The Pacific Triangle Part 27

These, then, are some of the ways in which j.a.pan has and has not followed in the footsteps of America.

Let us follow the Chinese giant a bit, and see what blundering paths he has pursued. Unfortunately, he has had his mind too much on the American colossus to observe the mole. And so he blundered into accepting a republican form of government. A vain _Malvolio_, he thought he was being honored with blue and yellow ribbons on his enormous legs, but to stretch the metaphor a little farther, it turns out that these alien Lilliputians are strapping him securely down to earth. The ribbons and the Lilliputian bands are the foreign-built and foreign-controlled and operated railroads which have been talked of with sanctimonious metaphors to make them palatable. And now China parades herself before the world as a republic. That is some of the influence of America. The Republic of China is our own handiwork. Is it anything to be proud of?

Poor China is a battered republic, with hands outstretched, appealing to us for help. As I write the newspapers tell of the appeal of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, recently elected President of the South China Republic. After surveying what he regards as the situation, exposing the Peking government, declaring that but for its intriguing with j.a.pan there would have been unity between North and South, and that the Northern militarists were profiteering in food during the recent famine, and charging them with a string of other crimes, he adds:

Such is the state of affairs in China that unless America, her traditional friend and supporter, comes forward to lend a helping hand in this critical period, we would be compelled against our will to submit to the twenty-one demands of j.a.pan. I make this special appeal, therefore, through Your Excellency, to the Government of the United States to save China once more, for it is through America's genuine friendship, as exemplified by the John Hay doctrine, that China owes her existence as a nation.

Now let us listen to the word from j.a.pan on American diplomacy in China.

The "Asahi Shimbun" said:

Of all the foreign representatives in Peking the American was the least known previous to the revolution. A lawyer by profession, he was not credited with any diplomatic ability or resource. Yet he will reap more credit than any of the others on account of the ability and energy which he has displayed. But what have our Government and our diplomacy done to counteract the American influence? Our interests in China far exceed those of any other country, and yet our officials have allowed themselves to be outplayed by a diplomatically untrained lawyer. China, which ought to look to j.a.pan for help and guidance, does not do so, but looks to America. The inertia of the Kasumigaseki has given Mr. Calhoun an opportunity to restore American prestige in the neighbouring country.

j.a.pan has done nothing to gain the good-will of China, and America is constantly veering her ship with its treasury of Chinese good-will more and more in the direction of j.a.pan. We had in j.a.pan a man of unusual gifts and sagacity. Mr. Roland S. Morris, American Amba.s.sador under the Wilson administration, though avowedly a friend of j.a.pan, certainly had a most unenviable position to maintain. He seemed peculiarly fitted for his post, for during his years in j.a.pan, notwithstanding the innumerable missions that moved like settings on a circular stage, and the infinite number of dinners that fall to the lot of distinguished foreigners in j.a.pan, he never seems to have got political indigestion. And doubtless he is to-day a friend of China.

With an eye to the "special interests" of j.a.pan, Dr. Paul S. Reinsch was permitted to throw up his hands in despair. We were not doing much to save China from being Shantung-ed. Because Mr. Crane once undiplomatically expressed himself in ways unwelcome to j.a.pan, he was recalled before he got beyond Chicago. Several years later, Mr. Crane succeeded in smuggling himself through to China as American Minister, and as far as may be seen, he did n.o.ble work in connection with the Famine Relief last winter. Now we have dispatched a j.a.panophile to China. Dr. Jacob Gould Shurman was so strongly impressed with the schools of j.a.pan that he gave up Cornell University to go to China and help j.a.panize the Celestial. At least, that is the mood in which he left America. A man who knows him well and is close to the inner circle of American financial affairs in China a.s.sured me the other day that Shurman would not be in China six months before he would completely reverse his sentiments, and regard j.a.pan's work in China as it is regarded by every one there who is not a j.a.panese official.

Poor deluded, short-sighted j.a.pan! She could have China as a plaything if she only went about it properly. Propinquity could put special interests in last year's list of bad debts if j.a.pan sincerely, honestly, firmly made a friend of China, threw the doors wide open,--and then laughed a hearty, healthy laugh at the efforts of white men to outwit her in Asia. Propinquity has made j.a.pan Oriental, it has given j.a.pan a script that opens the doors for her more than for any other alien: Oriental methods, Oriental concepts, Oriental customs and requirements give j.a.pan a better chance in China than all her millions of soldiers and dreadnaughts ever will. Yet the little mole loves it underground.

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Thus we are blindly following the j.a.panese mole. We are catering to j.a.panese "sensitiveness" by sending diplomats with a list in the direction of j.a.pan now. Presently, I presume, we shall withdraw our diplomats from China as we did from Korea, and forget about it. But, then, of course, we sha'n't. Things in the Far East are not going to pan out so easily, not in the matter of China and j.a.pan. Ever since the first American clipper flirted with Chinese trade, American interests have been involved in the interests of China, and they will continue to be so involved. Without ordinary, decent, honest trade among nations, the relationship of peoples ceases to have its reason for existence.

Just imagine a world of nothing but tourists! But decent trade is not the forcing of opium on a country against its will, as Britain forced it on China in the early days and as j.a.pan forces it to-day. Decent trade is not the impoverishing of native industries by the introduction of cheap products from j.a.panese, European, and American factories. Neither is decent trade altruism. The spirit of really decent trade may be found, though not yet fully defined, in the motives behind the consortium; but, then, that scheme has not yet been proved workable. Its future remains to be seen, and I shall later describe it as far as it has gone.

It has been admitted, even by the most prejudiced--and by j.a.panese--that America's practices in the Far East, and China in particular, have been essentially well-principled. The Philippines are restively seeking independence, but they cannot claim that America's protectorate has been discreditable. One could go on all the way through to the return of the Boxer Indemnity, and the only serious charge that can be made with truth is that altruism has often been accompanied by indecision and inefficiency.

The question that now faces the world is whether the effect of Western democratic governmental methods, which seem to have made a sudden, yet vital, impression on the minds of the Chinese, shall become effective with time, or shall be uprooted by another Oriental country for whom we have expressed constantly the most affectionate regard. We do not love a child less because it needs correction; correction, we realize, is the necessary accompaniment of growth. j.a.pan needs to be shown the error of her ways; not in high-flown moral terms, but in just plain, everyday examples of the impracticability of her doings in China. Thus, having been instrumental in the opening of j.a.pan to the world; having acquired possessions in the Pacific which must remain the outposts of democratic management of native peoples; having set an example of disinterested, generous treatment of unwieldy China; having stood by as her friend, as her preceptor, her sponsor; having, in a word, made that inexplicable journey from the Atlantic to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, let the robin say of Johnny Appleseed:

To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life and his empire just begun....

CHAPTER XXI

WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS

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I have come now to the most delicate and most difficult task in the whole problem, that of the dovetailing of nations. Twice has this phase of the subject come before us: once when we met it in that welter of racial experiments, Hawaii and the South Seas in general; and again in that great outpost of the white race, Australasia. But in the one it is too localized, and the other too much in antic.i.p.ation. In Hawaii it is hard to say which race has justly a prior right to possession; in Australia the problem is only imminent.

But in California and the entire West the impact of the two races of the Pacific has taken place. Nothing but a just solution can possibly be any solution at all. Let me therefore define the problem at the very outset, lest that which is really irrelevant be expected, or insinuate itself into the discussion.

Primarily, the problem of j.a.pan in America is not a racial one.

Primarily it is political, and hinges upon the rights of nations.

Secondarily, it is economic, and only in so far as the political and economic factors are unsolvable can the problem become a racial one, and terminate in conflict. All attempts at handling the situation which do not take into consideration these two factors would be like crossing the stream to get a bucket of water. For nothing can be done without reciprocity, and reciprocity is the last thing that j.a.pan would ever consent to, as it involves a transformation in her political philosophy and the relinquishment of her own position from the very outset. Hence, before we can even approach the consideration of facts in California, we must get clearly in mind exactly what j.a.pan is doing within her own territories. j.a.pan is the appellant. j.a.pan demands that her people be given free entry the world over. We are not asking her to let our people enter j.a.pan and her possessions as laborers and agriculturists. Hence, before she can make her plea at all rational, she must show that she herself is not discriminating in the identical manner as the one she objects to.

Now, in only one or two instances have I seen that question emphasized.

In all the literature I have read emanating from j.a.panese sources, in the lectures of its propagandists here, I have never seen it faced fairly and squarely. The actions of j.a.pan are ignored or glossed over.

The protagonists of j.a.pan in California--Americans, mind you--make of it purely an American issue, as though discrimination were a fault peculiar to ourselves. Two blacks don't make a white, but neither do two blacks quarrel with each other for being black.

The questions in the order of their importance then are:

Does j.a.pan permit the free entrance of alien labor?

Does j.a.pan permit the ready purchase by aliens of agricultural land?

Does j.a.pan make the naturalization of aliens easy?

Does j.a.pan permit the denaturalization of its people abroad?

Now, these are all political problems, for the simple reason that the very economic conditions of j.a.pan make them unnecessary. That is, j.a.panese labor is essentially cheap labor, and owing to the great crowding there would be little likelihood of any great influx of Korean or Chinese labor were the bars not raised fairly high. And the bars are high. The number of Koreans admitted is greater largely because Koreans are now subjects of the mikado, but even they are kept in check by j.a.panese objections to their entrance, and conflicts between j.a.panese and Koreans are not unknown. Chinese are permitted to enter j.a.pan only by special permission from the local authorities, as provided for in a regulation in force since 1899. Forgetting the two hundred and fifty years during which the doors of j.a.pan were sealed; forgetting that even after the opening of j.a.pan a foreigner had to obtain a special pa.s.sport to travel from Kobe to Kyoto, a distance of forty miles inland; forgetting all the psychological factors that have by no means broken down the crust that still closes most of j.a.pan to alien possession or acquisition, one is still amazed at this discrimination against fellow-subjects and Chinese, to whom the j.a.panese are in some essential way, at least, related.

But let us see what happens to these people when they do get in. Let me quote a statement in the bulletin of the East and West News Bureau, a j.a.panese propaganda agency located in New York.

In j.a.pan proper the Korean laborers are estimated to number about 20,000. Compared with j.a.panese laborers they are perhaps superior in point of physical strength, but in practical efficiency they are no rivals of the latter. They feel that they are handicapped by strange environments and different customs, which partly account for their low efficiency. But experienced employers a.s.sert that the Koreans are markedly lazy, and that their work requires overseers, which naturally results of curtailment of their wages.

According to inquiries by the Osaka police on conditions among Korean laborers in the city, many of them have been thrown out of employment on account of the economic depression; that they are mostly engaged in rough work, such as carrying goods around or digging holes, etc., as unskilled laborers. It states that they are indolent and have no interest in work which requires skill and attention; they are simply contented as cheap laborers.

This quotation is illuminating in many ways. First, it strikes me as being anything but fair play on the part of j.a.panese in America to send out such discriminating and unkind accounts of a people whom they have now taken in as fellows in an empire, and whom they are "trying to a.s.similate." Secondly, it is not quite true, for j.a.panese manufacturers are going to Korea with their factories. If Korean laborers are efficient in Korea, why not in j.a.pan? But the fact of the matter is that the j.a.panese, quite naturally, are not going to give the best jobs to Koreans with their own men round about.

Now let us see what the British Vice-Consul at Osaka has to say of j.a.panese labor, in a report to Parliament. Admitting that external conditions have much to do with the poor quality of the j.a.panese workman, and that in time and under better conditions he will improve, the vice-consul says: "The standard [of intelligence] shown by the average workman is admittedly low," while some of his sub-captions are: "Docility," "Apathy," "Cheerfulness," "Lack of Concentration," "Scarcity of Skilled Labor," and under the caption "Why Wages are Low" he says: "Labor is plentiful and inefficient."

It is seen, therefore, that the opinion of the vice-consul in the matter of the j.a.panese is similar to that of the j.a.panese in regard to the Korean; and so it goes. The point in the whole question, to my mind is, that j.a.panese discriminate as much against other races as they are discriminated against. Not until j.a.pan lays low the chauvinistic notions about the superiority of the most inferior j.a.panese to the best foreigner can we expect that other nations will set to work to remove the obstacles toward a clear understanding.

In America the very reverse is true. No one ever a.s.serts that the j.a.panese is inferior to a white man. What is said is that the white man is essentially an individualist who at maturity starts off in life by himself, whereas the j.a.panese is bound by all sorts of notions of ancestor-worship which submerge him completely in the group.

Furthermore, as a group the j.a.panese are able to overcome the greatest odds that any individual can raise against them. The nature of that group-consciousness will be a.n.a.lyzed in the answer to some of the other questions.

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But to return to j.a.pan: That j.a.pan has no occasion for fear of a serious invasion of aliens is evident from recent figures that show that there are only 19,500 foreigners there, of whom 12,139 are Chinese, 2,404 Britons, 1,837 Americans, 687 Russians, 641 Germans, and 445 French.

These figures are, however, unreliable, and antedate the Russian Revolution. However, the question here pertinent is whether any of these would be permitted to engage in such industries as the j.a.panese engage in here; for instance, agriculture. That can be answered in the negative. The j.a.panese land law, however generous it may seem from mere reading of the statutes, does not extend that privilege to foreigners.

The first proviso of the law is that the person desiring to own land in j.a.pan shall be from a country wherein j.a.panese are permitted to own land. In other words, if America does not allow a j.a.panese to acquire land, no American can do so in j.a.pan. As it stands, therefore, no j.a.panese can complain if American laws make a similar ruling. The second provision excludes from any and all ownership, in any and all circ.u.mstances, the Hokkaido, Formosa, Karafuto (Sakhalin), or districts necessary for national defense. Considering that every other inch of ground is held in plots of two and a half acres per farmer, to whom they are the beginning and end of subsistence, the privileges innocently extended are mighty short. The law virtually excludes all right to any agricultural lands that any foreigner might be able to avail himself of.

There is one kind of real property foreigners do wish to own, and that is property for business purposes. But they cannot own that, even; they may only lease it on long leases under conditions that are frequently a hardship and often enough insecure. They may lease land under the so-called superficies lease, but that means virtually evading the law, and is always expensive. Even ordinary leases are frequently encroached upon, as foreigners in the ports are only too well aware. While I was in Kobe, j.a.panese were forcing foreign business firms out of the former foreign settlement, which fully fifty years of white men's toil had converted from a worthless bit of beach land into one of the most up-to-date "suburbs" in the Orient, and which is now the best part of Kobe. This was done by calling in leases, by making the rents prohibitive, and by "buying out" foreign lease-holders at almost exorbitant rates, just as the j.a.panese buy out white men in California.

One British druggist, Dr. Richardson, sold for $225,000 a corner plot for which he had paid $12,500. He made a great profit in the deal, but the process by which he, and others, were bought out is indicative of the methods of the j.a.panese. For behind many of the real-estate dealers was the Government, making loans at most favorable rates of interest with the sole object of getting back into j.a.panese control as much of the port plots as possible,--cost what it might. Even men of lifelong residence in j.a.pan must form themselves into corporations with their wives and some j.a.panese as members, in order to own the land upon which their residences are built. Some of these cases I investigated for the "j.a.pan Chronicle" and learned from the priest of the Catholic Church that pressure was constantly being exerted upon him to make him relinquish his hold upon the ground on which the church stands, because it is in the heart of the business section. He said he did not know how long he would be able to hold out against them.

How corrupt landlords may overstep the bounds is ill.u.s.trated by a case reported in the "Chronicle" of February 10, 1921. The editor says:

The notorious Clarke lease suit is a case in point. This was a lease for twenty-five years, renewable for a further term of similar duration. A syndicate of j.a.panese was organized which purchased the land, knowing of the burdens upon it, with the hope of worrying the lease-holder either into paying more rent or into selling the lease for an inadequate sum. Suit after suit was brought in various names, until at last a court was found to give judgment raising the rent on the ground that taxes had increased and the value of surrounding properties had expanded since the lease was made. In justification of a judgment upholding this decision, the Osaka Appeal Court declared that there was a local custom in Kobe which permitted a landlord to raise the rent in certain circ.u.mstances. No evidence was produced in support of this contention, which was clearly against all contract law and rendered lease agreements meaningless. The result was that the gang of speculators who had banded themselves together to despoil a foreigner were successful. The holder of the lease was forced to sell and the syndicate profited greatly.

If the argument is raised that you will find bad people everywhere, and that one cannot take the poorest type of person and set him up as the example, let us recall the case of the Doshisha University. There, because of these selfsame land and property laws, The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions placed the million dollars' worth of property in the hands of Christian j.a.panese directors. Presently the Government brought pressure to bear upon these directors, and they yielded to their Government. In February, 1898, they virtually ousted the foreign owners, turned the inst.i.tution into a secular college, and saw nothing dishonest nor immoral in the action. j.a.panese have of course come to a better understanding of the rights in such cases, nor am I trying to impugn the integrity of the "better-cla.s.s" of j.a.panese. I am merely bringing evidence to prove that not only are j.a.panese laws with regard to the ownership of land by foreigners as discriminatory as those of California, but their interpretation is a serious handicap to aliens in j.a.pan.

In America the fight is not to prevent j.a.panese from taking hold of land for business purposes, but to prevent them from monopolizing farming-lands, which, as Mr. Walter Pitkin has shown so clearly in his book, "Must We Fight j.a.pan?" are rapidly pa.s.sing out of American hands because of our vicious shallowness in agrarian matters. I am not as yet bringing up the question of fairness, justice, generosity, or the rights of over-crowded j.a.pan. I am merely making parallels which seem to me telling.

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