ASIA AGAINST THE WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9210, 13 April 1908, Page 2

ASIA AGAINST THE WORLD.

" A TREMENDOUS CONTINGENCY." INTERESTING REVIEW ARTICLE. A striking article upon what may bo called the world-meaning of the antiAsiatic movement appears in tho "Fortnightly Review," above the signature "Viator." Tho writer, who clearly possesses an intimate knowledge of the Far East, ie full of grave apprehension, not only for the future of tho Empire, but for the future of white civilisation. He is convinced that tho ! balance of forces in tho colour conflict is changing to the disadvantage of the white r;aces ; 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 " tremendous contingency " which ho 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, ana tho Transvaal, may create the political unity of India and. tho fighting unity of Asia.'/ In, such an event the white nations—though numbering hundreds of millions, forming a gigantio federation among themselves, and constituting 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 dominions in the East," proceeds " Viator," " axe 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 MAN'S DEMANDS. What, in effect, does the present policy of the Anglo-Saxon democracies amount to? To tho 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 well, if the Munroe doctrine is to hold good — but even Africa, the "Dark Continent," which might reasonably have 6eemed a fitting field of enterprise into which the surplus population of orowded prolific Asia might overflow. China has learnt its lesson from the Rand-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 there is an absolute identity of interests between China and Japan. Both peoples must, and will, resist being penned up within their original limits. The higher their standard of living rises with their advance in Western knowledgej the stronger must grow the economio pressure be-; hind that resistance. Compared witii Asiatics, the whites are a small minority. Asia contains something like 800,000,000 of people— half the whole number of mankind. Yet the whites claim to reserve for settlement ana political control the two Americas, Australia and Africa, in addition to Europe, demanding for themselves at the same time equality, or more than equality, in Asia. , Is Asia, driven, by natural forces ol twice the urgency towards colonisation, to be debarred from expaneionP lhat is the question which the Anglo-Saxon democracies have to 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, but of expediency. In Japan the hitherto despised Asiatic has a champion in whose arms all Asiatics may be driven, by the gradual realisiation of a common peril. ASIATICS AND THEIR DISABILITIES. "The Japanese," as "Viator" points out, "had too much legitimate selr-es-teem, and too casual an acquaintance with th© psychology and conditions or the West, to grasp readily the fact that they were to be subject, as a nation, to an immense 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 less 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, sea-power and' thought. Yet they are still excluded from tho fields of settlement into which are freely .admitted the Jews, who are helots in the Russia vanquished by Japan, and they are excluded by tho races who claim most vigorously the open-door in the Far East. This is proof to all Asiatics that, unless they can exert force, they will for all tiino be shut out from the privileges which white races enjoy in the rest of tho world. Indian subjects of the British Crown are being subjected to the same disabilities a« other Asiatics, and even within the Empire exclusion is only too often accompanied by insults, born of tho average white man's ignorance ot Oriental Hfo. What gave such strength to tho Indian protests against the recent Transvaal legislation was not so much exclusion, as the (to Asi v atics) brutal methods adopted for carrying it out. In order to identify the Indians already in the colony, men of high caste arid irreproachable character, were treated like pariahs. They wore compelled to have their fingerprints taken, all the digits being shown j together, in tho style used in India for tho registration, of criminals. Action such as tli is by the authorities of a British colony rouses deep indignation against tho dominant white race throughout India. "It is," says. " Viator," " a matter of life and death for our rogime in the Etist that no artificial unity of tho Indian peoples— • Bangalis with Sikhs, Pathans, Rajputs, Mathrattas and the rest — should bo created by spreading the burning sense of <a common injustice, such as registration of Indian immigrants in the Transvaal by tho system of fingerprints only used, for criminals elsewhere." " Viator '■ does not ignore the economic and social reasons which underlie the action of the Anglo-Saxon democracies, but ho fails, or perhaps it is not his intention to put the other side of the case. If there is anything in i his argument, it- is that the white ; countries such as Australia should free-' ly admit coloured people. This is impossible, no matter what may bo 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 ; suggested specially reserving certain Crown colonies and protectorates for Asiatic immigrants — the foundation, in fact, of an Indian colonial empire.