984 THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



shores, and such has been the course of 

 the Americans with all Japanese subjects 

 who have fallen under their protection." 



With his warships Perry compelled 

 Japan to receive citizens of the United 

 States and to grant them extraordinary 

 domiciliary rights. From that day to 

 this we have spent enormous sums to es- 

 tablish schools in Japan for the educa- 

 tion of the natives. Yet we now are 

 seeking to deny them admission to this 

 country and we are refusing to permit 

 them to attend our schools. 



In the Philippines a ruffian American 

 soldier, recruited from the purlieus of 

 New York, shoves a native gentleman 

 from the sidewalk of Manila with an 

 oath, calling him a ''nigger." Yet that 

 ''nigger" is very likely a cultivated gen- 

 tleman, educated at the Sorbonne, in 

 Paris. 



The infamous opium war upon China, 

 and the equally infamous existent com- 

 pulsion of China to receive Indian opium, 

 are outrages no whit worse than our own 

 extortion of absurdly exorbitant damages 

 for losses of American ships to Chinese 

 pirates in the Yellow Sea. For many 

 years there was no more profitable 

 undertaking for the owner of an Ameri- 

 can clipper ship than to sell it and its 

 cargo to the Chinese government after it 

 had been looted by the pirates. 



Such, my friends, is something of the 

 shameful record of our relations with 

 the Far East. In India, in China, and in 

 Japan we have been the guests who have 

 enjoyed their hospitality, only to rise in 

 the morning and say to our hosts, "You 

 must not sit at table with us." Believe 

 me, this condition cannot endure. Politi- 

 cally we are in grave danger. Commer- 

 cially, with their industry and their fru- 

 gality, they are fast outstripping us. 



They have ceased buying flour from 

 the Minneapolis mills, because they are 

 grinding Indian and Manchurian wheat 

 with Chinese labor at Woosung. A line 

 of ships is running from the Yellow 

 River to Seattle, bringing 72,000 tons a 

 year of pig iron manufactured at Han- 

 kow, and delivered, freight and duty 

 added, cheaper than we can produce it. 



In Cawnpore, India, with American ma- 

 chinery they are making shoes so cheaply 

 that the manufacturers of Lynn can no 

 longer compete with them. The cottons 

 and silks which we one time sent from 

 here to Asia are now made in Japan and 

 China. 



Thus are we related to them politically 

 and commercially. Socially they are all 

 saying to us, "Stop cheating us ; stop 

 swindling us ; stop your treating us as 

 your inferiors who are to be beaten and 

 robbed." Japan is crying out, "Treat us 

 fairly and we will go more than half 

 way. Leave to us the question whether 

 Japanese laborers shall go to America to 

 annoy you, and we will stop them. But 

 do not say that you will admit the laza- 

 roni of Hungary and Italy and Russia, 

 simply because they are white, and shut 

 us out because we are yellow. 



The Singhalese natives of Ceylon, 

 while I was in Colombo, addressed a 

 remarkable communication to the Gov- 

 ernor General. They said a hundred 

 years ago there was established in the 

 United States a new theory of govern- 

 ment — that there should be no taxation 

 without representation. "Now," said 

 they, "we ask a share in the government 

 of the island. We pay taxes. You may 

 fix a property qualification and say that 

 no one having less than • a thousand 

 pounds sterling shall share in the govern- 

 ment. We shall not object. You may 

 also fix an educational qualification. You 

 may say that no one but a college gradu- 

 ate shall take part in the government. 

 We will not object. In short, you may 

 fix any qualification except a racial quali- 

 fication. That would not be fair." "And 

 what answer have you to make?" I 

 asked Mr Crosby Rolles, editor of The 

 Times, of Ceylon. "To meet their re- 

 quest," he replied, "would mean to turn 

 over the government of Ceylon to them 

 at once, because there are 6,000 of them 

 and only 5,000 English men, women, and 

 children. We must stop educating them." 



What do you think of that for a 

 remedy? Personally, I do not think it 

 will work, any more than I think any 

 rule of arbitrary repression can endure. 



