TOPICS OF THE MONTH. 



0i 



X.-THE JAPANESE IN CALIFORNIA. 



Australia cannot fail to fpllow with 

 anxiety the result of the present trouble 

 between Japs and Americans on the 

 Pacific slope. A particularly informa- 

 tive article on the subject is written by 

 Mr. W. V. Woehlke, in the Outlook. If 

 his diagnosis of the situation be correct 

 the Californians will not rest until 

 they have excluded the Japanese as they 

 did the Chinese thirty years ago. 



Mr. Woehlke points out that of Cali- 

 fornia's total area of 99,000,000 acres, 

 Japanese residents own in fee 12,726, 

 and as tenants 18,000, or a total in all 

 of 12 100 of one per cent, of the whole. 

 There are only 58,000 of them, about i\ 

 per cent, of California's population. 



Why, asks Mr. Woehlke, does the 

 Pacific Coast in general, British Colum- 

 bia included, why does California speci- 

 ficially, exhibit such an intense dislike 

 of the Japanese? 



The determined, brutal war waged by 

 California against the admission of 

 Chinese immigrants was based on the 

 difference in the. standard of living. 

 The Chinese could subsist luxuriously 

 on a ration costing one-tenth of the 

 white man's needed food ; the Chinese 

 could outstarve the whites; therefore 

 the Chinese must go. Beginning in 

 1852, California agitated, murdered, 

 persecuted, and talked until the Burlin- 

 game Treaty, containing the most-fav- 

 oured-nation clause, was abrogated and 

 exclusion became a fact. Economic 

 siderations were the mainspring of 

 the agitation. 



JAPANESE LABOUR NOT CHEAP. 



Japanese labour is not cheap labour. 

 Japanese do not work for less pay than 

 wh te men, except temporarily to obtain 

 the white man's job by underbidding 

 him. Lasl summer the women of 

 Hollywood, a fashionable suburb of Los 

 Angeles, locked out the Japanese domes- 

 tic workers. The house-cleaners and 



gardeners* had gradually raised the 

 wage scale to thirty-five cents an hour. 

 " Twenty-five cents and no more will 

 we pay!" declared the housewives. 

 The Japanese smiled very politely, but 

 did not change the rate card. Holly- 

 wood is still paying them thirty-five 

 cents (1/6) an hour. 



Except to rout Caucasians or 

 Chinese from entrenched positions, the 

 Japanese do not underbid their com- 

 petitors in the labour market. Their 

 standard of living is as high as that of 

 other nationalities. They dress well, eat 

 well, spend money without stint for 

 entertainment. The percentage of 

 criminals among them is low. Be it 

 work in the household, in orchard or 

 vineyard, they perform the task with 

 speed and unusual intelligence — if they 

 are so minded. Their clannishness is no 

 more pronounced than the group ad- 

 hesion of a dozen other nationalities 

 whose ignorance of the English lan- 

 guage forces them into linguistic 

 colonies. The number of the Japanese 

 in California is not increasing. They 

 readily, eagerly adopt the dress, the 

 manners and methods of their new 

 home. 



THE SUPERIORITY OF THE NATIVE BORN. 



Is there, then, Mr. Woehlke continue-, 

 no reason for the periodic anti-Japanese 

 outbursts on the Pacific Coast D 



Before the Japanese came, ever}' im- 

 migrant, whether from northern Europe 

 or southern, from England, Germany, 

 Sweden, Italy, or Greece, tacitly 

 acknowledged the superiority of the 

 native-born, accepted his position in the 

 social scale humbly, without question, 

 totally severed the tie that bound him 

 to the old home. Peasant or college 

 graduate, the immigrant realised or 

 was made to realise that he was an ap 

 prentice, ignorant of the country and its 

 ways, an uninvited probationer, marked 



