The Daily News FRIDAY, APRIL 10. ASIA AGAINST WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 95, 10 April 1908, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, APRIL 10. ASIA AGAINST WORLD.

A itrikin; article *hk:ii what may l>: called the world-meaning of the aiuiAsiatic movement appears in the "Fortnightly Review/' a hove Ihe signature " \ iator." The writer, who rlenrly p> ; - un intimaU knowledge ul' the Far Ka*t, i* full of grave apprehension, not only lor the future of the empire, h it lor the future of whitf civilisation. Ih i> i-ouviiKvd lhai tlie balance of lorc> iit tlu- eoioiir eonllici is changing; to th» disadvantage of the white races; thai the moral frontier of white influence i contracting; and that the politica boundaries of white predominance :i'' unstable, hut unlikely to he extemle. I The "tremendous contingency" whU

he fears is "that the action of lu--; Anglo-Saxon democracies throughout the world, whether expressed by yellow elections in this country (Great Britain), by race-riots ill Kin the Pacilic .slop's, or by restricting immigration laws in Die Comonwealth and the Transvaal, may create the political unity of India ami the lighting unity of Asia." In Mich an event the white nations—though numbering hundreds of millions, forming a gigantic federation among tliciscTvcs, and constituting still the strongest racial factor in the world's affairs - may possibly tind themselves eonliiied lo 'Western Kurope and North America. - II Australia, South Africa, ami liriii-h dominion in the East," proceeds " Viator," " are to be preserved as part of tiie white man's Heritage, if even South a America, is to be held in certain so--8 curity, there will be required a very 1 different policy from that which is now 1 being pursued' by this empire and the. § Oiitcd States."

lat, in effect, does the present icy of th c Anglo-Saxon, democracies ount toV To the exclusion of the iatic from every continent save his a. Sot only are Australia, and Till America to be closed to him—and ulli America must ultimately imply nth America as well, if the Monroe ctrinc is to hold good—but even rica, the "Dark Continent," which girl reasonably have seemed a fitting id of enterprise into which the surp'-is pulation of crowded and prolific Asia ight overllow. China has learnt its •>on from th 0 Hand coolie controversy.

It feels that " thc sort of sanitary co:- | don established against yellow emigrants is complete." This, it is worth remembering, is the one question upon which there is an absolute identity of interests between China and Japan. Both peoples must and will resist being penned up within their original limits. The higher their standard of living rises with their advance in Western knowledge, the stronger must grow the economic pressure behind that resistance. Compared with Asiatics, the whites are a small minority. Asia contains something like 8011,000,000 of people—half the whole number of mankind. Vet the whites claim to reserve for settlement and political control 'h.' two Americas, Australia, and Afriei, in addition lo Kurope, demanding fur themselves at the sain e time ecpiality or more than equality in Asia.

Is Asia, driven by natural forces of twice the urgency towards colonisation, lo be debarred iroiu expansion? Tha', is Hi,. (|iieslion which the Anglo-Sax.m democracies have lo lace. If they -inswer '-Ye*," then they niu-t recognise that lhe prohibition is worth the for-.e behind it—no more—and that it inciteall Asia to the joint development "1 a counter-force. The Asiatic point of view must be considered, not as a matter of justice alone, but of expediency In Japan the hitherto despised AsiaUc has a champion into whose amis al' Asiatics may be driven by the gradual realisation of a general or common peril. •■The Japanese,' as "Viator" points out, "had too much legitimate sei 1 - esteein, and too casual an acquaintance with the psychology and conditions of the West, to grasp "readily the fact tha: they were to be subject, as a_nation, to an immense permanent disability l;e----iau-,1' of their complexion. They certainly imagined that they were sol-ry and justly condemned because of their even less' excusable inferiority in lb-' profe.-sion of arms, as practised by enlightened peoples. They have proved beyond all debate the immense potentialities of the Asiatic renaissance for war, industry, colonisation, sea-powc\

and thought. Yet they are still ex.elii.led from 'the fields of settlement into which are freely admitted the Jew-, wa, are helots in th,. Russia vampi'islicd by Japan, and ti.ey arc excluded by the lacs who claim most vigorously Ihe open-door iu the Far East." Thi- is a proof to all Asiatics that, unless they can exert, force, they will for all time be shut out from the privileges which Ihe white races enjoy in the rest of the world.

Indian -übjccls ot the British Crown are being subjected to the same disabilities as other Asiatics, and ev. n within the empire exclusion is only too often accompanied by insults, born of the average man's profound ignorance of Oriental life. What gave surli strength to the Indian protests against recent Transvaal legislation was not io much exclusion as the (to Asiatics) brutal methods adopted for carrying it out. In order to identify the Indians already in th c colony, men of high caste and irreproachable character were treated like pariahs. They were compelled to have their finger-prints taken, ail tlie. digits being shown together, in I lie style used in India for the registration of criminals. Action such as this by the authorities of a British colon,' rouses deep indignation against the dominant white race throughout India. "It is," says "Viator," "a matter of life and death for our regime in the East that no artificial unity of the Indian peoples—Bengalis with Sikh*, Pat bans, Rajputs, Mahrattas, and the rest—should be created by spreading the burning sense of a common injustice, such as registration of Indian immigrants in the Transvaal by the system of finger-prints only used for criminals elsewhere." It is to be said '•Viator" does not ignore the economic and social reasons which underlie the action of the Anglo-Saxon democracies, but he fails, or perhaps it was not his intention, to put the other side of the case. If there is anything in his argument, il is that white countries such us Australia should freely admit coloured people. This is impossible, no matter what may lie the ultimate coasei|ueuee-. The reason lies much deeper than "Viator'' is apparently inclin-1 to «o. As a partial -but only a partial —solution of ib ( problem, he suggests speciallv reserving certain Crown colonics alid protectorates for Asiatic immigrants—the foundation, in fact, of an Indian colonial empire.