The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-11-30
WHOSE LAKE
IS THE PACIFIC
Continued from Page one.)

local school board TO make an apology
a Cabinet officer who temperate!
gains the point which Japs has made
by no means settles the question per
| nanently. Japan has laid her fngel
on a source of irritation whose haras-
sing growth is dependent upon the at.
titude of the japanese government it
self and the people of the Pacific coast
We have no exclusion law against the
| Japanese, but there has been an in
cIusion policy in Japan. In the days
when Japan wanted our friendship
and was laying her plans for the con-
| flict with Russia, she foresaw this dan
ger which it may now be her pleasure
of all her statesmen that the emgra-
| ton of Japanese to the United States
| should be kept at a minimum.
| Let the japanese government open
the gates. and what is now a tiny
stream will become a food. Japan's pop
ulation increases by six hundred thou
sand year. If two or three hundred
thousand a year of the excess should
| come to the United States in addition
to the million or more from Europe,
our capacity for absorption would be
still further taxed.
When the people of the Pacific coast
are hostile to the Japanese they are
expressing the very characteristic
which is the predominant one of the
Japanese themselves. The Japanese
government has left no stone unturned
to drive foreign business men out Of
Japan. Although we who live in our
Dingley- built house of glass need throw
no stones, it is noteworthy that Japan
has taxed all articles which foreigners
exclusively consume from one hundred
to four hundred per cent. If Amer
leans emigrated to Japan in the same
number as the japanese are emigrat-
ing to America, they would receive the
social treatment of a company of par
iahs.
In speaking with a Japanese once I
reminded him of this racial charac-
teristic. He said that certainly the
japanese wanted no. admiXture OF
theirs with any foreign race. They
were too proud of their own civiliza-
ton and their own ways. Then 1 ask
ed him if he could censure the attitude
of the American workman in san Fran
CISCO
No" he said. mot in the least. On
ly when l come from a crowded coun |
try to yours, where there is so much |
room and much wealth, | can not |
blame my countrymen for coming. |
Can you? Or for standing on their
rights as long as their is enough power
and valor in Japan to uphold them?"
With unusual candor in the politest |
of peoples he had precisely expressed |
the matter-of-factness of the most am
bilious of nations.
The Japanese in San Francisco is be- |
coming a storekeeper and contractor
who undersells his American rival |
Workmen are more bitter against him |
than against the Chinese, because of
his superior enterprise and his unre- |
lenting assertion of equality.
Our habits of extravaganza make it |
seem unsportsmanlike that we should
be beaten in competition for our daily |
bread by the economies of a little man
who finds as much fun in making a
landscape on platter as in taking the
wife and kids to the theater.
THE FEELING UNDER THE JAPA-
NESE SKIN.
The increase of Japanese immigration
can only mean an increase of racial
prejudice on the Pacific coast, and the
immigrants VIII be quick to appeal to
their home government on any provo-l
cation.
While we were wrought to a high
hour in Toxic was the exclusion of
Japanese children from San Francisco
schools. Little attention was paid to
the killing of the Japanese poachers in
Bering Sea by our officers. But the |
inference that any Japanese was any
bodys racial inferior instantly aroused |
the Japanese nation.
The traveller in Japan is so frequently |
told that Japan does not want the Phil |
ippines that he suspects the Japanese
mind of dwelling on the subject over |
much. The japanese are a warlike |
race. They are flushed with victory.
No sooner had they finished the war
with China than they began to prepare
for war with Russia. Since the treaty !
of Portsmouth it has been the talk of |
the Far East that they would turn |
their attention to us, and they have
steadily augmented their military
strength. Just in the same way as the |
Japanese masses thought that Russia |
had robbed them of the fruits of their |
victory over China. SO today they think
that the good offices of President Roos- !
evelt robbed them of an enormous in |
demnity. The truth is, as statesmen
know. that his action came at a very
happy time for Japan. But the ORR /
entail statesman is as little inclined as |
our own to shift to his shoulders blame |
which is already placed elsewhere.