JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 18631, 12 May 1924, Page 9

JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

ARGUMENTS FOR EXCLUSION. HAS “ GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT ” FAILED? It is reasonable to assume (says a recent ‘ Argus ') that the decision of both Houses of the United States Legislature to exclude Japanese from American territory was due in the main to the efforts of the Japanese Exclusion League of California, assisted by a kindred organisation in Hawaii. In both California and Hawaii the Japanese have rapidly increased in numbers during recent years, and have displaced Caucasians to a great extent in many occupations. A Melbourne resident, while in Honolulu about two years ago, became acquainted with Mr V. S. M'Clatchy, the proprietor and editor of the ‘ Sacrament') Bee,’ a lea,ding Californian newspaper, and president of the Japanese Exclusion League of California. Mr MTlatchy was greatly interested in the Australian immigration laws, and the acquaintanceship begun at Honolulu has beei continued by correspondence. Some time ago bo forwarded to Melbourne his brief for the exclusion of Japanese from United States territories, which was prepared for the. Department of State, and later presented to Congress. In view of the recent decision of the United States in regard to Japanese, a nummary of the arguments advanced in favor of their exclusion may bo of interest. Dealing with the treatment of resident Japanese by California, which is a sovereign .State, tho brief states that after the passage of the Alien Land Law by the Californian Legislature in 1913 there was constant evasion of its provisions and intent by the" Japanese. These violations compelled the passage of tho initiative land law of 1920. which was framed princioally to close the loopholes found by tho Japanese in the original law. There was now evident the same determined efforts to evade or violate the provisions of the new law. 'When the Japanese were forbidden to own land by the passage of the 1913 law they were in possession of 26,000 acres. Seven years later they owned 60,000 acres and leased 400,000 acres. The Californian law did not _ discriminate against the Japanese, for it was made applicable to all aliens ineligible for citizenship. VACANT SPACES IN JAPAN. After giving details of the hand laws against, aliens somewhat similar to those of California passed by the American States, including Louisiana, Arizona, Delaware. ’ Washington, and Texas, the brief states :—“ It is ini,cresting to know that

what Japan is demanding for her people in California in the way of ownership or lease of land is forbidden to all foreigners in Japan. Japan has enlisted the sympathy of the world by claiming that she has not in her empire space or land for her rapidly increasing population, the .annual increase claimed being 500,000 and 700.000. She mado that claim the basis for a practical demand Unit her people bo permitted to colonise in favorable countries of her own selection. Even if that claim wore true, the law of selfprotection would forbid any nation opening its doors to Japanese, even in restricted numbers, if it were shown that the nation invaded must ultimately suffer seriously therefrom. But the, claim lacks foundation. The basic reason why the increasing population does not obtain land in Japan is that, while the land is there and unused, it is held by the Crown and State. In 1910 there wore only 35,000,000 acres held in private ownership, while 53.000. acres wore held by the Crown. Between 1910 and 1917 only 1,500,000 acres of Crown lands were transferred to private ownership. In 1919 the Japanese Government agreed to alienate 5,000,000 acres more of these lands. So, while Japan enlisted the world’s sympathy by declaring that she has no space for her increasing population, the Stato was withholding from cultivation 60 per cent, of the land of the empire.” According to Mr M’Clatchy, the Japanese in United States territories number 290.000, of whom 115,000 (plus 20.000 minors temporarily in Japan for educational and military training purposes) are in Hawaii, and the balance in continental United States. Of this balance 100.000 (plus 5.000 minors in Japan) are in California, and 50.000 in the other forty-seven States of the Union. JAPANESE IN HAWAII.

• Many pages of tho brief are devoted to the domination by the Japanese of the territory of Hawaii, where nearly one-half of the total population of the islands is Japanese. “ Hawaii,” it states in one part, “ now a territory, had hopes to become a State, and had even scut a Commission to Washington urging Her admission. But she knows that Statehood under existing conditions is impossible, and that in all probability territorial government will have to give place to government by Federal Commission. Tho reason is that Hawaii is apparently lost to the white race, and in a few years a majority of its total population will be Japanese. The total population of Hawaii is 255,000, and, according to the Territorial Board of Health, the Japanese number 114,879. Thera are now m Hawaii four times as many Japanese as there are people of qny other race, and within a generation the Japaneso will have a majority of the total number of voters.” Jan'incso first drove out white carpenters, plumbers, painters, and blacksmiths, then they became small contractors, and now the entire building trade of Honolulu is skated by Air M’Clatchy lo be almost entirely in the hands of Japanese contractors. The Japanese have a. complete, monopoly of the fishing industry of Hawaii and control of the fishing on the Californian coast.

THE “GENTLEMEN’S AGREE MEN!’.”

Referring, to the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” Mr M’Clatchy says: “The present agreement forces us to admit such Japanese as come to these shores with a, passport from the Japanese Government indicating that they are entitled to permanent residence here. We have thereby surrendered to a foreign Power our unalienable right to decide on the number and eligibility of those who enter to become part of the nation. We have surrendered that right to no other nation, and no other nation has surrendered its right in similar matters to any other Power. . . . The ‘ Gentlemen's Agreement’ is not a signed document which can be quoted. It consists of certain diplomatic correspondence which has never been made public, arid wliie.h may not be made public in its entirety without (lie consent of Japan. Our sovereign rights wore surrendered without formal "treaty or verified agreement; the exact terms have never been made public; they are even not now Known, according to the published record, by the committee of Congress vitally concerned therein; they may not be made known to Congress even now without tho consent of a foreign Power; and there is apparently, on the part of public, officials, more or less question as to just what protection this country has reserved to itself thereunder. What is known is that Japan guaranteed in 1907 that laborers, skilled and unskilled, from Japan, unless former residents of the I’idled States, should be excluded from the United States, and that it was then (or afterwards) agreed that parents, wives, and children of resident Japanese might bo admitted, and that the result was to be accomplished by Japan giving, and the United States recognising, passports to those immigrants. No self-respect-ing world Power would have made such an° agreement. The failure of the plan is indicated by the fact that from 19J9 to 1919 there was a net increase of Chinese immigrants into California under tho Exclusion Act (for which the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement ’ was a substitute so far as Japan was concerned) of 789. During the same period there was a net increase of Japanese, under tho ‘ Gentlemen’s Agreement,’ of 23,086. “Now that public opinion has been focussed upon her immigrants, Japan is devoting every energy to the increase of her population by "the importation into American territory of adult females, and urging the rapid increase in the birth rate. For the year ended August 1, 1921, there landed in our two Pacific ports between 2,100 and 2,200 ‘ picture ’ brides, who had not been in this country before, and who claimed right of entry because of (heir husband’s residence here. ‘Picture’ brides are Japanese women who have been selected as wives by Japanese living in America from their pictures or post cards. The marriage is performed by proxy in Japan, and the women then join the husbands whom they have never seen.” JAPANESE FECUNDITY. Then follows an exhaustive summary of vital statistics, which show that the birth rate of Japanese in America is extraordinarily high—higher indeed than that in Japan itself. The birth rate per 1,000 of Japanese in California was 69.4, nearly four times that of tho whites, while the infant mortality was 68 per 1,000 births, as compared with 75 per 1,000 of the whites. The high birth rate should bo considered, adds the brief, in conjunction with the fact that the proportion of adult male and adult female Japanese is between 3 and 4 to 1. Were the sexes equal, and the birth rate in tho same proportion, the Japanese in California would be reproducing nearly ten times as rapidly as the whites. Tho following statement by Miss Frances Hewitt, who taught in tho public schools of Japan for six years, is then quoted: —“Tourists do not learn that every schoolgirl Ls thoroughly drilled in the doctrine that, should she become a picture bride in America or an immigrant to other lands her loyal duty to her Emperor is to have as many children as possible, so that the foreigners’ land may become in time a possession of Japan.” LAND CONTROLLED BY JAPANESE.

Surprising figures of the land in California controlled by Japanese a-ra contained in tho following extract: —” The Japanese contrc< already one-eighth of the irrigable acreage of California —that is, of am irrigable acreage of 3,893,500 acres the Japanese control 458,056 acres. In four counties of California—-Sacramento, Placer, San Joaquin, and Colusa—the Japanese have secured control of from 60 to 85 per cent, of the irrigated lands, yielding principally fruit and produce. The town of Florin, onco exclusively white, is now almost entirely Japanese. In the farming district contiguous to Seattle (Washington) in ten years past one-half to three-quarters of the Americans have been displaced by Japanese.” Mr M'Clatchy fortifies his argument for exclusion by pointing out that the policy o; exclusion, so far as it applied to all labor, skilled and unskilled, was that followed rigorously by Japan herself under tho Imperial Japanese Ordnance No. 552 against Koreans and Chinese. The reason sho gave was that to permit entrance to Japan of such aliens, whoso standards of living were lower than the Japanese, would submit her people to disastrous competition*

GOVERNMENT WITHIN A GOVERNMENT. Another section of tho Brief is devoted to evidence of the existence of cofttrol by the Japanese Government of foreign-born Japaneso who are citizens of America. Tho methods employed by Japan in preserving the loyal and active nationalism of the Japanese born in America-, and therefore American citizens, include, Air M’Clatchy states, district associations, sometimes called ” agricultural associations,” subject to mam central associations, which arc managed and controlled by the Consuls for Japan. ‘‘The extent to which Japan uses its power over Japanese in America,” continues the brief, ‘‘is indicated in the case of Professor Yochi Kuno, a Japanese professor in the University of California, who was ordered by the Japanese Consul in San Francisco to teach nothing in Ins classes of Oriental languages and history which might lessen the prestige of Japan. When Professor Kuno declined to mislead his students in such matters he. was ostracised by the various Japanese organisations, and formal demand was mado upon tho university for his expulsion from the faculty.”

JAPANESE PRIDE OF RACE.

A vast quantity evidence in support of tho allegations against Japan is contained in the brief, which is a voluminous document of 108 pages. It concludes with a section of the non-assimilability of tho Japanese race. “The Japanese pride of race,” it states, “forbids assimilation. They are taught that theirs is the greatest nation cm the face of the earth, the only one which has a god for its ruler, and that it is destined to load or conquer all nations of the globe. Naturally they are unwilling to submerge their identity in that of an ‘inferior’ race. Language, heredity, religion, ideals, the law, and policy of Japan all militate against and prevent even the sociological assimilation of the Japanese. There is no claim or belief as to racial inferiority in this issue. There is, ■ the contrary, a frank admission that the white race may not hope to survive in this country if compelled to meet the Japanese in compotitoin for economic advantage and racial existence.”