The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1909-02-17
CANADIANS hate JApS.
FEELING STRONGER IN BRJTISH
COLUMBIA THAN IN UNITED
STATES.
Even the Chinese AbhOr Them And
Have Risen i'm Public Estimation
From This Fact.

pletlng mere tour of investigation
extending throughout the Pacific
coast from Prince Rupert, the ter
minal of the new Grand Trunk Pa
cific railway. in the North to Los An
geles in the South, New York
Herald correspondent has found eyi-
dence that the anti-Japnese senti-
ment is stronger in British Columbia
than it is in Washington, Oregon and
California
Careful inquiry has shown that
among the Britishers who have ar
rived in the Canadian Pacific prov
ince within recent years the dislike
to the Japanese amounts to positive
frenzy of hatred that only waits upon
occasion to find vent in action that
may strain diplomatic relations be-
tween Great Britain, Canada and
Japan to the utmost.
The anti-Japanese riot that took
place at Vancouver two years ago
was spontaneous and not premeditat-
ed. 1t arose in the first instance
from trifiing street brawl. There
was no malice aforethought. If there
should be another anti-Japanese riot
in any coast city it will be impossible
to say the same thing, for there will
be malice aforethought.
The newly arrived Britishers who
have gone to British Columbia find
themselves in competition of a de-
grading nature with the service labor
of the Orient, and more so with the
Japanese than with the Chinaman.
They are also we'll aware of what is
being done in other parts Of the Brit
ish empire. They know that no Ash
attic or no African can enter any port
of the Australian commonwealth or
of New Zealand. These countries
legislated for themselves and the
British government was powerless to
stop them. Why, ask the newly ar
rived Britishers in British Columbia,
can Canada not do the same?
At the time of the Civil war the
bitter cry of the people of the South
was that the people of the North and
the Eastern States did not under
stand them. History repeating itself,
the complaint Of people west of the
Rockies today is that the people east
of the great mountain range do not
understand and appreciate the situa-
ton. And truly there is ground for
the complaint, for the burden i'm
posed upon the white man Of the Pa
cific Slope and his family by the Ash
attic invasion is getting too grievous
to be borne.
The patient, nonassertive China
man could be tolerated. but the
saucy, self-assertive Jap Of the twen-
tieth century, on terms of equality or
superiority, is too much for self-r-
specting white wage-earners. 1t is
this feeling that is really at the root
of the whole of the present trouble on
the Pacific coast. The employers of
the japanese do not see it, for to
them the Jap is deferential and COM
plaisant, but to the white man who
has to work on anything like terms of
equality with Jap his eternal "cocki-
ness" is bitter pill--a constant thorn
in the flesh.
Curiously enough. the Chinese on
the coast hate the Japs even more
cordially than do the American wage
earners, and there have been many
instances in which this has been
brought out, some of them rather
amusing. A Jap entered a Chinese
laundry one day in San Jose and de-
posted bundle of soiled'linen on the
counter. The Chinaman did not touch
1t with his hands, but showed it off the
counter with stick, and then kicked
1t into the street, being much applaud
ed by his colleagues. Stories of this
sort could be told by the hundred and
are common topic of conversation
wherever white workingmen congre-
gate in their Idle hours.
AS a consequence, the patient non
assertive Chinaman has gone up many
degrees in popular favor and, instead
of being the despised and rejected in
dividual Of few years ago, he is now
treated with a certain amount of re-
spectful consideration, under which
he is beginning to show q more cheer
full exterior than is habitual with him.
For the present strained relations
with the japanese many of the large
employers of labor are much TO