ALIEN IMMIGRANTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1747, 12 May 1913, Page 5

ALIEN IMMIGRANTS.

JAPAN'S FORMAL PROTEST. By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright Washington, May 9. Japan's formal protest against tho Californiun immigration legislation has been placed before Cabinet. ' HISTORY OF THE TROUBLE. AMERICANS SQUEEZED OUT. The United States Secretary of State Oil I .' FFj'an) made a special visit to Sacramento iu the hope of staying tho hand of the Californian Legislature in the matter of the restriction of Japanese citizenship, 'and suggested to the State Governor that the legislation should be suspended until the Federal Government had time to negotiate a new treaty with Japan, To this, hoirever, Governor Johnson refused'to agree. It is thought probable now that the Japanese Government will appeal to the United States Supreme Court on the jioint whether the Californian legislation is not ultra vires. The proposal to restrict the rights of citizenship to the Japanese in California is the culmination of a long-standing trouble. It originated several years ago in the Hawaiian Islands, owing to the importation of large numbers of Japanese to do manual labour in the sugar-cane plantations. Tlie work proved both attractive and remunerative, and gradually tho hundreds of Japanese coolies swelled.into thousands, until they were numerically the predominating race. Tho position then became, according fo the statement of a Californian gentleman at present in Melbourne, intolerable for the white j man. Fortunately', the Japanese, ho I said in an interview, made" no attempt to become naturalised citizens of the I United States, and, consequently, had no ! Parliamentary representation. California | soon became more popular than the !sI lands. Stealthily they have secured possession of several of the rural industries of this State, and have become an important and strong commercial factor in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the centre of the i .big fruit-growing section of Southern California, is now overrun with Japanese, and they havo squeezed tho strawberry-grower out of existence. By degrees they are gaining possession of other avenues of, irrigation farming, and aro now threatening tho livelihood of tho citrus growers. "These are the reasons briefly," stilted this gentleman, "why tho Californians, are taking action. They arc merely acting in self-defence. Iu business, the competition of the Japanese is just as strongly feared as the competition on the land. European races that have come over to tho United States in large numbers have given us no trouble, i'hey are gradually assimilated, and their children become American citizens. Not fo the Japanese. They are as much aliens in sentiment and in 1 action as are tho Japanese who have never left their country. They cherish a strong antagonism against the Americans, and they work together towards the Americans' undoing. In business, once a Japanese obtains a footing, others follow, and they spread like a fire. A Japanese will open a business in the centre of a block, and then there is always a crowd of hi? country-men congregated outside on the footpath. Then other Japanese shops will open on either side, until eventually tho whole of tho block will be run by them. The Japanese work for the Japanese absolutely, and for no one else. They made use of the whito people at tho, outset, and now they work for themselves all the time. _ Trouble is alreadv_ being experienced in other of the Western States, and there is a strong racial feeling against tho Japanese in British Columbia."