PACIFIC POWDER MAGAZINE

Evening Star, Issue 18714, 16 August 1924, Page 13

PACIFIC POWDER MAGAZINE

AMERICA'S CHALLENGE TO . JAPAN’S PRIDE. [By Andrew Sotjtar, in tlio * Sunday Chronicle.’] Dismiss from your mind the notion that j serious- situation involving America and Japan is a sudden outburst of feeling winch had its genesis in the 1924 Immi£ration Bill. and the attitude thereto of Californian Legislature. This trouble has been brewing for years and years, and exactly seventeen years ago the situation between the two nations was almost as tense as it is to-day. The only difference, in my opinion, is that Japan is better gbla to challenge America than she was then. Seventeen years ago her national exchequer had been drained to the last yen by the demands made on it by the war against Russia; her hands were tied behind her back. To-day she must be fabulously rich, for, next to America, she probably made more out of the .'European War than anv other nation.

Briefly, and for your guidance, if you have not followed the situation closely during tho last month, the basis of the controversy is simply this : In 1882 tho Japanese settled on the Californian coast of America, and within fourteen years 100,000 were there, mostly engaged in tho fruit-growing industry. They are a thrifty race; their laborers work for little more than will Amy them rice; those who had bought land or leased it were able to undersell the natives. And every year more immigrants were being admitted. The Californians saw danger; antiAsiatic feeling ran high; they pressed the United States legislators to exclude Japanese from the country; Roosevelt put through an agreement to restrict the number of immigrants; the Japanese Government agreed to the terras, and the number there to-day is approximately 110,000. But the Californian Legislature isn’t satisfied. They inserted in this 1924 Bill a clause which excludes, on racial grounds, ns from July 1 this year, all Japanese from the United States! And yet negroes are tolerated! That has offended the Japanese more than anything else.

Thera you have the position. Will America sive way? Or will she stand cn her dignity and flout the Island Empiie ? This is not, in ray view, a dash between the Asiatic and the white/-man —it is a quarrel between Japan and America; but it may conceivably affect us if our interests in China and Far Eastern waters are jeopardised. A CHALLENGE OF THE PAST. You may safely dismiss from mind (he idea that other yellow races would stand by Japan, for if there is a nation detested by the Chinese and the Koreans that- nation is Japan. The Chinaman, in Ins delightfully simple philosophy, says of the Japanese ; “ One piecee mouth ; two piecee tongue.” The Korean has suffered much oppression at the hands of the Japanese.

Seventeen years ago I was resident in Tokio (my wanderings as a young man took me into most corners of the world). The Russo-Japanese War came to an end (if you knew the truth about that you might gasp in astonishment; I can assure you that if it had lasted another fortnight the Russians would have been the victors!). The Californian trouble was pretty acute then, and Australia was giving our own legislators some anxiety bv their attitude of ill-will towards the Japanese. Then the Americans took it into their heads to send their fleet around the Horn to Sydney. It was a challenge, in a wav, and' the Japanese regarded it as snob.

There was a low murmuring throughout the country. The man of the moment iu.t then was that fine old aristocrat Count Okuma, the Premier. I /vent to see hm in his beautiful country home some miles out of Tokio. A member of the Japanese Diet acted as interpreter (he was the count’s private secretary), and lie began by telling me that the count didn’t speak Ewlish. I speedily discovered that he understood every word I uttered. He was the antithesis of the Japanese of popular conception, for,he stood sft liivli; he had lost a leg ns tho remit of a dastardly attack on him by a would-be assassin, yet he walked with great dignity in spite of tho artificial limb. . . . “ But if this is a challenge on the part of America,” I said, “ yon couldn’t possibly fake it up, for the Russian War has crippled you.” THE SPIRIT OF JAPAN. His small eyes flashed. “If it is war,” ho said dramatically, “ every Japanese in the land will place his little savings in the common Treasury so that we may fight. That is the Japanese spirit.” If 1 were asked what chance America wouid live against Japan if war actually h-okf out (the probability is that retaliation would take the form of influencing the Far Eastern markets against America,—and that will not help us), I should say : No chance whatever in a naval engagement. Personally, I place tho Japanese navy- on tho level of our own, for the nation has concentrated on this service and brought it to a high pitch of perfection. It was through Count Okuma, and following that interview, that I was introduced to the most charming personality m all Japan, Admiral Togo. Rightly he has been described as the Nelson of Japan. He invited me to breakfast, and I shall never forget that morning, for after a long conversation he led me down to the railings of his quaint little garden and said, with a. smile : “ You would like to meet my neighbor.” That neighbor leaned over tlie low fence and joined in the conversation. It- was the great General Nogithe captor of Port Arthur. It was a tribute to tho character of the man that in telling of that tremendous enic he kept on insisting that General Stoessel, the Russian defender of the fort had no possible chance of victory, and that his country was very unjust in condemning him for what they regarded as a feeble defence. While Togo’s shells pounded him from the sea, Nogi’s guns pulverised him from the land, WATCH FOR THE RUSSIANS.

Speaking of the sinking of the Russian Baltic fleet in the Straits of _ Japan, he bold me what is probably quite new to students of that amazing battle. You wiT remember that the Baltic fleet, under Ad miral Rojdestvensky. endeavored to reach Vladivostock. Togo’s fleet lay stretched across the Straits of Korea awaiting. Togo knew that the fleet must do destroyed. It was the story of the wailing that he told me :

“ Day after day, night after night, and no sign of them. Admiral Kamimura (his second in command) came up to my flagship again and again, urging upon me that they must have got through under cover of the fog. Then came the day when I almost allowed myself to bo influenced by him. A little argument would have swayed me to his belief; but it was only dignity that prompted mo to remind him that I was in supreme command. I ordered him back to his ship, and the Russians came through that very_night! Rojdestvensky's fleet was annihilated; in truth it hadn’t a chance, from the moment it left its own waters, since it was eaten up with corruption. Well, to the present. Perhaps Amen® will modify that Bill and postpone a racial fight, which, to my mind, must come some day if not now. It is a curious commentary on evolution that the two nations which, are probably the wealthiest in the world to-day. since the World War drained the coffers of the others, should be burnishing up their weapons in preparation for a conflict. What should England do? We!!, well, it may be that the bitter experience of the last decade has warped the finer instincts of the’man: but there is a disabled ollicer at my dhow as J write this, and he remarks laconically : ‘‘ ALaka munitions lor -tka jnaii: of ’eitUv - ■