JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15306, 20 May 1913, Page 6

JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

The new President of the United States is finding his difficulties on the increase. The Californian Legislature has passed a law. prohibiting Japanese from holding land in the State; Arizona has taken a leaf out of California's book, and has passed a similar law. Japan is said to have' been provoked to a high pitch of racial fanaticism by California's action; the provocation is increased by the action of Arizona. President Wilson has' exhausted his persuasive powers in a vain effort to soften the anti-Japanese feeling of the West; the Western States are obviously within their rights and they are more concerned to check the inrush of Japanese than to make it easy for the President to maintain friendly relations with Japan. The Japanese problem in America 'is a Western problem, in which the East has shown a provoking unconcern; President Wilson has come into office at a time when the temper of Western America and . the temper of Japan are dangerously straining the international relations. The Japanese are a confident people ; they believe in themselves and in their right to the lands of California. They have beaten Russia and they dream of beating the United States'. In California they are threatening the livelihood of American citizens who have no taste for the rice diet to which they can imagine themselves reduced by Japanese competition. Between Japan and California there is a rivalry of interest which diplomatists at Washington will find it increasingly difficult to reconcile, To New Zealanders this rivalry and its results have more than a passing 'interest. The eyes of the Japanese are on California, to-day; they may soon be on New Zealand. When treaties are torn .up the Japanese may be as confident of. their rights in North Auckland as they are to-day of their rights in Los Angeles, and they may not be long satisfied 'to' be the allies .of Great Britain and remain shut out from partially peopled British lands. The New, Zealanders who are continually bemoaning the cost of warships and the inconvenience of military training either take no account of this or the opening of New Zealand ports to the free inrush of Japanese has no terrors for them. But the average New Zealander feels much as the Californian feels, and the fear of the rice diet and what it means to him is one of his reasons for believing that the warships and the training are both worth while.