Can Japan Pay?

General MacArthur looked last week upon his occupation of Japan and found it good. "It becomes unmistakably clear that here in Japan we shall win the peace," said MacArthur.

Following his lead, Washington last week asked ten fellow members* on the Far Eastern Commission to begin work on a peace treaty for Japan. To speed up the negotiations the U.S. wanted to sacrifice the Big Power veto, decide treaty issues a two-thirds majority. The Russians might not participate on those terms.

Biggest problem facing the peacemakers was reparations. Some of Japan's victims (China, the Philippines) have potent claims based on present need. But could Japan pay?

Nobody had figured out how 70,000,000 Japanese could make a living now that their economy was shattered by the liberation of Manchuria and Korea, by the almost complete destruction of their merchant marine, by loss of control of Asiatic markets, and by the deterioration of the industrial plant in the home islands.

Japan was one of the few countries in the world not seriously divided by the strife between Russia and the West. In almost all other respects, however, Japan's plight was almost as desperate as that of the rest of Asia. (see FOREIGN NEWS).

*Australia, Canada, China, France, India, The Netherlands, New Zealand, The Philippine Commonwealth, Great Britain and the U.S.S.R.

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