THE DOMINIONS AND THEIR PROBLEMS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 103, 24 January 1908, Page 6

THE DOMINIONS AND THEIR PROBLEMS.

Tiie informal modus vivendi arranged between Canada and Japan upon the : question of Japanese immigration is very much more satisfactory tlian it might i appear at first sight. Pull particulars of the arrangement, as explained by Mr. Lermeux, ■who made'a spec'nl visit to Tokio to discus's the matter with the Japanese Government, appeared in our cable news yesterday, and these are supplemented by a further message which we print this morning. The Japanese Government, while emphasising the full liberty of immigration and ; residence enjoyed by the Japanese under existing- treaties, lias given Canada a written assurance that it does not "intend to insist on the complete enjoyment of those rights and privileges when they involved the disregard of the special conditions prevailing in Canada." Mr. Lemieux further reports that Japan has issued stringent regulations in restriction of Japanese immigration into Canada which he considers will be sufficient for Canada's purpose. "The Japanese . Foreign Minister's dignified and voluntary assurances," he declares, " constitute a solemn engagement;" If this arrangement is very much less satisfactory than the exclusionists had hoped for, it is at any rate a great deal more than Canada could have obtained had Japan determined to insist upon the whole of her rights. The settlement of the difficulty on a basis of "assurance," iustead of formal agreement or treaty, has also its special advantages. As the matter now stands, any future trouble, arising out of a flouting or a denial- of the special .'Conditions " which the Japanese Government has admitted to exist, will at once compromise the honour of Japan, to the enormous strengthening of the appeal that Canada can make to the public opinion of ] tlie Empire, and the world. Otherwise the modus vivendi goes no way towards solving the problem underlying all the anti-Asiatic developments in the oversea Dominions of the Empire. Of late, however, we have been receiving advices of a most welcome tendency in Great Britain to give effective weight to the wishes of the Dominions on a subject that so closely concerns their nationhood. Mr. Winston Churchill's decisive recognition of the Transvaal's right to legislate upon Asiatic immigration, and Sir' Henry Campbell-Bannerman's refusal to interfere with Ratal's handling of her native trouble 1 , have been supplemented by a still -more significant and interesting statement by Mr. Birrell, cabled yesterday. Apparently, a section of the British Press has been attacking the Transvaal Government's enforcement of the Registration Act against the Hindus, dnd they have evidently been condemning the " antiImperial" nature of that policy, for Mr. Birrell, referring to the subject, ■ found it necessary to "ridicule the vague platitudes of some speakers about ' a glorious Empire.'" Having only a fe.w days ago suggested ourselves, that a great deal of nonsense is talked in the name of Empire, we must sympathise with Mr. Birrell. He went on to urge that " people ought to consider how far the central authority could exercise control .over the great, self-governing communities," and that the Imperial Government is not " in a positibn to dictateto those communities in such matters. With the Oppositi6n pledged to sympathetic Imperialism through their onslaughts upon the " little Bnglaiidism " that they found in the Colonial Office during IQQ6 and 190T, and with the Government coming out as the champions of real autonomy in the Dominions, the outlook for a good Imperial understanding , all round is. a very bright one.