THE UNWELCOME JAPS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6315, 16 September 1907, Page 6

THE UNWELCOME JAPS

An interesting sidelight on the subject of the anti-Japanese demonstrations on the Pacific seaboard of North America is supplied by to-day’s cable no'vs. Count Okuma, leader of the Opposition in the Japanese Parliament, in a letter to the press, draws a distinction between the nature of the outrages inflicted upon the people of his race in San Francisco and that of the riots in Vancouver. In effect, he believes that the Californian outbreak was supported by those in authority, and was therefore part and parcel of a settled policy of exclusion; whereas he ascribes the incident in British Columbia to a species of sporadic mob-fury, possessing no national significance. "Whether he is right or not, there can be no doubt that the underlying motive is in both cases the same. We in these Australasian lands sympathise with that motive, and are conscious of the fact that, if the necessity arose it would impel some of our people to actions closely allied in kind to those which have created alarm and even consternation at Washington and Ottawa. It matters little in the last analysis whether , the beginnings of active resentment against alien immigration in force are officially supported or oondoneffi, as in California, or disowned and denounced, as in Canada; the result in all,oases must be legislation to limit and regulate such influx. As a matter of fact, there is no difference between American and British methods regarded from the national standpoint. If the State officials in San Francisco side with the mob, it is not to be assumed that the United States Government means to delegate its authority to a vigilance committee. In-- Seattle, the port of Puget Sound, the police are as decis-i ively on the side of law and order as they are in Vancouver, aud the best elements of the population,. according to the local newspapers, deplore the agitation, and welcome Japanese immigration. Yet it was at Bellingham, in the same Territory of Washington, that those riots arose which gave at once an example and an impulse to the mob at Vancouver. The difficulty which has arisen certainly demands very delicate handling. News comes from an apparently reliable source foreshadowing an agreement between Japan and Canada restricting immigrants to the Dominion to ;the number of five hundred a year, exclusive of professional men and students —■ terms which seem, by the way, in the light of Japanese methods, to be a little elastic. Probably some arrangement of the same sort will also be made between the United States and its trans-Pacific neighbour. Mr Borden’s idea of race-assimilation, in a political sense, can hardly be accepted as a satisfactory alternative to a policy of practical exclusion, enforced with politeness, but also with unflinching determination.