ASIA AGAINST THE WORLD.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13557, 30 March 1908, Page 7

ASIA AGAINST THE WORLD.

-A TREMENDOUS CONTINGENCY." INTERESTING. REVIEW ARTICLE. A striking -; article upon , what; may . be called the world-jneaning of the "anti-Asia-tic movement: appears in,.the "Fortnightly Review," above, the signature "Viator." The writer, wbtf. clearly possessesvan intimate knowledge -of the Far East,, is full of grave. apprehension, not only for the future of the-: empire, but for the future of white civilisation. He is convinced that the balance of forces in the colour conflict is changing to the disadvantage of the white races; that the moral frontier of white influence is contracting; and that the political boundaries of white predominance are unstable, but unlikely to be extended. , The contingency" which he fears is "that the action of the Anglo-Saxon democracies throughout the world, whether expressed by yellow elections in this country (i.e., Great Britain), by race-riots-upon the Pacific slope, or by restrictive immigration laws in the Commonwealth and the Transvaal, may create the 'political unity of India and the fighting unity of Asia." In such an event the white nations—though numbering hundreds of millions, forming " a gigantic federation among themselves, and consiitnting still ,the strongest racial -factor in the world's affairs—may possibly find themselves confined to Western Europe and North America. "If Australia, South Africa, and British dominion's in the East," Xiroceeds "Viator," "are to be preserved as part of the white man's heritage, if even South America is to be held in certain security, there will be required a different policy from that which is now being pursued by this empire and the' United States." THE WHITE MAX'S'DEMANDS.

What, in effect, Joes the present policy of the Anglo-Saxon democracies amount to?' To the exclusion of the Asiatic from every continent save his own. Not only are Australia and North America to be closed to him—and North America must ultimately imply .South America as ivell, if the Munroe doctrine is to hold good—but even Africa, the "Dark Continent," which might reasonably have seemed a fitting field of enterprise into which the surplus population of crowded prolific Asia might overflow. China has learnt its lesson from the Kand-coolie controversy. It feels that '"the sort of sanitary cordon established against yellow emigrants is complete." This, it is worth remembering, is the one question upon which thre is an absolute identity of identity of interests between China and Japan. lioth [/copies must and will resist In'ing penned up within Iheir original limit;. The higher their standard of liviug rises with their advance in w<.r,tern knowledge, the stronger must grow the economic pressure behind that resistance. Compared with Asiatics, the whius are a »nall minority. Asia contains something like 800,000,000 of j)eople—half the whole number of mankind. Yet the wliitts claim to reserve for settlement and political control the two America.", Australia, and Africa, in addition to Kuro[je, demanding for themselves at the same time equality or more than equality in Asia.

Is Asia, driven by natural forces of twice the urgency towards colonisation, to be debarred from expansion ? That, is the question which- the Anglo-Saxon demo-

enlcies have 1o face. If- they answer, " Yes," then they must recognise that the prohibition is worth the force behind it — no more —and that it incites all Asia to the joint development of a counter-force. The Asiatic point of view must be considered, not as a matter of justice' alone, J but of expediency. In Japan the hithertodespised Asiatic lias a champion in whose arms all Asiatics may be driven by the gradual realisation of a common peril. ASIATICS AND THEIR DISABILITIES "The Japanese;'' as "Viator" puinu out, "had too much legitimate self-esteem, and too casual an acquaintance: with thr psychology and conditions of the West, to grasp readily the fact that they were lo be subject, as a nation, to an ir/jnienia permanent disability because of their complexion. They certainly imagined that> they were solely and justly condemned because of their want of knowledge, and because; of', their even Icm, excusable inferiority in'the 'profession of arms, as practised by enlightened peoples. They have proved beyond all debate the immense potentialities of the Asiatic renaissance for war, industry, colonisation, seapower,, and thought. Yefc they are still excluded from the fields of settlement into which lire freely admitted the Jews, who are helots in. the, Russia vanquished by Japan, and they are' excluded by the races who claim most vigorously the open-door in the Far East."' This is proof to all Asiatics that, unlet.i lliey can exert force, they will for all time be, shut- out from, the privileges which white races enjoy in the rest-of the world. Indian subjects of the British Crown are being subjected to the same- disabilities as other Asiatics, and even within Ills Empire exclusion is only too often accompanied by insults, born of the average white- man's ignorance of Oriental life. What gave such strength to the. Indian protests against the recent Transvaal legislation was not so much exclusion as .the (to Asiatics) 'brutal, methods'.adopted Tor carrying it out. -In order; to"■■identify"' the'lndians already in-the colony, men of high caste and irreproachable character,: ~were treated like pariahs. . They were .compelled to have their finger-prints taken, all the digits being shown together,; in the style used in India for the registration, of crimnals. / . Action such as. this' by the authorities of-a British colony rouses-' deep indignation against the dominant - white race, throughtout India. . "It is;"■'-'■'says "Viator," "a matter of •life, and death for our regime in, the East that no artificialunity of the Indian peopled—Bengalis with Silks, Pathans, Rajputs, . Mahrattas, and the rest—should be . created by spreading the burning sense of a common injustice,. such as registration of' Indian immigrants in the, Transvaal by the system..of tinger- : prints only used for criminals elsewhere." "Viator" /does not/ignore the economic and social reasons which underlie the action 'of the Anglo-Saxon /democracies, -but- he fails, or perhaps it is not,his intention, to put the other side of the case. If there is anything in his argument, it is that the white countries such a&rAustralia- should freely admit coloured people. This is no matter what may be the consequences. The'reason ; lies much deeper than ..."'.Viator" is apparently inclined to go. As a partial—but '.only a partial—solution of the problem, he suggests specially reserving.' certain. 'Grown colonies and. protectorates for Asiatic immigrants—the foundation, in fact, of an Indian colonial empire. . .' ■"■ ','