THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1908. THE ASIATIC PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13873, 6 October 1908, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1908. THE ASIATIC PROBLEM.

It was suggested by the Herald some time ago that the Australasian Governments should approach the Imperial authorities with a view to the calling of a Conference for the special purpose of considering the Asiatic immigration problem as it affects the self-governing dominions of the Empire. ' The Under-Secre-tary of State for the Colonies has now publicly predicted "the establishment of a Great Council of the Empire to discuss the question's of Asiatic immigration," from which it may be assumed that this obvious plan of reaching some definite understanding upon the matter will soon be adopted. In a measure, British colonies have placed themselves in the wrong by failing to take active and systematic steps for the adequate filling up of the "waste spaces "which no nation on earth has the right to hold, because, in the end they cannot be held. But even though we admit, our past failings and hesitate as to the best procedure for rectifying our errors, it is not to be thought that the penalty should be the prompt and immediate destruction of our legitimate and noble ambition to establish new Britains wherever we have self-governing States. From the point of view of British colonists, therefore, it is imperative that the Empire should recognise and acknowledge that those who are incapable of becoming absorbed in our communities may fairly be the subject of excliisionist regulations, At the same time it is extremely desirable that exclusionist regulations should be reasonable in their character and should not needlessly and wilfully outrage the feelings of alien races, particularly when these aliens are dependents of the Empire which British strength has 'built-up. It is also improper that inconsistent regulations should: operj ate' in British States which have the same purpose and much the same conditions. The work of a Council upon this problem would therefore be of a -very practical character if our colonial principles were Imperially accepted as a basis for its recommendations.

The march of modern knowledge has probably convinced the great majority of the population of,. the United Kingdom, including the officials of the Indian and Colonial Offices, instead of being one homogeneous entity, the British Empire is more heterogeneous than India itself. Those citizens of the Empire who are of European extraction, whether British, French, or Dutch, necessarily stand apart from all others, and cannot be confounded with them. In the end the Empire must depend as much upon the voluntary loyalty of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and South Africa as it does upon the voluntary loyalty of Yorkshire and Devon. It can never depend upon the voluntary loyalty of India, Egypt, and Malaysia. It is strengthened by the growth of.free British States,, and would be weakened by the transformation of any free British State into an Asiatic dependency. We may fairly summarise the situation by means of the distinction made by the Imperial Government itself: that some people are inherently selfgoverning while others are not. The peoples of the self-governing States object to the immigration • of the peoples of the non-self-governing States, and it is to the interest of an Empire which rests upon the strength of the self-governing to support their objection. The / rulers of India in spite of calumny and sedition, do their work with an impassive devotion; which compels the admiration of every

I colonist. By feeding the faminestricken, by preventing war . and anarchy, by developing great irrigation works, they have increased' the population of the great dependency to a degree that strains their administration. But it is not conceivable that we should deliberately sacrifice any State which might be another England for the sake of making it another Bengal or Baipootana; any more than that an alliance with the Mikado can be a reason for sacrificing similar territory to the Japanese. There are limits to all philanthropic inclinations, and the limit is necessarily reached when actual territorial occupation is involved. Markets may be lost without a nation being destroyed, and even military conquest may be endured without the extinction of national vitality. But when the Asiatic is allowed to compete with the European, Upon the plane of the European, then the European dies out and the Asiatic lives. This unpleasant fact, true of labourer, of "mechanic, of trader and of merchant, prevents the British States which are exposed to Asiatic immigration from accepting the "philanthropic theory that it is unjust to exclude the Asiatic. From British Columbia to Natal) all 'across the wide stretches of the Pacific and Indian Oceana the British settler who is striving to build free British States does so with the full knowledge that if Asia is allowed to pour out her myriads upon him he is inevitably lost. How long Britain and ■ Europe would stand, if the Englishspeaking colonies were alienised, we need not consider, but it certainly seems that, in the ultimate, they are directly interested in our maintenance. An Imperial Council could not but recognise this,: extremely plain situation, and'would lead to a co-ordination of the Colonial and Imperial authorities for-i the protection of the British States upon lines which would give the greatest satisfaction to us, and the least dissatisfaction to people for whom, as long as they do not come to our countries, we all have the kindliest feeling.