The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1907. EAST AND WEST.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 255, 25 October 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1907. EAST AND WEST.

For the cause that tacts assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the yvod that we can do.

The excitement over the anti-Japanese riots on the Pacific Coast seems to have died down; but it would be premature to imagine that we have heard the last of these ominous incidents. Tho Governments of the United States and of Canada have, of course, formally expressed their regrets to the Mikado, and assured him that his subjects will be protected against insults or violence; and the Japanese are far too tactful and diplomatic a people to carry resentment beyond the limits of expediency. But the danger lies in the probability of a renewal of such outbreaks; for there is no doubt about the " strong racial prejudice " against Orientals, which Sir Wilfrid Laurier mentions with regret in his message to the Mikado, and which is felt quite as keenly in Canada as in the United States. It seems that the

organisers of the Vancouver riots were not Canadians but San Francisco labour leaders and American emissaries of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, which has its headquarters in Washington State. But the people of British Columbia need little encouragement to display their animosity against the Orieniais, and unless some diplomatic attempt is speedily made to chock the influx of Eastern immigration, the people, who as a body are determined to keep the Pacific Coast " white," may at any moment take matters into their own hands, with consequences that might easily be disastrous to the world's peace.

Yet if we are to take the views of the "Times" as representative of public opinion at Home, this difficult and precarious condition of affairs is liable to be seriously misunderstood. The "Times" admits that there is a genuinerace prejudice against Orientals, but it regards these recent outbreaks of violence aa due chiefly to what it terms the ignorant selfishness of the limited class of wage-earners who suffer in competition with Oriental cheap labour. It is, of course, natural for the "Times," with its Tory traditions, and its profound respect for "vested interests," to denounce the conduct of those " in whose eyes the immediate pecuniary interests of their own order dominate all other considerations." But it would be more interesting to learn from the "Times," or any other authority, what course the wageearners ought to follow when they find their wages falling,and their employment gone, as soon as they fall under the baneful shadow of Oriental competition. We freely admit that there is no kind of excuse for the violence and brutality which have lately disgraced Vancouver and San Francisco, and tarnished the prestige of American civilisation. But what the "Times" calls sellish classjealousy must be accepted as a verj' potent factor in this complex problem. There are two distinct aspects to the question of Oriental immigration, the social and industrial. The vast majority of the men and women of British race who inhabit England's dependencies and colonies hold firmly that an infusion of Oriental blood into these young nations would be an irremediable evil. At the

same time our wage-earners contend that Oriental competition will mean industrial degradation and poverty for them without any corresponding benefit to the country. Their arguments, we believe, are unanswerable, and they are

certainly not to be waved loftily aside by the aid of vague generalisations about our duty to be kind to our fellow crea-

tures and to give everyone a chance of living. ißut though we cannot agree with the " Times" that the motives which have ' inspired the anti-Oriental movement on the Pacific Coast are either mistaken or eontembtible, we are entirely in accord with the serious view it takes of the possible consequence of these recent unfortunate episodes. However thoroughly the Canadians may be justified in resenting the influx of Orientals, it must not be forgotten that the Hindoo coolies are, like themselves, subjects of the British Crown, and that Japan is the friend and ally of England. From England's standpoint there is much, force in the reminder that " duties bring with them rights, and as it is our duty to defend all parts of the Empire from internal and from external foes, it is also our right to warn the communities of which it consists of what they owe to the fellow subjects and to the allies of their King." President Roosevelt last year told the Californians that it waa " us thinkable" that a single section of the people should be allowed to commit a crime against a friendly nation which the Government of the country couU not prevent, but which might impose upon it the obligation of defending the wrongdoers by force of arms. England is in precisely the same position as regards Canada, and we agree with the "Time"that the whole question of Oriental immigration, and our relations with Asiatic peoples " demands exhaustive consideration and discussion between that statesmen of the colonies and of the Mother Country." Our readers will have observed that Canada has already sent a special emissary to secure power to treat independently with Japan. But whatever be the rights of individual colonies in this respect, it seems to us obvious that the only rational method of dealing with this great question is by way of direct negotiation with Japan. The Japanese are, no doubt, a proud and patriotic race; but the Mikado and his counsellors have too much of the wisdom oi true statesmanship to insist upon a course of action that would probably array against them the national sentiment of England and America, to say nothing of the rest of the civilised world. The "racial prejudices" to which Sir W. Laurier's message refers are too real to be ignored; and if the case is put clearly and forcibly by President Roosevelt and the British Government in conjunction, we believe that Japan would see the wisdom of confining her surplus immigration, to the immense fields for national and industrial development now open to her in the Far East.