Is There A Yellow Peril?

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 6, 7 August 1914, Page 3

Is There A Yellow Peril?

[From the Tablet.] Sir lan Hamilton’s public warning that tho Pacific must be regarded as the future battle sphere of the nations may bo condemned as extraordinarily untactful in view of tha fact of the AngloJapanese alliance, for clearly what he had in his mind was a ela h between the White and the Yellow races for the possession of Australia. At the present moment tho pretensions of a handful of white men to control the destinies of a continent are made possible only because the , fleets ot Japan are neutralized by the treaty with Great Britain. E iglan.i has to face the enemy in the North Sea, and has no ships to spare for the Pacific. Local defence is not needed against any foe starting from : Europe, but if it were not for the treaty with Japan the liberty of Australia, and even its existence as a White Power, would be in deadly and immediate peril. The arrival of the “ Komagata Mam, ” with a cargo of dusky immigrants from India, off Van- ! couver, represents only another • phrase of the sam> problem. 1 That problem, briefly stated, is < how an we to keep the closely : packed yj low miili ms of Asia- : tic. penned up in their present homes when til re are wide lands thinly occupied by -the plo leers of the British r ice in Canid i ar.d Australia? On the one hin I i it i. contended th vt British subjects are entitled as of right to settle in any part of the British Empire without meeting any ; sort of hostile discrimination, i Unhappily, that ideal has no relation to fact. Neither Australia i nor Canada wi.l allow their gat's to be opened to a yellow i flood of Oriental immigration. We gst down to bed-rock when that refusal has been stated. In . both lands the white population knows that if the yellow races we e admitted their own standard of living must be lowered, i lie offence which is common to the ; Hindu, the Chinaman, and the Jap is that they work too hard and live too cheaply. In the industrial markets they are the inevitable conquerors. It sounds brutal, but the fact that governs the whole situation is just this, that economically the white race is no mutch for the yellow. It may be taken for granted that the passengers of the “ Komagata Maru” will have to go to India; at any rate, they will not be allowed to land in British Columbia. That is an issue which unites all parties in Canada. and the Home Government, even if it disapproved the elusion, would have n> power to enforce its irrelevant wishes. To say that the whole of Canada is united on the subject is to understate the case. Tile whole continent is of or e mind. If the Government at Washington were to heiitato, the American guns would go themselves in such a quarrel. But the danger zone lies on the other side of the Pacific. In a striking article contributel tu a recent number of the Nineteenth Century General Murray points out that for the Englishspeaking peoples the problem is simply one ot self-preservation. The yellow men can underlive underwork, undersell, and eventually drive out of any cfSmi mon territory the wage-earning whites. What for want of a better term we may call the AngloSaxon race is firmly rooted in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States ; but in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Philippines the case is very different. *’ In Australia and New Zealand a small white papulation is trying to hold an enormous part >f the world without adequate man-power, in the teeth of crowded millions, hundreds of mill ons, of envious Asiatics, and Asiatics who are arming. They may fail to hold it. In Africa a small population of whites is trying to live amongst and rule an enormous majority of blacks — a parlous endeavour which can only succeed if no great attack be made on it from the outside, and which may even fail, perhaps from its own inherent black peril. Certainly we have the great danger of dissolution to face, only to be overcome if we fully recognise and prepare to meet

‘ We know thit our fate depends • upon ourselves. United, we stand ! divided, as at present, we f il l , as ■ many a disa.ii'ed blood-grouped ■ peoples before us have fallen. : Everything depends upon whether wo can form a real political union in time, or nit.” The ■ world contai is, rotighlv, fifty million square miles of habitable territory. The white and the yellow races may be regarded as sharing this between them. The other races, whether African or Asiatic, count for little as regards military power. GENERAL MURRAY gets to the heart of the question when he points out tint there are about five hundred million whites and four luin Imd and fifty million yellows—Japs and Chinese. The former are attempting to control nine-tenths of the earth’s surface, leaving only five million square miles, or one-tenth, to the yellows. In view of the revelations of the Russian-Japanese war, it may well be asked whether such an inequality is likely to be acquiesced in as permanent. It may be taken as certain that if the policy of Asiatic exclusion now pursued in the United States and ,lie British Dominions can be broken, either by war or by treaty, the supremacy of the white race will pass away. The economic efficiency and tb •H-insss of tha yellow men will settle that. Japan has shown what the can do with her fifty millions against I one the greatest military powers j in Europe. In a little while i she will have ihe four hundred millions of China at her back. If Europe were united the danger would be remote. But the Powers of Europe are divided into two armed groups, which watch one another, and at any moment may come in conflict. If they do, the opportunity of the yellow men will have come. The peril of the North Sea has obliged England to recall her ships from the Pacific. The same—if we extend tha proposition to the Mediterraenan — is true of all the European Powers. .The Japanese fleets ruie the Pacific. With Europe neutralised by what in this connection may bo described as civil war, the yellow men in existing circumstances would have Australia, New Z inland, H iwaii, Samoa, and the Pnilippinas at their mercy. America has given many occas ons of offence to till/ yellow race, but the brunt of the first attack would be likely to fall upon Australia. General Murray urges that the highest interest: of England, thd United Stales, and the British Domini >ns —Canada, An tralia, and New Zealand point to a federation ) of resources for the defence of ! the white mail’s heritage and j standard of life by a comm n j fleet in the- Pacific. lie urges ] that such a fleet should bo per- j manently b.se.l on Australia. | The opening of the Panama Canal will make a happy dif- ] ference to tho whole situation, j But America an 1 its navy is five thousand miles from Australia, and could not prevanta Jap inaseChine.se occupation of North Australia any more than ii could pi event tho oacupition of the Philippines the day after the outbreak of war. The combined South Pacific Fleet would face the yellow, peril at ilia decisive xeoint, just as the Home Fleet faces tho danger in Ihe North Sea, Certainly GENERAL MURRAY’S paper makes us realise the extent to which eveu an indecisive war in Europe might change the fortunes of the human race by giving the yellow peoples tli- ir s .promo oppurtuni y.