JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 18543, 28 January 1924, Page 6

JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

A etjdb jar has been given to AmericanJapanese relations by the Immigrants Bill which is now a business of Congress. For upwards of thirty years the restrictions imposed by the great Republic on Japanese immigrants seeking an entrance to its Western States have been a sore point with the Eastern people, always most sensitive to any suggestion of a “color bar.” Seventeen years ago the tension was eased for a time by "what is- known, as Ahe “ gentlemen’s agreement,” which sought to save Japan’s dignity by making the restriction of her emigrants to America a matter for her own Government to regulate on conditions which provided for the limitation of their number, and a ban on

the emigration of the lowest ooolia class. That the working out of this agreement has been a disappointment to the United States has not been tho fault of Japanese Governments. It is generally agreed that thoy have done their best to carry out its provisions honorably; but they could not prevent substantial numbers of Orientals in excess of the quota stealing into the prohibited land from Mexico and from other countries. There are now about 80,000 Japanese in California, tho State which miikes their chief resort, and tho West has for years been alarmed about the increase of their number. Assuming that their present birth-rate —nearly four times that of their white neighbors—is maintained, it has been calculated that in only twenty-five years from now they will form the chief population of the State. 'The birth-rate of first immigrants, who are naturally the young and virile of the conn try which sends them forth, never is maintained; but the Americans have still reason to bo anxious about this element that is increasing in their midst. The law and tho courts have decided that the brown folk who come from the East never can become American citizens, naturalisation being restricted to “white persons” by tho Constitution; but the same Constitution provides that their children must bo recognised as full Americans —Americans who are most unlikely to be absorbed soon In a common type. Tho new Bill, which lias been approved by the Immigration Committee of tho House, goes further than any legislation of tho past, since it would debar all new Japanese from settling in the United States. It makes no odious distinction against Japanese ns such, but it achieves the same end by a provision that no alien who is ineligible for citizenship shall bo permitted to enter tho country to take up his permanent residence. There have been moments when such a measure, passed by the American Congress, might have provoked immediate war. Possibly its framers think that the present is a good time to pass it, when the set-back which Japan has received from Its recent earthquake leaves the smallest room for belligerent feelings to become active. From another viewpoint it might seem to bo an inopportune time, since Americans have not concealed their hopes of profiting largely by Japan’s misfortune through the great contracts for reconstruction work that are expected to come to them. Probably those contracts will come in any case, however, since it has been stated that American steel and lumber are the two biggest items needed by Japan at present, and the .Americans will bo in tho best position to fulfil contracts. Meanwhile there is no doubt of the resentment that has been caused in Japan. An exMinistcr of Education has declared that “ the seeds of a future world war will be sown if the United States enacts the exclusion law.” A protest which has been sent to the American Government does not question America’s right to say how her own population shall be composed, but it asks whether she wishes to discriminate against a friendly country. And the reply which is to be expected, that no such discrimination is involved in the legislation that applies to all aliens who are ineligible for citizenship, is not likely to give much satisfaction to Japan.