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THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1913. JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA.

A fewl weeks ago the relations between tihe United States and Japan were severely strained, in consequence of the Oaliforniaai Legislature having passed a Bill tof restrict the operations of the Japanese in that State. A writer in the "Japan Magazine," a monthly periodical published in English at Tokio, sets forth the situation with a plentiful backingup of statistics. It was in 1869, he informs us, that the first Japanese emigrants, some forty in all, set out for California, In 1878 there were only 120 there; by the end of tihe next decade there were 1000, and so rapidly did their numbers swell that in 1908 thp Japanese population amounted to 60,780. These Japanese are .mostly engaged in farming. In 1911 the acreage tinder cultivation by them was 239,720, mostly devoted to potatoes, vines, fruit trees, berries and vegetables, the total value of products amounting to over twelve millions of dollars annually, or nearly 20 per cent, of the total agricultural products of the State. Taking into account the labour performed by the Japanese on land over which they have no control, it may be said, adds the writer, that they produce at least ninety per cent, of the total results of agriculture in California. In the Alameda agricultural district, the Japanese papulation is about 1200, rising in the summer season to over 2000. Some 200 are engaged in the salt fields, the rest give their time to market gardening, orcharding, and general They it is who handle the millions of cherries, tomatoes and apneots whiclh swell tlio market in season, and they also take an important place in the immense wheat harvest of the vast fertile valleys of tihe State. Some 16,500 till the soil in Northern California, and around Sacramento they are the biggest fruit-growers, vineyardists, and vegetable producers the (country ftnows. The low-lying district along the river ia utmost wholly given up to

the Japanese, and near Stockton alone tiicro aro i bout 4000 Japan* ese fannurs, all doing a brisk and productive btisina-stf. Tho writer of the article questions whether the development ol" ulio C'.'iintji-y in an agricultural aaid horticultural direction could bo accomplished without the Japanese labourers. In Los Angeles they outdo tho natives and Chinese as 'groengr'jcers. and are noted for their industry arm sobriety. Aa hotelkoepors, provisioned, laoindrymen, and cooks, tailors, dyers, shoemakers, etc., they are 'ilso making headway, and as importers and exporters, they are coming moro and more to occupy a position \>f importance in the trade of California., while they carry an seven-tenth* of tho fishery business at Los Angeles and elsewhere alonj.' the coast. "What the land would do without tihe Japanese, comments the writer, is a question no one, not even their severist critios, hag ever dared to answer.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19130712.2.12

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 July 1913, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
473

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1913. JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 July 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1913. JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 July 1913, Page 4

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