PACIFIC WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 6

PACIFIC WAR

JAPANESE “COLONIES” IN BRAZIL AND OTHER SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES. SETTLEMENTS STRATEGICALLY PLACED. Brazil has within its borders more settlers from the land of the Rising Sun than any other Latin American country, states an article in the “Christian Science Monitor.” The Government. has sought to prevent the formation of isolated alien groups, but the Japanese retain their customs to a large extent. Japanese in Brazil are settled at points along an encircling crescent. It starts from the modern industrial city of Sao Paulo in the south, then swings north and west through Matto Grosso and the Amazon Valley eastward to the Atlantic coast province of Ceara. Estimated numbers of Japanese in these sections are: Sao Paulo, 175,000; Matto Grosso, 20.000; Amazonas, 25,000; and Ceara, 20,000. IN NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES.

Neighbouring countries on the west are Bolivia, with 20,000 Japanese, and Peru, with 30,000. A glance at the map is sufficient to show that these groups of settlers from Japan are very strategically placed—so much so . that it is questioned whether these Oriental pioneers just happened to pick cut their future homes. The groups in the north are within striking distance of the Panama Canal. The claim has been made many times that landing fields in the guise of well cultivated farms appear in the various sections of northern and western Brazil, but this is not believed to have been confirmed. Even assuming that these industrious farmers would not be able to mobilise in the strict military sense—though it is estimated that there may be 100,000 potential fighters—they could, in the event of trouble, cause serious difficulties not only in Brazil but in the neighbouring countries such as Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.

Japanese immigration started in Sao Paulo about 1910, perhaps a bit earlier, when an agreement was made to bring 1000 Japanese a month to work on the coffee plantations of that state. Later this was increased to a quota of 2500 a month, and continued officially at that rate for many years. In 1935 Dr. Miguel Couto, a member of the then existent Federal Congress, put through a bill establishing a 2 per cent limit on immigration of all kinds. This cut down the Japanese quota to a comparatively small figure. But it has been claimed that there has been a heavy illegal infiltration into the Amazon Valley, via Peru. MAINTAIN OWN SCHOOLS. At one time the Amazonas State Government made an agreement with a Japanese company for the concession of 1,000,000 hectares of land, about 2,500,000 acres, for colonisation purposes. The Federal Government refused to sanction the contract and the scheme fell through. The land grant did not materialise, but Japanese are still on the scene. The Japanese are admittedly good workers, particularly along agricultural lines. There have been many disputes between them and the Brazilian authorities, especially as regards schools. The Japanese have insisted on maintaining their own schools, with their own teachers and books, and using their own language, in violation of the local laws.’ Although many of these schools have been closed by the public authorities, Japanising in some cases has been carried on clandestinely. . Of late years the commercial relations between Japan and Brazil have been growing. Commercial missions from each country have visited the other. Japan, at least since the Chinese trouble started, has been an increasingly heavy 'buyer of Brazilian cotton. This has been of prime importance to Brazil, with its European market almost entirely shut off. Recently the Japanese have sought to buy up large quantities of Brazilian rubber, crystal, industrial diamonds, and other raw materials essential to military operations. This trade came to an end when Brazil and the United States last May concluded an arrangement whereby the latter agreed to absorb the entire Brazilian surpluses of all such products.