JAPANESE IN CANADA

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 November 1938, Page 12

JAPANESE IN CANADA

DISQUIETING ASPECTS

VANCOUVER, October 18

In the Chinese colony in this, city, the story is told that one of the Chinese delegates to the Coronation Mr. Chin, returned by way of Canada. He travelled incognito, and while waiting at a leading hotel in. Vancouver for the trans-Pacific liner, refused to meet ranking members of the Chinese community. Mr. Chin had long conversations with British Treasury officials, and his despatch contained data relating to a possible loan to the Chinese Gov&hnment. When Mr. Chin’s ship touched Yokohama, Japanese police boarded it, entered his cabin, and searched through his papers. The result was that Japanese servants, employed at the Vancouver hotel, were discharged, suspected of espionage. The story cannot be vouched for, but it is an example of countless similar tales, of subversive Japanese activity, related along the Pacific Coast, from San Diego to Nome. When, however, it was learned that a considerable number of Japanese young men, Canadian citizens, go back to Japan to serve a terin in the Army, it was felt that the time' had arrived for a complete overhaul of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, that replaced the Anglo-Japanese Entente, which was abrogated at the instance of Canada. Mr Mackenzie King bowed to an increasing popular demand, and set up a Commission of Inquiry, but, loath to offend Japan, ordered that its sessions be private. The Commission has practically confined its investigations to individual cases of Japanese entering Canada illegally. . Over 1200 Japanese fishing boats ply their trade in every bay and inlet on the British Columbia Coast. They are the subject of another disquieting story, that the majority of them are equipped with compressed air tanks, and, in an emergency, can be converted into torpedo boats. The number of Japanese business licences issued in Vancouver has increased by 74 percent. in the last decade. The Vancouver City Council is pressing to have Oriental trade licences issued on a quota basis. The provincial Government is in accord with this and many other proposals to restrict Oriental progress, which in certain retail trades ■ is relatively, far in excess of that of > the white population. I Dr. Edward Banno, spokesman for Vancouver Japanese, believes that their abnormally high birth-rate will decline, and approximate the Canadian average as Japanese girls become more Westernised and frown on the traditional Nipponese custom of having a baby every year. “All immigrant groups, mostly young people, have a higher birth-rate than the, native residents,” he says. “So it is., among the Japanese here, though I . doubt it the birth-rate was ever as., high as it is in French Canada. But, < -as wo become more settled, it i s |j bound to decline to the Canadian ‘ level.” j