The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1909. AMERICA'S POWDER MAGAZINE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 469, 30 March 1909, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1909. AMERICA'S POWDER MAGAZINE.

■• The outbreak of racial feeling which is reported from San Francisco to-day serves to remind the world of the permanence and the dangerous character of the anti-Asiatic sentiment in.the Western States of America. Hitherto that sentiment has displayed itself only in antiAsiatic legislation and in street-fighting and riots. That it has now broken forth as a violent demonstration against an American woman who intends to marry a Japanese means, unless the report ha 3 been grossly exaggerated, that it has swept away even the strongest and most vital of the restraints which hold civilised white men in check. However far the Western Americans might have been expected to go under the stimulus of racial passion, nobody would have been willing to suggest that they would go the. length of outraging the respect for womanhood in ■which, so we are often assured, the American sets an examplo to the world. That the men who mobbed and insulted Miss Emeky arc roughs of the lowest class may be taken for granted, but it is a damning commentary upon the condition of public opinion in San Francisco that it should be at all possible for "several thousands" of hoodlums and had characters to cast such a disgrace upon the city. The fact that it was to the aid rendered to her by newspaper correspondents that the poor girl owed her safety, supplies a hint of the way in which the outrage took place. It may be safely conjectured that Mn. Hearst's newspaper, the Examiner, or some other journal, dealing in.scnsationi alism of the kind, has been making a

"star feature" of the engagement of Miss Eiieey to her Japanese lover, and has written of the matter, and of the lady's intention to travel by a certain train, in a directly hostile tone. This would explain the magnitude of the ruffianly mob and the presence of a crowd of newspaper correspondents. Tho incident makes it clear, therefore, that the unscrupulous sensationalism of certain newspapers is still working on popular ignorance and racial antipathies to the injury of the country.

For the timo being the Californian Legislature, which was considering a series of repressive anti-Japanese enactments, has given way before the stern determination of Mr. Roosevelt. An attempt was made early • last month to pass, in defiance of Mr. Roosevelt's warnings, the Bill proposing to segregate Japanese school-children. The Bill was clearly in violation of Japan's treaty rights, and insistence on this fact by the Governor of the State led to the postponement and ultimate abandonment of the measure. The British and American newspapers about that time contained ample evidence of a very dangerous state of affairs, and this despite the fact that official figures prove that Japan has carried out her pledge to limit immigration. For the six months ended in October last more Japanese left the country than entered it. Although sober critics ridicule the alarm of tho antiJapanese party, the feeling against the Asiatics is growing, and it is fostered by the trades-union leaders. Other States besides California have been displaying an embarrassing activity, notably Oregon and Nebraska, in both of which antiAsiatic resolutions and legislation have occupied tho Legislature. Attempts arc also being made by the New York Herald to represent British Columbia as a hotbed of opposition and hatred to the Japanese, but there is little foundation, apparently, for such reports. According to the editor of the San Francisco Argonaut, the situation is not so serious as it appears abroad. Ee thinks, indeed, that the agitation in California is at an end ''in so far as it may be regarded as a menace to international amity."

The two chief motives behind the antiAsiatic feeling in America—as in New Zealand and Australia—are, a fear of the competition of cheap labour, and an instinctive dread of any serious commingling of the races. Of these two motives the second is by far the more powerful, since it has its roots deeper in the composition of human nature. While these motives are at work in California, tho position of America is highly dangerous. It is not impossible that an unlucky turn of events might present the Federal Government with a desperate alternative—civil war, or war with Japan. In the meantime the Government has adopted a sound and statesmanlike policy, which Me. Eoosevelt put into definite shape last month. In a telegram to the Speaker of the Californian Assembly, ho said that the Government was anxious to guard the interest of the entire West in accordance with the desires of tho Western people. Japan was doing its part in carrying out its policy of restricting immigration, and America would in its turn, carry out its obligations. "If in the next year or two the action of the Federal Government fails to achieve what it is now achieving, then through further action by the President and Congress it can be. made entirely efficient." In other words, the Government promises to meet the , wishes of the West so soonias the existing arrangement with Japan, which is considered to be working as it was intended to- work, shows that a reversal'of policy is necessary. But thero is always tho risk that the sensational press and the powerful labour organisations may provoke an explosion which will have the most serious results, in spite of the esteem in which the American and Japanese Governments hold each other. . Such an incident as that reported to-day shows that the high explosive is there. The. careless match of circumstance may ignite it at any moment.