THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1909 THE PROBLEM OF THE PACIFIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9651, 16 November 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1909 THE PROBLEM OF THE PACIFIC.

Evidence is accumulating, in the awakening of China's consciousness of nationality, in the rapid development of Japanese commercial interests, and in the determination of tfye United States to utilise her financial strength for the purpose of supporting the shipping and commerce of her western sea frontier, which goe" far to justify the prediction jof Lord Roberts a year or two ago that the great struggle of the future would take place in the Pacific. What is to be the future relationship between the United States and Japan, between the Western and the Eastern Pacific littoral? While the relations between the Governments of Washington and Tokio are at present all that could be desired, the outbursts of anti-Japanese feeling among the people cf California and the Western States of the Union, are too recent to be ignored; and although M. Takahira, the Japanese Ambassador at Washington, and Mr Root, the United States Secretary of State, exchanged no'es just twelve months ago emphasising the desire of their respective Governments to maintain the status quo and "to encourage the frea and peaceful development of their commerce on the Pacific Ocean/'the fact remains that the Japanese are engaged in constructing a great naval base at Formosa, with a station for torpedo craft and powerful land batteries; while the Americans are constructing extensive new docks on their Pacific coast, and are fortifying the strategic points on that coast, and also Hawai'. Their • aval expenditure for the present year exceeds that of every other maritime power except England, and in actual ships and projected ! construction they are now the second naval Powar of the world. ' There are close observers who believe that though a conflict between the two nations may be delayed for years, and though at present the interests of both countries are bound up in the maintenance of peacp, nevertheless, a collision eventually is inevitable. Should it occur it will probably be brought about partly by ; the pressure of commercial rivalry between the two countries on the ocean, and partly by the refusal of the Western States of the Union to allow their resources to be exploited by Japanese lybnur and J"tianese capital, instead of by Amen-

can Jabour and American" capita 1 In the course of a very instructive analysis of the situation, which appears in the current issue of the "Revue des Deux Mondes," the author, ML Felix Klein, quotes ! some remarkable figures. Of the ] population of Hawaii, the advanced post of the United States in the Pacific, and an indispensable position as a naval station fer the United States fl et, i't ti-ne of war, only 2 per cent, are Am rican citizens, while 65 per cent, are of the Mikado. On the North Ameri • can continent the percjnta?a of tho Japanasp h increasing raoirllv on a«count of the slow growth of the white population, especially in California. The Chi»;e3e, in spite of the exclusion laws, increase year by year, entering the United States fro n Mexico and from Cana:la, and succeeding by sone means or other in furnishing the necessary proof that they were ' born in th? United Stites. An American Federal Judge has calculated, it seems, that if the Chinese statements on this point were true it would be necessary to believe every Chinese of twenty-five yeai-s' residence in the United States was the father of more than 500 children ! There are already 10,000 Japanese in San Francisco, 7,000 at Seattle, the same number at Loa Angeles, and 4,000 at Oakland. Moreover, in 1906, they possessed in the whole of Cali • fornia 561 shops, while in two years the Japanese restaurants increased in number from 98 to 198. and the Japanese small hotels from 245 to 462. The Japanese compete not only in manual labour, but also in business, in agriculture, and even in the different professions, with the whites. They lower the standard of life, because they have neither the same needs nor the same aspirations as the people of the white race. Hence, says this writer, though American statesmen and diplomatists may succeed for a time in forgetting the effects of the formidable impact between the two civilisations, the mass of the people who have to work in the midst of the competition cannot help feeling it and proclaiming aloud the injustice which they suffer. Even the Negro problem, according to this authority, is less perilous than the Asiatic problem, for the Negroes at least regard America as their country, while the Japanese are never more than sojourners, and, moreover, are always ready to invoke the protection of their own Government. In the view of this author, although in the United States the people from any European country are readily.assimilated and converted in a few years into good American citizens, there can be no assimilation of Asiatics. The writer goes on to give some practical advice with regard to the encouragment of white immigration into the Western States, and especially into California, which, though its area has a length of 800 miles, with an average breadth of 200 miles, and though its natural resources and its climate are unrivalled, possesses a population ot only 2,500,000 persons. The State could carry a white population at least four times as large, says this writer, and its wealth in agricultural, pastoral.-, and forest lands is hardly touched as yet; And then in a couple of sentences which strangely echo a famous passage in the writings of Bacon, he writes:—"lt is not their battleships at sea, nor the batteries upon their coasts, that constitute the real defence of a nation. Its . strength is in itself, in the worth and number of its citizens '' The Frenchman who penned that admirable sentiment, with its eminently Baconian ring, pays a tribute of admiration to the uncalculating bravery of the Japanese, as proved to the full during the late war with Russia. But, after a prolonged residence in the United States, he ,is convinced that the American people are not less ready to uphold their own ideals. "Less feudal, less impersonal, less fanatical than Japanese patriotism, the patriotism of the Americans is npt less profound or less ready to make sacrifices." Japan needs time to re- I cover from her struggle with Russia. The Washington Government will bteadily avoid all friction, at least until the Panama Canal is finished, and the. full naval strength of the Union can be swung at once into the Pacific. But in the end there will be a collision between the two civilisations. That, at least, is the conviction of this author.