The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-04-10
JAPAN's COLONY IN MEXICO.

Metropolitan Magazine: The Jap
anese are on the west coast of Mexico.
They are already established in
Manzanillo bay and own the entire
shore Of San Juan bay, which opens
from it.
They have a concession to use 500
miles of the Mexican shore, including
Acapulco and Salina Cruz, as we'll as
Manzanillo. and all the rivers, lakes
and lagoons they may elect.
The same japanese interests which
examined the fishing in Magdalena.
bay are now financing the concession
in Mexico and have begun to buy land,
bring over their boat builders, their
workers, their farmers, and most of
all, their fishermen. These experts,
graduated from the wonderful fishing
college of Japan, are to carry on all
the business of fishing and OF manu-
featuring the remarkably varied prod
ucts of fish, shrimps, oysters. cuttle-
fish. shark, HOLSTERS, and all other
kinds of sea food, The farmers will
settle on. the land and grow crops for
them. "."~ !s'
The management for the time being
is in the hands of Noataro Kobayashi,
the concessionaire, a gentleman of 40
years, good-looking outstanding, a
good trader, a good promoter, a good
business man, who speaks Japanese,
English, Spanish and French with al
most equal ease.
Educated in Japan, he tried first the
business of colonizing Japanese in
Australia. Failing there, he came to
Mexico, after a tour through Europe,
and succeeded. He has secured from
the government about $4,000 acres of
land in Chiapas, the most eastern
state of Mexico on the Pacific, and
there la small farming and cattle
raising going on. For this industry
and for employment in haciendas and
In mines, he has brought to the west
coast of Mexico more h a 5000 Jap
anese in the past few years. Why
have the laps come to this coast?
This is the first question We must ask.
To seek trouble with Uncle Sam? TO
plant a naval force? To start competi-
tive manufacturing?
Fol no such reason. A starving peo-
pie are seeking food. An over-croWd-
ed nation increasing 100000 every
year must plan colonies, to provide
more and cheaper food for those at
home. A heavy war tax placed upon
the principal items of Japanese diet
has increased the cost of living. The
rulers so far refuse to take this off.
Japan, under such a crisis, is rapidly
becoming an Industrial country, and is
spending 500, 000, 900 a year for raw
cotton to manufacture.
Distress in Japan has so increased
largely due to the rush of men, women
and children into the cotton mills, that
a public injecting was held at Toxic,
in the Meiji theatre, in May, 1912, to
discuss the high price of rice and
wheat. Starvation has sent home-lov-
ing Japanese farmers and fishermen
| out into new lands, that she may null
tiply her importation of untaxed
foods n reduce the number of those
at home. Hundreds OF thousands have
gone to Korea, Manchuria, Saghalien,
and most of all to Formosa, where
they are restoring the cultivation of
tea and the calnpfor forests. More
than 100000 of them are in the Phil
ippines and $4,000 in Hawaii, for the
same reason. Now a private company
is taking over this big concession on
the Pacific coast to accommodate
more Japanese and to provide more
food for those at home. The question
is not war; not Intervention in Mex
leo; not interference by our state de-
partment administration in the affairs
of the Japanese. A nation as poor as
this. we have seen is not seeking war.
It's total debt is $4,000 00, 900, nearly
half of which results from the last
war.