deserves a good deal more thought than we've given to it.

We tend to set it aside as something fixed and unalterable, which
is short-sighted.

One thing (perhaps beyond others) that I've learned on this trip
is the value of our Australian Missions in the East and South East
Asia. I had not quite realized before that we have something
positive and useful to contribute, as well as USA and UK. A great
deal of thought and sympathetic attention has to be given to these
parts if we're going to get anything like the right answer. And
this means maintaining the sort of personal contact that this trip
has started, for me at least.

It's 17 years since Latham made a Cook's tour through the East.

[7] My trip must be the first of regular visits of this sort.

I still can't see the economic picture of Japan-or any sort of
future for Korea as such. We'll all have to keep our democratic
fingers crossed-as we'll need luck as well as realism and
cooperation to get through, in the face of the menace of communism
and economics.

I have been glad to find that our Australian posts and our
Australian representatives seem to be held in good repute in each
of the countries in which I've been.

Also-in Japan and in Korea-our troops have a good name, both in
the field and in amongst the civil population.