The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-08-17

There appears to be just now a great
deal of agitation in California with
reference to the alleged importation of
Japanese contract Iaborers.
Press dispatches state that the belief
has arisen that the Japanese question
will soon become as pronounced an
issue on the Pacific coast as the per-
picking Chinese problem, and that it
is apparent that the influx of japanese
labOrers, if actually pending, will, to a
greater or less extent, affect every
other section of the country, as they
will be distributed from San Francisco
to all the fruit and agricultural dis
tricts, where their services can be
made available.
There would be manifest impro-
priety in the public discussion by one
officially connected with the Japanese
government of a question of this kind
if it were actually pending. But that
can hardly be said to be the case.
Neither the question itself nor the
agitation to which it has given rise is
new, and neither has as yet produced
anything more serious than that spe-
cies of spasmodic agitation which
arises on the Pacific coast whenever
anything in the nature of Oriental
immigration is under consideration.
There might be some excuse for this
agitation if it were founded upon any
real knowledge of Japan and her
people. AS the case stands, it is based
upon hypothesis so manifestly and
absurdly untrue that it is difficult to
treat them seriously.
China and Japan are Different.
China is a vast empire, having an
Overcrowded population, with whom
the struggle for bare existence is so
strenuous that any change is welcome.
1t has always been easy to get Chinese
in any number to go anywhere, and
to do any kind of work, if there is
only the remOtest prospect of improv-
ing their condition. They accept hard
ship, ill treatment and pay that would
be scOrned by any other class of labor
ers, because the worst abroad is, az an
almost invariable rule, an improve
ment upon the best they can find at
home.
With Japan and the japanese the
case is different. Japan is NOT now
and never has been an oVerpopulated
country. Nor have the conditions of
life even for the humblest ever been
so hard as to make al exodus of any
considerable part of the population
either welcome or necessary. Wages
are as a rule, comparatively low, but
the cost of living is low also, while
the multiplication and growth of
numberless new industries, which
have been such a marked feature of
Japan's progress during the past thirty
years, have afforded a remunerative
field for surplus labor.
In the present agitation in Califor-
MIA concerning the evils to be appre-
bended from Japanese immigration
the danger of the ingress of Japanese
labOrers from the Hawaiian Islands
has prominent place. A press dis
patch states that contractor at Homo
lulu has signified his willingness and
his ability to supply California fruit
ranchers and farmers with any amount
of japanese labor at a very low price,
if the laws against contract labor can
be avoided. The value of this state
ment can be judged best by a descrip-
ton of the nature and extent of jap
anese emigration to Hawaii.
Japanese Emigration.
1t should be stated, by way of pre-
face, that before Japan entered into
treaty relations with western powers
all Japanese were forbidden by law,
on penalty of death in case of fnfrac-
ton, to go to foreign countries. This
was in accordance with the policy of
seclusion which kept Japan immured
from foreign intercourse, except under
the most stringent restrictions, for
nearly three centuries. After the con-
clusiOn of the first foreign treaties,
and especially after the restoration OF
1858, this policy was changed, but not
so as to admit of the free and uDtram-
meled emigration of Japanese to for
eign countries. The government still
retained the power to restrain the peo-
pie from leaving the country in large
numbers, exacting that every Japan
csc subject who went abroad should
be provided with a passport accord
ing the requisite permission. So far
as regarded travelling for pleasure, for
business or for study, this restriction
was q mere fOrmality. II did, how
ever, act as an effectual bar to any
thing like the establishment of a sys-,
tenn of "cOolie" emigration, and this
undoubtedly was the object of the law.
Japanese in Hawaii.
The emigration of japanese Iabosers
TO Hawaii was the result OF 4 desire on
tho pa ~ Of tho II a u-o;io, ,.o,-o,.,, ,x,,,A