Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-06-04
PAPER
DECLARES JAPAN
HAS REMEDY
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Continued from page one)
including the right to vote, irrespec-
tive of their race, color or previous
condition Of seryitudei The most
substantial bar to the success of this
course would be racfaEnot racial
prejudice, as Japanese publicists, In
Gliding Count Okuma, describe it, but
racial incompatibility. However. the
nearer Japanese have grown to Amer
leans socially, the less becomes that
lincompatibility, and the necessary
five years preliminary residence of
candidate for naturalization would
undoubtedly tend somewhat to bridge
the chasm. At the same time, it may
be pointed out that Japanese in
America do not appear to approach
the Americans socially, but live to-
gether isolated. preserving their own
national customs and even incul-
eating them on the new Japanese gen.
Grafton which, constitutionally, hav-
ing been born on American soil, is
composed of young American citizens.
Indeed, somewhat slim method of
evading this alien land-ownership
law, if enacted, would be for Jap
anese owners to transfer their prop
erty tofnatiye-born Japanese. But, in
| any case, this question may direct
Japanese attention generally to the
advisability Of greater social APP.
Proclamation by Japanese in America
to the American people as neces-
sary preliminary of social acceptance.
"As for the second course open to
the Japanese government that of
granting landownership in Japan to
Americans on terms equal to those on.
which landownership in Great Britain
Is granted to Japanese we have here
tofOre pointed out the desirability of
such reciprocity, but may be allowed
once again to emphasize it. The
wording of the clause in the Anglo
Japanese treaty of commerce and ma
vigation of April Sd, 1911, affecting
mutual landownershfp, is so clear
that it may be quoted more fully than
hitherto. Art. declares:
They (the subjects of each of
the high contracting parties)
shall, on condition of reciprocity,
be at full liberty to acquire and
possess every description of prop
erty, movable or immovable,
which the laws of the country
permit, the subjects or citizens
Of any other foreign country to
acquire and possess, subject al
ways to the conditions and limi-
tations prescribed by such laws.
They shall be permitted to lease
land for residential, commercial,
Industrial and other lawful pur-
poses, in the same manner as
native subjects. They shall
enjoy constant and complete pro-
lection and security for their
Il property. 1
All these wide rights, it will be
observed, but particularly the right of
purchasing and owning land, are con-
ditional on reciprocity. In other
words. a Japanese can only own land
in America under treaty on condition
that an American can own land in
Japan. Yet, as we know, Americans
cannot own land in Japan today, so
that, as thigs are, japanese have no!
SPECIFIC ground for protest against
CALIFORNIA; attitude to japanese land
ownership in America. The Ameri-
can-Japanese treaty conspicuously
omits to grant glandownership to Ja-i
panese or Americans in their respect
i've countries of the high contracting
parties, so that Japan in this conten-
ton has to fall back on the most-fa-
vored-nation clause, which admits
her subjects to the same privileges in.
America as Great Britain grants to.
Japanese in England But here, it
must be noticed, that the conditional
character of the British privilege also
extends to the granting of the same
IN America. The American-Japanese
INSTRUMENTATION treaty clause ex-
pressly stipulates that each country
shall enjoy any privilege that either
has granted, or may grant, to the sub
Jects of any other state "gratuitously,
II the concession to that other state
shall have been gratuitous, and on the
same or equivalent conditions, if the
concession shall have been condi-
t1onaL In the British case, of
course, the concession of Japanese
iandownership is conditional, and the
condition is reciprocity. Hence, the
Importance of Japan regarding this
California question from the stand
point of reciprocity, and speedily re-
moving the present bar to alier land
ownership in Japan, so as to strength
Ell her position in that question: