STREET FIGHTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6311, 11 September 1907, Page 5

STREET FIGHTS.

ANTI-ASIATIU RIOTS JAPANESE TURN AND ROUT WHITES exciting encounters. POLICE POWERLESS TO PREVENT DISORDER. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received September 10, 9.10 p.m.> LONDON, September 10. Reuter’s correspondent at Victoria, British Columbia, reports that the rioting which started at Vancouver on Saturday night, after an Anti-Asiatic League meeting, when Japanese and Chinese shops were damaged by a number of rowdies, lasted till daylight on Sunday. The police were powerless to stop the uproar, and appealed to Japanese to confine themselves to resistance, and not to go into the streets. While the police were defending a number of handsome Japanese stores in, Powell street against a mob of two thousand rioters, hundreds of bricks were thrown, damaging the stores to the extent of thousands of dollars. A JAPANESE CHARGE. Seeing this, the Japanese could stand it no longer, and hundreds of them, armed with sticks, bottles, and knives, and shouting “Banzai,” rushed into the streets. In five minutes they had ’ cleared the streets where the trouble • started, and then they followed the fugitive whites up other streets, some of the Japanese firing pistol volleys and others jabbing rioters in their faces and bodies with broken bottles. Japanese women assisted their husbands, supplying broken bottles froih their homes. > When matters were at the worst, there were EIGHT THOUSAND RIOTERS in the streets

Mr Mishu, Director of Commercial Affairs and Japanese Foreign Affairs, who is investigating the question of immigration in America, arrived on the scene while the rioting was in progress, but reached the Consulate iu safety. Sunday’s issue of Japanese papers warned the Japanese to prepare for any emergency, as the polipo were unable to guarantee protection. ANOTHER OUTBREAK. Rioting began again on Sunday evening, the scene this time being in Chinatown. The police, using their batons, dashed repeatedly into the mob, which numbered two thousand. The rioters then proceeded to Powell street, where Saturday night’s affray took place, and on arrival found that the Japanese there had made a veritable armed camp of the fine blocks of buildings. -' • Japanese were parading in front of the shops, armed with clubs, revolvers, and long knives, and threatening to use bombs if- attacked. The mobs are now being dispersed. ANTI-ASIATIC? MEETING SUPPRESSED. The Mayor of Vancouver, Mr Bethuue, is arranging to suppress a meeting of the Anti-Asiatic League announced for Thursday next. The Japanese Consul states that the windows of fifty-six Japanese establishments in Powell street have been destroyed, and that claims for compensation will be piesented forthwith to the city authorities. He has also cabled to the Japanese Embassy in London particulars of the riot. The Consul states that he regards the incident as of much more importance than the recent San Francisco trouble. Mr Bethune declares that the city will not pay any damages.

CANADA WILL MAKE REPARATION. (Received September 10, 10.5 p.m.) OTTAWA. Septemußt 10. M. Nosse, Japanese Consul at Ottawa, has discussed with Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Dominion Prime Minister, the rioting incident at Vancouver, and it is understood that Canada will make reparation. Meanwhile negotiations regarding the restriction of Japanese immigration continue. LONDON PRESS OPINION. (Received September 10, 10.25 p.m.) ■ LONDON, September 10. The “Morning Post” and “Daily Express,” discussing the Vancouver riot, agree in contending that Japan should be ready to listen to reasonable arguments based on purely economic grounds, and would recognise the right of other nations to secure their labouring classes from unregulated competition. THE POSITION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. AN INTERESTING STATEMENT. ' Referring to the news of serious collisions between the white working men of Bellingham and other towns in the State of Washington" and imported Hindu labourers, by whom they had been replaced in the timber mills, an interesting sidelight upon the situation is provided by Mr O. H. Gbbons. Madame Albania manager, who is now in the city, and who. as president of the British Columbia Press Association, is closely in touch with the conditions out of which the industrial disturbance has arisen. "The situation In British Columbia created by the inflnx of Indian unskilled labour," said Mr Gibbons to a "Times" representative yesterday, "is infinitely more serious to British Columbia than the socalled Japanese invasion, primarily because the Hindds, as they are commonly

termed (although they are, with few exceptions. Puujabese). are a British people, and secondarily, because they are X3TTEELY UNFIT PHYSICALLY for the conditions o£ life in what is to them, and by comparison with their native land, a cold country, Last year the statistics gave as the total number of ‘iliuuus arriving in the province, of whom the majority obtained employment in the timoer yards and Uic overground (and in some lew cases underground; workings of the collieries. 'they had teen drawn to Canada Oj the reports of pioneer countrymen who. nad written back to India of tho immense tu> them) wages obtainable. "With an existent labour famine, and work available for all. there was little real trouble as to the immigrants from India so lung as summer continued. 'lhe aervent of winter, however, brought trouble. The hapless people ot a sunny land suffered severely. ; ragged, destitute, pinched with cold, and absolutely unaccustomed to the country and ignorant of its language, they could not but be regarded with pity by everyone, although the presence of such people on every road and in every piece of public laud speedily created A SODECE OP DANGEE or at least uneasiness to the province. Then, too. isolated crimes of sex Intensified the feeling against the men of the East, and extreme measures were taken to check the inflow, measures in which the press and public men of India joined heartily, immediately rOvOgnisug the disaster that must overtake Puujabese of meagre resources coming into a country of climatic severities, •« hen i left home in March last we had regarded the ‘Hindu' inflow as stemmed, but the fact of a thousand of the unfortunate people coming in from the adjacent btate, where there is always a disposition to disregard the laws of freedom where they may properly be applied lor the protection of inoffensive foreigners, must present to-day ■ A VEEY DIFFICULT BEOBLEM for British Columbia to deal with. The province is bound to protect the rights and to respect the feelings of its wnite residents, distinctly antagonistic to tho brown man as a settler; while at the same time humanity and the kinship of Britons, whatever their land and colour, dictate a diplomatic and well-considered course on the part of the provincial authorities, me question is therefore one of uncommon delicacy for the Government. The natural and strictly legal course will of course bo for the federal immigration officers to enforce the laws directed against illiterate and indigent incomers of whatr ever flag or race. Still, the pitiful condition of the Puujabese suggests official action divested of all severity. The Dominion uovernmeut will eventually be appealed to, ± have no doubt, to assist the return of the unsuitable people to their native land. “One of the most curious features of the ‘Hindu' question, as it affects British Columbia, is the almost unbelievable fact that fully one-fifth of the Immigrant coolies are women masquerading as men and seeking rough men's labour in timber camp or mine. The allegation that this condition existed at first e.icited an indignant denial from Dr G. L. Milne, the Dominion medical immigration officer. This denial was almost immediately followed by authenticated cases at New Westminster, Vancouver, and Oomox of -‘Hindu workmen* becoming unhappy mothers, which may be said to have created a settled suspicion as to the reliability of the 1 official diagnosis, and, thanks to his professional brethren overworking what they regarded as an excellent jest, the position of Dr Milne was for a time what one might term unenviable.*'

APPEAL FOE FAIR , PLAY. WHERE PRECAUTION BECOMES UNREASONABLE. LONDON, September 9. “The Times,” commenting on recent outbreaks of feeling against Indians, and appealing for fair play for them, says:—“While the self-governing colonies are justified in taking adequate measures to preserve a splendid hcri-' tage to the white races, there is a point * beyond which precautions become prejudiced; the adequate passes into the unreasonable.” These remarks are probably Inspired by the incident reported a day or two ago, when a mob raided mills at Bellingham Bay, is Washington State, and drove out several hundred Hindus, who., it was complained, had ■ ousted white .labour. The Hindus left under police escort and proceeded towards British Columbia.