The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1913. THE YELLOW PERIL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 283, 22 April 1913, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1913. THE YELLOW PERIL.

The Jap is an essentially enterprising person, and the "little brown man',' as he is popularly called, will always make a way where there is an opening. Historians, as a matter of fact, tell us that the Japanese are the oldest civilised nation on the earth, and that their possibilities in this direction are indefinite. It is certain, in any event, that the Japanese are a nation who have to be counted with. They are assimilating Western ideas with marvellous "cuteness" and rapidity, and their comparative recent engagement with Russia shows that so far as their army and navy are concerned they are far from being a negliblc quantity. At present they are "at locks" with California, for this enterprising State, heedless of protest and persuasion, has passed a Bill designed to prevent "aliens" owning land within the State for more than a year unless they have "expressed the intention of becoming American citizens." The Bill is, of course, aimed at the Japanese and Chinese, who cannot secure naturalisation papers under any conditions, and so are prevented absolutely from buying land in California and even retaining sections they have already purchased. But that particular terms "alien" is wide enough in its general application to cover any settler who is not a citizen of the United States by hirth or naturalisation; and it seems that if the Bill is accepted by the Senate and [Sanctioned by the State Governor, a ; British subject will not bt able to own i a piece of land in California unless he is I prepared to renounce his nationality. j "In that case," says the Lyttelton Times, | commenting on the subject, "the Federal ' Government will be compelled to intervene, since Britain has treaty rights that can hardly, be disregarded, but its task I will not be an easy one. The construction of the United States is expressly framed to prevent the Federal authority for coercing the States, and the cry of 'State rights' has seldom been raised in vain." An American writer said recently that the United States should never enter into treaties with foreign Powers, because it contained no single authority, j executive or legislative, capable of seeurI ing a strict observance of national obligations. '"'We have nothing to correspond to tlie British Foreign Office, which I can act without consulting Parliament," ! he stated, "or to .the bureaux which do I international business for the European countries." The latest cables indicate that the Federal Government and the other States are trying to hold up the Bill, and that Japan is extremely indignant at the prospect of its passage. The little Eastern nation is even threatening to "take on" the giant continent and to send its navy to "hit up things." The question has an interest for ourselves, because any international trouble there may be for Australia and New Zealand is almost certain to come from the East. Our own alien immigration laws are • sufficiently restrictive, but they are not nearly so severe as those proposed by the California!! State Legislature. President Wilson appears to he handling the matter with a diplomatic touch, but he 'Certainly is getting a "rough run" in the early hours of his presidency.