California's Challenge B Y a large majority California voted last month in favor of the anti-Japanese initiative measure. The act is a challenge not only to Japan but, in a sense, to our own State Department and so to the government at Washington. For in a statement made public before the election, the State Department declared that it had assured Japan that "no outcome of the California movement will be acceptable to the country at large that does not accord with existing and applicable provisions of law, and, what is equally important, with the national instinct of justice." The measure adopted is designed to strengthen the law of 1913 to prohibit Asiatics from owning or leasing farm-lands or other lands. "Devastating wars," says the N. Y. World, "have had their beginnings in CALIFORNIANS ARE SEEING THINGS IN THE DARK 765 "yellow peril" will arise when Japan is able to marshal the hordes of Chinese behind her banners and lead a crusade of the yellow races against the white. But it would be easier for us to marshal the Chinese against Japan today than for Japan to marshal them against us or any other nation. War is out of the question unless we force it upon Japan, and that contingency is hardly worth considering. Europe's view is that California's action pertains to the subject of domestic economy and is not an international affair or one that can be brought before the League of Nations. Japan, however, is one of the best customers we have. During the year ending June 30, 1920, we exported nearly $800,000,000 worth of American commodities to Asiatic countries and about 60 per cent of these ($453,147,063) were taken by Japan. And our imports from Japan were greater in the same year than from England or any other country except Cuba and Canada, reaching the figure of $527,220,867. At least one Pacific portSeattle is raising an emphatic protest against the California agitation as threatening to place in jeopardy her commercial future. Just how much Californians are affrighted by the facts that exist and how much by the facts conjured up by their imagination, it is difficult to say. Apparently they have been feasting upon the percentages of increase in the Japanese birthrate and Japanese land holdings, and, forgetting the law of diminishing returns, have seen their state overrun with Japanese in the near future. The facts that exist are that in the last decade the population of California has increased by 1,648,987, while the Japanese population has increased by 38,500. The Japanese number now about 7 in 300 (2.3 per cent). As for their holdings of farmlands, they own 74,769 acres out of 11,389,894 acres under cultivation in HOW JAPANESE LAND HOLDINGS in CALIFORNIA HAVE INCREASED in the LAST TWO YEARS the state (six-tenths of one per cent), and lease 383,287 acres (3.3 per cent). It is true that there are sixty millions more of Japanese where these came from, but in the last twelve years, according to the figures of the Immigration Bureau, only 79,738 of these sixty millions came into the United States (including Hawaii), and 68,770 returned to Japan, leaving a net gain of less than 11,000 in twelve years! It is true that these figures do not include the number smuggled in by way of Mexico, but, even so, the actual situation seems far from terrifying. The State Department appeals to the "national instinct of justice." But when were these race hostilities ever appeased by appeals either to reason or justice? The trouble comes from those who are deaf to such appeals, as we have found out long since in the treatment of the Negro, the Indian It does not mean war in the near future, but it may mean the cultivation of a deepseated national resentment which is the soil from which most wars spring. An exclusion act that will work both ways alike against Japanese laborers entering this country and American laborers entering Japan, admitting other classes ought not to be difficult to negotiate. If it can not be negotiated, Congress should act. Better an exclusion act, even if it offends Japanese pride (tho there is no reason why it should) than these constant pin pricks that threaten to develop every year or two into something more serious. London as well as Washington is troubled by the difficulty of saving the face of the Japanese government, for -Chapin in St. Louis Star. Canada and Australia are taking an attitude similar to that taken by California. The "crisis," however, is purely official. MERELY A CHANGE IN PACK HORSES and the Chinaman, and may yet find out in the treatment of the Jew. We might as well recognize this ugly fact before the sandlot orators get started again on the Pacific slope. The Federal Council of Churches has had a commission investigating the subject, and it earnestly calls for a new treaty and for new legislation both in Tokio and Washington. The Committee on Immigration of the lower house of Congress has also been investigating the situation and its chairman, Isaac Siegel, finds that "there is a terribly bitter, growing feeling against the Japanese caused by the agitation," and that this agitation, "created largely by politicians," has reached a point where serious international trouble is imminent. He also concludes that a new treaty should be made, excluding Japanese laborers. The situation does not admit of delay. But The Hara ministry in Japan must issue its assertions about race equality. It must demand satisfaction. It must talk about retaliatory measures. it has no idea of going to war. In the British Empire generally the Japanese receive no more consideration than they receive in California. Japan has made representations to Australia and Canada, and there is a highly correct correspondence between London, Melbourne, Sydney, Ottawa and the New Zealand capital on the subject. In other words the Japanese government is saving its face. The Tokyo press under its control have been caustic in their strictures on the developments in California. Mass meetings are held in Japan to denounce American race policy, and these meetings, it |