JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17276, 27 September 1919, Page 9

JAPANESE IN AMERICA.

ALARM ON PACIFIC COAST.

TOTAL EXCLUSION URGED. A. and N.Z. "WASHINGTON. Sept. 25. Alleging '.hat Japan is violating the " gentlemen's agreement" regarding the admission of Japanese into America, members of the House of Representatives for the States of Washington and California have urged the Immigration Committee to adopt the Australian policy of complete exclusion.

They assert that if further admissions be allowed the Pacific Coast will become a, Japanese province. The question is purely economic, and is not racial.

Figures showed that at the pre pent rate of immigration the United States at the end of the century would have a Japanese population in excess of 10,000,000,

High feeling was aroused in the western Stales of America in 1913 and 1914, by the arrival of Japanese immigrants on the Pa ific coast in increasing numbers. A poli'-v of absolute exclusion was urged, and legislation was drafted for this purpope. After long negotiations between the I'nitofl States Secretary of State and the. Japanese Ambassador, an agreement was iraihcd, which has come to be known as the "gentlemen's agreement," by which Japan undertook to regulate the emigration <jf Japanese to America, and to proK.hit the migration of artisans and farm l.ihmirers. In 1912 Japanese immigrants 1•11 • < America numbered 6172; in 1914, "Ml : in 1915. 8009 ; and in 1916, 3711.