The Pacific Triangle Part 28

Does j.a.pan make the naturalization of aliens easy? As far as the letter of the law goes, there appears nothing in the eyes of a layman that might stand in the way of a man, already married and with children, from becoming a j.a.panese subject. There is no legal discrimination against any race or color. But notwithstanding that there now are 20,000 foreigners in j.a.pan, and that the number throughout the years must have been much greater, there are on record only nine cases of foreigners having been naturalized between 1904 and 1913; two English, two American, five French; and ten cases of adoptions by marriage into j.a.panese families. These, to my knowledge, do not include men previously married. They are all cases of men who have married j.a.panese women, or of women who have married j.a.panese men. There have been 158 Chinese who became naturalized. This does not indicate that naturalization is easy--except by marriage--and the general consensus of opinion is that it would take a man fully fifteen years to become naturalized in the due process of law.

Furthermore, the restrictions attached to the acquisition of j.a.panese nationality take all the sweetness out of the plum, for even after you have gone through the regular processes and have been permitted to sit "amongst these G.o.ds on sainted seats," there are still exalted pedestals beyond your reach. You may not become a Minister of State, President, or Vice-President, or a member of the Privy Council; an official of _chokunin_ (imperial-appointment) rank in the Imperial Household Department; an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; a general officer in the army and navy; president of the Supreme Court, of the Board of Audit, or of the Court of Administrative Litigation; or member of the Imperial Diet. Nor are the professions in all cases open to you.

However, this is a minor matter compared with that of the inability on the part of any j.a.panese to accept another nationality without official consent. If he resides abroad after his seventeenth birthday he cannot in any circ.u.mstances become a citizen of that other country unless he has completed his military service. Women may freely relinquish their nationality through marriage; not so men. If men are born abroad, they must make a voluntary request for denaturalization between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, but such other factors are involved that only a negligible number of American-born j.a.panese have ever attempted to rid themselves of their ancestral connections; and there is one case on record in which the Government refused on a technicality, for the child had applied for denationalization according to Western reckoning, whereas j.a.panese count the child's age as from the day of conception, not birth.

In view of this, then, there seems no point whatever in the fuss made about j.a.panese being barred from citizenship. Again, I am not discussing the advisability of this restriction, but merely trying to brush aside many of the webs that have been spun for the netting of sympathy. The relations between j.a.pan and America are thus involved in an infinite number of petty political regulations on each side, and nothing but a complete sweeping away of all restrictions on both sides would ever a.s.sume even the semblance of justice. But how far is j.a.pan ready and willing to go in this denationalization of herself? The most casual study of her nationalistic aims and aspirations answers that question.

That the problem is essentially a problem for j.a.pan to solve is self-evident. That it is political and not racial, and that this political problem is rooted in j.a.pan's economic condition, is likewise clear. For no nation loses its nationals except when the conditions at home are worse than those abroad, worse than those of the country to which her people wish to emigrate. Australia and New Zealand find it almost impossible to lure out British laborers, while Germany's desire for room was largely for the utilization of her mechanics and scientists and others whom she had trained in such large numbers that she hadn't enough work for them at home. Two changes in the structure of world economics have accentuated a condition of racial conflict which have hitherto been virtually non-existent. Religious and political conflicts have always obtained, but the color line has been drawn only in very recent times. As long as black and yellow people have been of a lower order and have been willing to serve the white, there was never any serious disorder between them. The color line is not marked even in Europe to-day, for the same reason that it is not marked in j.a.pan.

Europe is herself too crowded to be a desirable immigration station.

Whatever the causes of conflict may have been, to-day it is clear that they lie in the endeavor on the part of white labor to maintain a better standard of living than Oriental labor has yet attained. And in exactly the degree to which certain Oriental labor groups have risen above others, the conflict becomes manifest,--to wit, the objection on the part of j.a.panese labor to Korean and Chinese coolies. No serious conflicts take place between Fijian laborers and Indian coolies, because the Fijian maintains his standard under compet.i.tion, that being lower than the Indian's.

We have therefore to study the problem of j.a.panese in America, the so-called race conflict, not so much as it develops here but at its source, j.a.pan. And there, if I read j.a.panese conditions aright, the problem is political and psychological in the main. j.a.pan has come very far along material modernization; she has virtually stepped up to the front rank of nations. But the most casual observation reveals that that is only so in part, that the advance is made as a government, not as a people. That government is rooted in antiquated notions, is vicious in many of its aspects, and is opposed to even the most conservative developments of Western countries. That government refuses to recognize the social forces that are at work within j.a.pan for the leveling upward of cla.s.ses. And there is the rub.

4

Glancing over the history of the nineteenth century, we realize that all nations have pa.s.sed through a continuous struggle of the ma.s.ses for betterment of their conditions, political and social as well as economic. During the greater part of that century j.a.pan lay dormant, its ma.s.ses mentally mesmerized. The sudden impact of the West has stunned the people more than awakened them. Only part of the social body is coming to life,--a limb, an essential organ. To be generous, I might say the brain is working, though from many of the actions of Nippon that would seem doubtful. But certain it is that whether it is the brain or merely the spinal column, instead of limbering up the rest of the body as rapidly as possible, it is trying to r.e.t.a.r.d it. Hence, the feverish condition of the country.

This is not mere speculation. As I have said, only such countries as have an inferior economic condition suffer from the exodus of their laboring people. That exodus takes place for several reasons. From Europe it has come because of the hunger for religious freedom, to escape political oppression, or merely to get a new start in life. And though we have few political or religious exiles in America from the Land of the Rising Sun, they come because of an unconscious desire for relief from j.a.panese social domination. I am convinced that that which most j.a.panese so prefer in America is that sense of individual freshness, that desire for individual expression, for freedom from the clutch of family and oligarchy. It is unconscious, and without doubt few j.a.panese when brought face to face with the issues would admit it, so deeply ingrained is the education and training at the hands of the political administrators. Only here and there is some such statement made, with an eye to the press and the galleries.

Were j.a.pan to extend to the ma.s.ses greater freedom, there would be plenty of work for them at home. There is scientific advancement to be made. j.a.panese are frightfully behind in the scientific habit. I have been told by a friend at one of our greatest inst.i.tutions of medical experimentation that with but one exception the j.a.panese who come there have to be constantly dismissed for their incompetence. There was no anti-j.a.panese sentiment in the mind of the person who made this statement. j.a.panese still need generations of training to acquire the scientific spirit. Their historians prove this. In the business of life j.a.panese have plenty of work at home which could easily absorb all the man-power, both masculine and feminine, at their command, without the necessity of shipping any of it abroad. But the vulgar acquisition of wealth, the vulgar acquisition of political prestige in the world, the vulgar appeal for equality which no man or nation with true dignity and self-respect would mouth to the extent that j.a.panese officialdom has mouthed it, the vulgar wearing of its sensitiveness on its sleeve,--it is these with which bureaucratic j.a.pan is preoccupied. While, at home, every effort on the part of j.a.panese to secure manhood suffrage, to arise to the dignity of true men, of which the ma.s.ses are as capable as any race on earth, is discouraged. On the one hand pleading, in mendicant fashion, for racial equality abroad; on the other, refusal to give the people at home racial equality. On one hand it is a.s.serted loudly that "The j.a.panese do not like to be regarded as inferior to any other people. In no country will they be content with discriminatory treatment";[1] on the other, Prime Minister Hara answers the demand for the franchise with the maudlin fear that it would break down "distinction."

[1] From the _Kok.u.min_, a leading newspaper.

So that the problem of j.a.pan and the world is largely a political problem which she must face at home. Raising the standard of living; increasing the economic welfare of the ma.s.ses; extending the rights of the people who are clamoring for it in sections, not only to the intelligent elements but down to the very _eta_; cleansing the social pores of the empire,--these will in themselves automatically solve the problem for the world. The people don't want conquest. They are not aggressive. But the misguided leaders,--there's the rub.

5

As to j.a.pan in America--or, more specifically, the j.a.panese in California--the problem is for us to solve. I once heard an American sentimentalist who practises law, and hence a.s.sured an audience he ought to know what he was talking about, say that the trouble in California was that the j.a.panese will work and the American is an idler and won't work. Why he wasn't howled out of the auditorium I don't know. That America has reared this vast continent and made it one of the most productive countries in the world did not seem to enter the head of this lawyer. Yet the j.a.panese problem will not be solved by exclusion alone.

We hear constantly that the reason for the conflict is that j.a.panese as groups and as tireless workers are able to outwork Americans; and, in certain special types of industry, that is proved. But were the conditions made more acceptable to Americans in those industries, and were we to devise mechanical means of production suited to them, it would not be long before j.a.panese labor would find it extremely unprofitable to come here, just as it finds it unprofitable to go to Manchuria and Korea, where it has to compete with the cheaper Chinese and Korean labor. Laws and restrictions can always be evaded, and the price of vigilance is more costly than the gain. But those laws that are basic in the condition of life no man can evade.

The Gentlemen's Agreement has not worked because gentlemen themselves seldom work. It has not worked because it has denied America the right, as all nations claim it, to determine who shall or shall not come in.

Gentlemen never exact such agreements from their friends. They realize that a man's home is his domain, to be entered only on invitation.

Furthermore, the agreement is not mutually retroactive. It says that j.a.pan has a right to decide the issue, and promises not to permit coolie labor to enter America. I shall not enter the statistical controversy as to whether flocks of j.a.panese have or have not evaded the agreement. An agreement such as that should be evaded, and was loose enough to make evasion simple. That is enough of an argument.

j.a.pan pleads for room on account of the tremendous increase in her population every year. When a great appeal is made, the number is stated as 700,000 or 800,000, according to the emotional condition of the appellant. Professor Dewey contends that the j.a.panese Government, in its own records, admits to only some 300,000 or 400,000 a year. Whether the increase in California is or is not as stated, on one side or the other, matters little. j.a.pan's grounds for appealing for room are sufficient.

If the increase is so disgustingly large in j.a.pan, it stands to reason that it would be as large, if not larger here, where economic opportunity makes increase possible and desirable. Every child born in America is a handle worth getting hold of. But on the other hand, it is also true that wherever j.a.panese better their standard of living their birth-rate falls, as with every race. In which case there is only one answer to j.a.pan's appeal for more room: Better your standard of living and you will not need to invade our house. That disgusting process of breeding which aggressive nations indulge in should be decried from the house-tops. It is no great mark of civilization to breed like mosquitos.

Mosquitos need to reproduce by the millions because their eggs are consumed by the millions by preying creatures. Civilization makes it possible for those born to survive. (See Appendix D.)

Some students of Far Eastern affairs, like J. O. P. Bland, urge that j.a.pan has a right to the occupation of Siberia; and none will gainsay that. But the fact is that though free to go both to Korea and Manchuria, j.a.panese have not gone to these regions even to the extent of one year's increase in population during the last ten years. Where, then, is the argument? As has been shown, they do not go as settlers because cheap continental labor makes it unprofitable. They go as business-men, as the advance-guard of the empire, as the rear-guard of the army. No one has ever raised a voice against the migration of j.a.panese to these unpopulated regions--with the exception, perhaps, of the natives. But ever and always one feels the hand of imperial j.a.pan behind each little man from the empire, and that hold on her nationals is the thing that vigorous nations resent, because it threatens to impair their status.

That is what California and the sixteen other states who share her views feel. They are conscious of some subsidy behind every extensive purchase of land. From somewhere j.a.panese get enough money to buy anything they want. It is always the paternalistic arm of the Government round every little son of Nippon, or the embrace of his family. That is where the problem begins and that is where it ends. If only some chemical substance could be discovered that, when poured over the Oriental, would separate him from the ma.s.s, he would be as good a fellow as can be found anywhere in the world. But that was what always irritated me in my relations with j.a.panese in j.a.pan. I never met a man I liked but that in order to enjoy a.s.sociation with him I had to tolerate his group. If I started off anywhere with one, I soon had a retinue. That racial clannishness is to be found everywhere, but nowhere is it more sticky than in ancestor-worshiping j.a.pan.

Consequently, in whatever manner the problem is finally solved here in America, one thing is agreed upon by both j.a.panese and anti-j.a.panese,--that those here will have to be redistributed over the country, their clannishness broken up. That is a problem which affects not only the j.a.panese. However, nothing that is now done should in any way be retroactive so as to deprive any single j.a.panese of the fruits of his labor. Whatever solution is found for the j.a.panese problem in America, one thing is certain,--that no war will ever be fought because of j.a.panese immigration to America. j.a.pan, as has been shown, would have to readjust her own political thinking to such an extent as virtually to revolutionize conditions in j.a.pan in order to make an issue of the citizenship problem and the matter of alien landownership here. Such a revolution would considerably reduce the scope of the issues, they would fall apart and virtually cease to exist.

If we are looking for the causes of a possible conflict in the Pacific, they must be sought not in California but in China. The dovetailing of the angle of our triangle in America is contingent upon the dovetailing of the angle of the triangle in Asia. The one in America can be dislodged only by a wrenching apart of the angle in Asia.

j.a.pan's hegemony in Asia is a serious matter. j.a.pan is an industrial nation now. She is ent.i.tled to access to unused resources in China.

Propinquity accedes this, but propinquity precludes the necessity of submerging China in the process. The Open Door in China means peace in the Pacific. We leave it to time to determine what the walling up of that door would mean.

CHAPTER XXII

AUSTRALIA AND THE ANGLO-j.a.pANESE ALLIANCE

1

The tempest in the European teapot has become a tornado in the Pacific.

Small as the Balkans are, they were the stumbling-block in the way of the downward expansion of the European powers.

The tragedy in Europe has left Europe in the background. Civilization is rapidly veering round in the direction of the Pacific. There are little nations to-day whose possession is as fraught with unhappy consequences as anything in southern Europe ever was. Yet we hear innocent dispensers of information a.s.sure us that Yap is only a little speck in the Pacific over which no one would think of going to war. They forget that America nearly went to war with Germany in 1889 over the Samoan Islands, which then meant much less to her. And the settlement in Europe at the Peace Conference has greatly enhanced the position of the present powers in the Pacific.

Until very recently two developments in Pacific affairs had not been given as much prominence in the press as they deserved. One, the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance, and the other the British Imperial Conferences, held every other year since 1907. Just in proportion as the Imperial Conferences have become, as it were, a super-Parliament to Great Britain, so has the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance waned. And just as the so-called mandates over the various island groups in the mid-Pacific congeal from lofty aspirations to concrete management there are emerging in the Pacific the identical antagonisms that made of the little group of states in Southern Europe the cause of the conflict.

The Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance was formed in 1902. Its aim was to oust Russia, and to guarantee British interests in China. Later on it was revised to include j.a.panese protection over India. But consonant with that agreement there blossomed in the British Empire a new thing to be reckoned with,--an independent Australian navy. That navy has by no means matured, it is not and cannot for years to come be a great consideration in the Pacific, but it has been from the start prophetic and explanatory of much that is taking place to-day. It is at the bottom of the problem, because it is the beginning of Australian independence, of her rise to nationhood. Let me rehea.r.s.e the historical incidents in connection with this development.

Now, until the advent of that navy all the colonies had been paying certain sums yearly toward the maintenance of the British Navy,--Canada, Australia, New Zealand alike. But with the federation of the Commonwealth, Australia began to agitate in no mistaken terms for a navy of her own, to be built and manned by Australians, and kept in Australian waters, rushing only in an emergency to the support of the empire. Canada decided otherwise,--i.e., to build her own ships, but to merge them with the home fleet; New Zealand continued the old scheme.

Being twelve hundred miles away from Australia, her isolation and her inadequate resources and population made her more timorous. With Australia the construction of a separate little fleet was the beginning of a straining at the leash. Then came the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance, which, while it allayed the fears of the Australians somewhat, intensified certain other phases of the problem, such as the White-Australia policy. The Russo-j.a.panese War did nothing to allay apprehension on the part of the Australasians.

For years both the Dominion and the Commonwealth were absolutely obsessed by the naval question. Sir Joseph Ward, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, championed a single, undivided imperial navy; the late Mr.

Alfred Deakin of Australia stood out strongly in favor of an independent navy. Seeing little hope of a very strong concession from England, Deakin extended and urged an invitation, in 1908, to the American fleet to visit Australia. He admitted that his object was to arouse Britain to fear an Australian-American "alliance." The thrust went home. The English "felt that it was using strong measures for an Australian statesman to use a foreign fleet as a means of forwarding a project which was not approved by the Admiralty." But even Sir Joseph Ward let himself go to the extent of declaring that they welcomed America as "natural allies in the coming struggle against j.a.panese domination."

And when at last the American fleet came to Australia, it received an ovation such as still rings in the conversation of any Australian with an American. For an entire week Sydney celebrated. Melbourne followed suit; New Zealand could not but take up the cue. Every one pointed with pride to the similarity between the Australian and the American.

Australian girls virtually threw themselves into the arms of American sailors. It is even said that many a sailor remained behind with an Australian wife. Not even the Prince of Wales (now King George) was given such an ovation.

After that visit, so cordial was the att.i.tude of Australians that everywhere they talked of floating the Stars and Stripes in the event of--what? In the event of pressure from Downing Street or from Tokyo.

The Australian temperament is not one which buries its grievances or harbors ill-feeling. The Australian speaks right out that which is on his mind. And though much must be discounted because of this bubbling personality, almost primitive in its extremes, nothing that affects Australia can long be ignored by us.

Frankly, the situation is this: Australia is set on her so-called White-Australia policy. Australia made it clear to England that, alliance or no alliance, she would never swerve from her policy of excluding j.a.panese and Chinese. When the American fleet appeared, knowing the exclusion of Orientals practised in America, Australia felt that bond of fellowship which comes from common danger. And everything was done to develop friendship; America became the pattern for everything Australian. Never particularly fond of the Englishman, at times discriminating against him as much as against the Oriental, advertising that "No Englishman Need Apply" when looking for labor, afraid of the little yellow man up there,--Australia naturally looked to America as a possible defender.

But along came the European war. Great Britain was in danger. America held aloof. Then everything changed. The wave of anti-American sentiment in Australia was much more p.r.o.nounced than in New Zealand. This was a strange anomaly, for inherently New Zealand is much more imperialistic.

But it was characteristic of the Australian. There was almost a boycott against American goods. One firm published a scurrilous advertis.e.m.e.nt which the American Consul-General at Melbourne showed me and said he had sent to Washington. For a time it looked rather serious, but in view of the Australian character, its importance was not very great. It was the impetuosity of a little boy, disgruntled because his opinion was not feared. Many said openly: "We were so fond of America and thought you were our friend. From now on we don't want anything from you. We don't want your protection."

Yet, as late as December 8, 1916, the Sydney "Morning Herald" said editorially: "And _those of us who think of a possible run under America's wings_ forget that her strength at present is proportionately no greater than our own [Australia's]. She is not ready for either offence or defence and she knows it. This being so, can we ask Great Britain," etc. The feeling toward America at that time was only commensurate with the petty jealousies that now rankle somewhat because of fear that America has taken to herself too much credit for the accomplishment of victory. But then it gave that stimulus to navalism in the South that the Australians wanted; further, it gave birth to the movement for greater independence in imperial affairs, which for twenty-five years had determined the policies of the several states.

Just recently a New Zealand navalist, writing in the "Auckland Weekly News" (New Zealand), brought up the dread specter "balance of power"

again, calling attention to the fact that inasmuch as j.a.pan is a great naval power and America is increasing her naval strength, it is for democratic Australasia to see to it that Great Britain does not lag behind with its fleet in the Pacific,--to maintain the balance of power.

And the further sad fact was revealed that Australasia (seen in the expression of this one individual at least) did not care particularly whether, in the event of conflict, they were on the side of America or j.a.pan.

Feeling did not take the same turn in New Zealand. That little country continued in its more imperialistic tendencies, was content to be a finger in the great hand of empire. In 1909, at the Imperial Conference, Mr. Joseph Ward sprung a surprise by offering a battle-cruiser to the Government without consulting his const.i.tuents at home. For this he was knighted. But the New Zealanders were in a mood to make him pay for it himself when he returned. Mr. (now Sir Joseph) Ward was severely criticized for what he did. He was ridiculed even by the university lads during their "Capping Carnival." They took him off in effigy and carried a little boat with a sign saying: "This is the toy he bought his crown with." Upon his return from the conference he lost his Prime Ministership and a "conservative" government came into power. Later developments so justified him that he became a sort of political idol for a while. When the cruiser visited New Zealand, in 1913, the excitement knew no bounds.

Germany was always regarded as a potential enemy. The colonies had always arched their backs at the proximity of German possessions in the South Seas. When in 1889 Samoa was the bone of contention, the colonies were rather eager to have America take it, in preference to the Germans.

Then, as j.a.pan came to the fore, America as a potential protection became more and more obvious to Australasians. The Panama Ca.n.a.l intensified their conviction. They looked forward to a combination of British and American power for the furtherance of peace as they conceived it should be maintained, and consciousness of their own destiny in the Pacific was stimulated. Suddenly they were brought close to the United States. The anti-j.a.panese riots in California, the annexation of Hawaii, the protectorate over the Philippines all pointed to the Australasians lessons for their own guidance. They could not expect from England the same keen interest in racial questions which manifested itself in America. America demonstrated the dangers of having two unmixable races like the white and the black together; Hawaii showed them that Asiatic immigration is a breeder of trouble. They do not seem to see that circ.u.mstances are not the same, that the pressure of population has become much more keen, that industrial conditions in the world to-day are altogether different from what they were when Great Britain refused to have her American colonies put down the kidnapping of Africans; that America to-day has 110,000,000 people and has encouraged them to come from every country in Europe, as Australia does not.