THE UNPOPULAR JAPANESE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3165, 16 April 1909, Page 4

THE UNPOPULAR JAPANESE.

The feeling against the Japanese on the Pacific Coast is described* in a very interesting article by the special correspondent of the New York "Post." The movement has, he says, extended from the working classes to tradespeople, professional men, and farmers. In the Yukon territory, British Columbia, and some of the inferior towns of California, the dislike to the Japanese h apparently more intense than elsewhere, and at times its expression takes vicious forms. The Chinese, it is explained, live in a world of their o;vn, and do not seek to force themselves and their ways on their white neighbours; but the Japanese are different. "The habits of life, ideals and code of morality of the Japanese are utterly repugnant to Americans and Canadians, and in many localities one finds the women more hostile than the men tu the Mikados sub-1 jects. Women who employ one or more Chinese in thtiir households will tell you that they would not let a Japanese darken their doors." The Japanese on the Coast are accused of being dirty; of getting drunk frequently (a vice from which the Chinese as a class are free), and of being noisy insulting white women, while "in their cups.'* The Chinese, curiously enough, have become more popular with the whites since this feeling against the Japanese arose. For the Chinese hate the Japanese even more cordially than the whites do, and owing to these freely expressed sentiments have gone up considerably in popular favour. The writer, who declares that these are facts observed on the ground, goes on to say that there is a probability of very serious racial conflicts on the Pacific Coast. The most degraded people there are the scum of Southern Europe. "These Europeans are below the level of the Japanese and Chinese in intelligence, morality, and their ways of life. They hate the Orientals, with whom, they principally come into comp"tition, with an intensity that is develisb. At the first hint of riot and outrage these degraded Europeans wi!i be there, and as they all carry knives ami many of them have firearms, there is the possibility of very serious disturbance upon small provocation."