ANTI-JAPANESE

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1927, Page 7

ANTI-JAPANESE

AMERICAN AGITATION.

Anti-Japanese agitation in general has ceased on the Pacific coast of America, but the issue is still a live one arising whenever Japanese attempt to build, or to acquire property, says Sidney L. Gulick, secretary to the Committee on Relations with the Orient of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and to the National Committee on Ameri-can-Japanese Relations. Mr Gulick has spent two months on the coast studying the problem and has conferred with prominent Americans and Japanese, and his observations are submitted in the form of a report to the above committees. “The Press has stopped discussing the Japanese question,” he says, “and there is apparently no popular interest in it. Not a few Americans and Japanese . . realise that the Alien Land Laws are . . . rapidly becoming ineffective; first, because Americanborn Japanese are now’ becoming fairly numerous and in a decade will number many thousands: and second, because American land-owners and Japanese farmers are learning how to evade the laws by private ‘gentlemen’s understandings’ instead of legal cont, i*acts “It is also often stated that Americans now see pretty generally that the Immigration Exclusion Law of 19.2-1 was an absolutely needless humiliation to Japan and would like to have Congress place Japan on the (fuota list. But it is also clear that those who actively advocated that law are still its strong supporters. I found no convincing evidence of any material change in the attitude of California as a whole. “Widespread consciousness is developing among both Americans and Japanese of the problem of the ‘second generation.’ It has already become clear that their future is in America. Their problem is twofold —economicoccupational and social-status. It is causing Japanese, both older and younger, much concern. Statistics published by the Consulate-General at San Francisco, show that iu October, 1926, the number of American-born citizens of Japanese parentage in continental United States was 63,749, or whom 32,740 were males and 31,009 were females. Of these only 586 were actually registered at the previous election as qualified voters. Adults and children of school age were given as 30,461 and children below school age as 33,288. “The problem of the ‘Second generation’ is only just beginning to emerge and will grow increasingly acute for at least a decade. America is as much concerned in its wholesome solution as the Japanese. What may and should be done deserves the most careful study and prompt action.”