Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1907-03-28
Oriental immigration


If the Hawaiian islands had not
been annexed, but had been permitted
to remain under the local government.
which was protected and whose in
dependence was virtually guaranteed
| by the United States, the question OF
japanese coolie immigration into the
United States would not have become
so acute. In annexing Hawaii, how
ever, our government lost its power
to regulate immigration from the is
lands to this country. Whoever
reaches Hawaii can come to the
mainland, and it is from Hawaii that
Japanese laborers go to California
at the present rate of nearly 1000 a
month
There is no immigration of Japan
csc coolies into the Philippines, be-
cause in the Philippines there is no
demand for their entry into the Amer
lean market; the Philippines are not
prosperous enough to keep the ma
tlves well employed. But in annex
ing Hawaii free trade was established
as it must be in the case of the
Philippines ultimately, if they are to
be permanently retained-and thus
the hawaiian sugar industry was Civ
en- an exceptional position. But Ha-
wall has never been able to furnish
its own field labor. Before anneXa-
ton the planters imported Chinese
under contract, and since annexation,
the Chinese exclusion law of the
united States applying to them, they
have welcomed with open arms thou
sands of Japanese. That the Japan
csc lHborers should go to Hawaii, un
der these circumstances was newt
able. Wages were high in the
sugar plantations, compared with
wages in Japan, and the planters
have regarded as indispensable to
the prosperity of the islands this or.
iental stream of labor. 1t is prob
ably true UDat in cutting off this sup
ply, the government would strike a
severe Iow to Hawaiian sugar in
dustry, at least for the time being.
The Japanese laborer reaches Ha-
wall, in response to the insular de-
mand, only to discover very soon that
nothing prevents his migration To
America, where he can easily earn
still higher wages. The economic
law works as simply and directly as
the multiplication table 1t is motor
ious that there has been a chronic
shortage of crude labor on the Pacific
coast. there have not been enough
white men there, either in the states
Or in British Columbia, to do the
work waiting to be done. Since the
destruction OF San Francisco of course
the shortage of labor has been in
tensified, and a direct result of this
state of affairs, it is understood, has
been the active recruiting of Japa-
csc Hawaiia for Industries in Cali
1Ornia by agents from the mainland,
they go to Hawaii, advertise in the
honolulu papers, offer higher wages,
and even advance the passage money
needed for the journey. After reaching
the coast, they are employed on the
railroads, in the fruit orchards and
on the beet sugar plantations. AS the
acific coast tends in this manner to
drain Hawaii, so Hawaii makes good
the loss by importing more from
Japan. In annexing the archipelago,
our government made it a stepping
stone for an oriental movement to
America, although the annexationists
on this side of the ocean could see in
the islands nothing but an outpost
for the United States in the direction
of Asia.
The great economic fact which the
white race confronts is that races
failure to furnish the labor necessary
for the exploitation on that part of
the earth's surface which it controls.
1t is not wholly a question of the o;