JAPANESE EMIGRATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 4

JAPANESE EMIGRATION.

It is announced from Japan that the Mikado’s Government is now prohibiting emigration to Mexico, as well as putting an end to the emigration of Japanese wome nto join their fellow countrymen in the United States. These steps are being taken in compliance with an agreement made between Japan, and the United States some years ago, but evidently delayed in operation. Japanese emigration to Mexico, or perhaps, rather, the possibility of it on a big scale, has for some time been a cause of uneasiness to the United States, just as it previously was hi the case of California. It was suspected, and the suspicion was strengthened by many stories of .more or less plausibility, that a Japanese influx into Mexico would be merely the forerunner of colonisation extensive enough to enable Japan to attach the country to its own dominion, and as most of the Japanese, like the Germans, have had military training, such a project would undoubtedly prescut a serious problem to America in the event of its coming to fruition. Japan is so overcrowded that she must hud more laud for her people to settle on. Eastern Asia is handiest for the purpose, but there appears to be difficulties there which make prospects in other countries more attractive. To go to war for the purpose is out of the question for Japan, just now at any rate, but dhcrc always remains the process of peaceful penetration. The latter failed in California, and apparently the United States’ objection has caused itto fail in Mexico. What country will Japan try next to penetrate? It may be. remembered that some months ago it was reported by cable that a powerful Japanese syndicate had bought a large tract of land in Peru, at the head waters of the Amazon, for Japanese colonisation purposes, and a more recent message recorded still another land purchase of a similar nature in an adjoining region, the Japanese have in those latter territories an unexcelled opportunity for peaceful penetration. With the very scantiest of population and rich in natural resources, the territories in which the Amazon and its tributaries rise are admirable fields for colonisation on a big scale, affording, too, every opportunity for the expansion of the colonies should the need arise. If there he anything at all in these stories of Japanese colonisation in South America., Japan’s readiness to withdraw from Mexico is less surprising than it might otherwise seem. America