ASIATICS IN CANADA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21934, 18 October 1934, Page 20

ASIATICS IN CANADA

INCREASE IN NUMBERS GROWING PROBLEM POLITICAL RIGHTS QUESTION [fkoji our own correspondent] VANCOUVER, Sept. 26 With Asiatics comprising 10 per cent of the population of British Columbia, and increasing, by birth, two and filial f times as fast as the whites, a problem is being created which tends to grow more serious as time elapses. The question which is much canvassed by writers, especially on the Pacific Coast, is: Will these Orientals be expatriated at immense cost, or will they be given rights as British subjects and citizens of Canada ? The problem is intensified by the fact that the second and third generations were born in Canada, and, according to international custom, are British subjects and Canadians. Any expatriation policy could not include them, as it. cannot be officially assumed that China and Japan will accept them. The rapid natural increase of these Orientals is a repetition of the same tendency among all immigrant race* from countries of a lower standard of living and wages than Canada. The Canadian prairie to-day testifies to this in the large families of Southern European stock, particularly in Saskatchewan, the richest of the wheat-growing provinces. The Oriental growth in British Columbia .is more marked among Japanese, whose sexes are more evenly balanced than among Chinese, owing to the restrictions that were placed on the admission of Chinese women. University Professor's Views Professor i\ngus, of the University of British Columbia, who has made a close study of the problem of the Orientals, based on many personal surveys of their lives and occupations, says he is convinced that political and economic equality cannot be permanently withheld from them. If equality must one day be conceded, it should be conceded now, he says. "By acting promptly and ungrudgingly, wie can still evoke an emotional response which will be a great help in Canadianising our new citizens. We can maintain the prestige of British political traditions by showing that we take them seriously, and that, when we say, 'no taxation without representation,' we mean it. To enfranchise the native-born, who are not now numerous, will produce much less shock to our political iife than enfranchising relatively large numbers later when bitter feelings are likely to have been aroused." What support Professor Angus has for his conviction is not apparent, as public opinion has in the past avoided expressing itself on the Oriental question in British Cplumbia. In units of the community there have been signs of a policy not favourable to the Orientals. Farmers, who suffer by their competition, urge that they be not permitted to lease or own land; workers, in the key industries of lumber, mining and lisliing, object to the competition of a race that readily accepts lower than the white men's wages. Menial Occupations Lumber employers employ Orientals only in more or less menial occupations, which white workers do not seek. There is no discrimination in the schools or the university, where the record of Oriental students is equal to, and often better than that of the whites. But the problem will have to be faced some day. The Orientals are here, and increasing. In a quarter of a century they will be approaching in numbers the white population, which, in British Columbia, has the lowest birth rate in the British Empire. Strictly conforming to the laws of the country, efficient in their occupations, and co-operating in social welfare, the Orientals are content to be silent, knowing that, as years pass, their claims to citizenship will grow stronger, and that British justice will give them a fair deal when their claims come to be tested.