‘Dangerous* ?

Editorial Note

Is Mr. Whittaker

THE South Pacific Post, Port Moresby, reports that a Govern ment official, commenting on what Mr. Whittaker had to say in relation to the proposed visit to Papua-New Guinea of the Japanese war graves mission, remarked that

Hr. Whittaker’s opinions were angerous, ill-considered and botional.”

Maybe they are emotional —but tey are neither ill-considered nor irigerous. They honestly express le natural feeling of every man id woman in the Territories who perienced the Jap-imposed horrors 1941-44.

Maybe the Australian Government uld do no other than permit the panese Mission of 19 to go into •NG for two months, collect their ir dead, hold religious ceremonies id erect tiny memorials (one cubic gtre at each of five burial ounds). Maybe it is vital to our ture security that Japan be lined i with the Western Powers to re t the growing thrust of the Mon lian Reds. Probably it is more pedient to be courteous to the panese, than suffer invasion by iatic Communists.

But we cannot be expected soon forget the Tol massacre, the foul irder of those two mission women Buna, the cruelties and outrages rpetrated by Japs on our nursing ters and soldiers in Amboina, the iless horrors which our men had suffer in Burma and Borneo, the struction of hundreds of our best w Guinea civilians who were pped at Rabaul, the execution of ; young New Ireland coast tcher, Con Page—and innumer te other things. f the “Government official” him f has forgotten the disclosures at i Manus trials, only a few months ), the ex-servicemen have not. 3 ity the Japanese have not a ter sense of the fitness of things, i so stay away at least another iple of years. n any case, how is the visit of • 19 Japs going to be explained the natives?