JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1123, 17 July 1913, Page 4

JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA.

American publications and periodicals are full of the Californian landowning problem. As examples of opposing points of view are those taken by a Japanese writer and by a prominent Californian journalist:— The Japanese writes : —“lt is more than twenty years since Japanese began to be interested in agriculture in California, and yet farm lands now owned by them total but 17,000 acres. In a State with 12,000,000 acres of agricultural lands 17,000 acres owned by Japanese are but a negligible quantity. “Those sections of California in which Japanese have been chiefly active in farming are the San Joaquin and the Sacramento Valleys. The northern half of the San Joaquin Valley, unlike the coast regions of the State, is noted for its rigorous winters and scorching summers. Because of this inclement climate the development of the country was long delayed. The Sacramento Valley and the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley consist mostly of lowlands, always damp, and ofteu inundated. This section was therefore long regarded as unheallhful, and was shunned by most immigrants. It was the Japanese who opened these regions at the invitation of California, He braved the heat and cold of the Northern San Joaquin Valley, and has converted it into a thriving fruit country, lamous for its raisins and wines. He worked upon the unsanitary farms on the lower reaches of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rivers, and has made the country rich with

onions, potatoes, beans and fruits. Yet for this great contribution what has the Japanese received ? Only 17,000 acres of land—B,ooo acres in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, 7,000 in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, and 2,000 In the Sacramento Valley. The two great valleys are in themselves an empire, containing some 37,456 square miles of arrable land. If we may judge the future of the Japanese farmers in California from what they have achieved in the past twenty years, it seems not even the remotest possibility that they should become a ‘menace’ to the agricultural interests of the State

“Besides the laud owned by the Japanese, there are some 170,000 acres rented by them. Because of the increasing difficulty experienced in securing labour, landowners in California find it more convenient to rent their farms to Japanese, whom they regard as the most desirable tenants on account of their industry, reliability and steadiness. As tenant farmers the Japanese have become an important factor in the agriculture ot California, but it is highly improbable that they will attain as important a position as landowners. The price of laud is high, and is growing higher, and the American or white landowners are not willing to sell their holdings.”

The American writes of the Japanese very differently : —“They take charge of entire communities by methods of gradually displacing native-born Americans. Take, for instance, the case of an orchard. Japanese labour drives out all other labour, as the Japs, will work for less money. Then, when there is no other labour, they will refuse to work unless given a lease of the orchard. Bater they may force a sale of the orchard to them in the same manner; As soon as the Japanese become owners the surrounding propei ty is no longer desirable. “The entire strawberry district of Florin, Sacramento County, is now in the hands of the Japanese, and it was acquired in just this way. They have actually forced out the whites.

“We understand the danger, and you Eastern people do not. You would do what California is doing if you were placed in the same position

“It isn’t only in strawberries. It’s in potatoes, and in prunes, and in oranges, All the way from Oroville to San Diego the Japanese are forcing the issue. They have seized the Vaca Valley, which is the richest valley in the State, and the earliest to reach the market with spring vegetables. Once they get a hold in a neighbourhood they make it as abuoxious as possible for white owners who cling to their land. Eand values all around them fall rapidly, and no labourers are to be bad for white men’s farms.”

Thus, in prosaic language, is being written history of a twentieth century invasion.