RACIAL PROBLEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22612, 28 December 1936, Page 6

RACIAL PROBLEM

BRITISH COLUMBIA CHINESE AND JAPANESE GREAT INCREASE IN NUMBERS [fhom our own cor respondent] VANCOUVER, Dec. 2 For half-a-century, since Chinese coolies were introduced to work on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Enilway, Orientals have been engaged in the peaceful penetration of British Columbia. At the present rate of progress, with the highest birth rate in the British Empire, they will exeeed in population the white residents of British Columbia in another 50 years. The third generation is now appearing. Orientals born in Canada are allowed the vote, except in British Columbia An exception is made in the case of those who served with the Canadian forces in the Great War. The request for the right of Canadian-born Orientals to enjoy the franchise's gradually becoming insistent. How long the restriction will prevail is a matter of conjecture. Fruit and Vegetables The competition of the Oriental with the white man in British Columbia has extended recently until he now controls the wholesale and retail distribution of vegetables in Vancouver. Inland, a large number of Orientals are engaged in growing fruit, dairying and mixed farming. On the coast Japanese are gradually ousting (he white people from the salmon fisheries and canneries. A new plia.se of competition appeared recently and drew a protest from Canadian and American fishing intereststhe appearance, outside the territorial limit, of floating canneries, sent from Japan, to treat salmon that had , spawned in Canadian and American I streams. The Japanese reply to the protest was that the Pacific Ocean is I international water. Industrial Grisis i Oriental vegetable growers have pre- [ cipitated a major industrial crisis in ! the administration oi the Marketing ! Act. When the Federal legislation was | declared unconstitutional by the i Supreme Court of Canada, the Proj vincial Parliament pas>ed its own legis- | lation, to apply only to vegetables | marketed within the province. Oriental | growers and wholesalers defeated the : purpose of the law by declaring that vegetables in transit from their farms to their warehouses were for export. Market Board interference led to litigation and to an investigation by the | Legislature. Growers who refused to j give evidence were Ihreatened with proceedings for contempt. Aided by I astute lawyers, they have declined to | allow their product to be marketed | through the board. A Royal Commission will endeavour to decide the issue. Manufacturing Trades In recent years there has been a notable increase in the number of businesses conducted by Orientals | They are extending their operations to I embrace retail stores and manufacturing. The increase in Asiatic retail I trading establishments is now 15 per cent. One by one the manufacturing trades—clothing, dressmaking, boots and shoes, shipbuilding and the manufacture of aerated waters-—are being invaded by Orientals. In Vancouver a large number of garages and service : stations are operated by Japanese. The fisheries a few years ago faced a I situation which, if unchecked, would | have resulted in tlu> whole industry i being absorbed by Japanese. As it is. ! after a 50 per cent reduction in licences ! —an action loudly protested against | by the Japanese—2232 licences were ] issusd to Japanese in a single year. It | m?iv be mentioned here that in Japan | no white man can get a licence for j fishing or for operating a cannery or | saltery.

Populations Oompared '•? Of the 700,000 Orientals in British Columbia, 48,000 are Chinese, and 24,000 Japanese. In each ease, nearly one-half are Canadian by birth. Then? is a preponderance of males among th? Chinese, but the sexes are almost equal among the Japanese, whose birth rate is two and a-hUf times that of the whites. In fact, cine in every eight babies born in British Columbia is a J a panese. Since 1921. the-percentage of British population in the Pacific Province has declined from 73.S to 67.5, according to official statistics. At a similar rate, the population of British origin will be less than half in 20 years, a condition that is not pleasant to contemplate.