Paradoxical as it may be, the all but complete cessation of Chinese immigration which followed the increase of the capitation tax to $500, which cessation continued up until the beginning of 1907, and the sharp upward movement which has taken place since, are each, in large measure, the result of the increase in the amount of the tax. The explanation is simple. Prior to the imposition of any tax Chinese came to this country in such numbers that they not only entered into serious competition with white labor, but being in such numbers there was more or less competition among themselves. Unfamiliar with the conditions in Canada, having come from a land where unskilled labor earns from 5 to 10 cents per day, and skilled about double, and at most treble, that amount, a wage of $20 to $40 a month to a laborer and a wage of $10 to $30 to a servant appeared to afford the opportunity of saving, within the course of a few years, that fortune which the Chinese immigrant came to this country to seek. Labor agencies and contractors found it a profitable business to bring Chinese in large numbers to the country. Yip Sang, a prominent Chinese merchant of Vancouver, stated that were there no tax at the present time at least 8,000 would come out each year, and that he himself would bring out Chinese in large numbers. Chinese brought to this country by labor agencies and contractors, or who had come of their own volition, by informing relatives and friends in China of opportunities here, set up what may be described as a natural flow in the tide of Chinese emigration; this tide the tax of $50 or $100 was too small to check.

The imposition of a $500 tax administered a death blow to the work of the labor agencies and contractors. For a while it raised an almost effective barrier against the natural tide. An advance of $50 or even $100 to emigrants coming under the guarantee of service was a risk which agencies or contractors, considering first the security of their profits, hesitated to incur; when this amount was raised to $500, such an advance could no longer be considered as a business proposition. Likewise, the Chinaman who was desirous of having his relatives or friends share his opportunity discovered that through the imposition of the tax the economic inducement to immigration had been suddenly swept away. At the rate of wages then current for Chinese labor, he could extend to his friends no hope of being able to recover, even after many years of industrious toil, an outlay for admission so considerable. The Chinese at home looked on the new tax as constituting an all but impossible barrier. The Chinamen in the new land had not yet seen how this barrier was to be surmounted. Then the economic effect of the tax gradually became apparent. The Chinaman who had landed in this country prior to January, 1904, discovered that the state, unwittingly perhaps, had, by restricting further competition from without, created of his labor a huge monopoly; without organization, without expense, without even agitation, every Chinaman became a unit in a labor group more favored than the most exclusive and highly protected trade union. Then monopoly began to do its work. The Chinaman, discovering his protected position, sought the advance in wages which comes from an increasing demand and a diminishing supply. Within a couple of years the wages doubled, and in some instances, more particularly in the case of servants of a better class, trebled, and even went beyond this point. Yip Sang testified that before the $500 tax was imposed he paid Chinamen for packing fish from $25 to $40 a month, with food; that now he has obliged to pay for the same services $60 to $70; that in other classes of employment Chinese were obtaining at the present time $2.50 where before the tax had been imposed only $1 was received. Thus, it has come about that as a result of the rise of wages consequent upon the monopoly created by the tax Chinamen have found, speaking generally, that once in the country it is possible to accumulate within half the time the sum desired, and that thereafter the fortune from year to year is apt to be nearly or more than double what it originally was.

It took about three years for the economic changes to work out and for the Chinaman to become fully aware of the new situation. Once cognizant of it, he began to advise his relatives and friends in China.

With the betterment of their economic conditions, the number of Chinamen returning for a visit to their own country began to increase. This number has grown so steadily since the tax was imposed that during the closing months of the past year the steamship companies found it next to impossible to afford the accommodation demanded by Chinamen desirous of returning for a short sojourn to their own land. Many Chinamen who have gone on a visit to their own country have brought back with them relatives or friends. Others who have remained in Canada have sent home money to assist in the bringing of

others out. Some have simply furnished the information and have left it to the intending emigrant to procure in such way as he might the amount that was necessary to pay his passage and the tax imposed.

The difference in the remuneration of labor in Canada and China, and the fact that the savings of a few years here constitute a life fortune in China, have constituted the main incentives to emigration. The tax and its economic effects account for the numbers being what they are. The assistance given to their relatives and friends by Chinese, either here or in China, sometimes from humanitarian, sometimes from commercial motives, explain the means by which they have come. In addition to this a number of those who are coming at the present time are Chinese who have resided in the United States at one time, or have friends residing here at present. They know conditions on this side of the water, and not being permitted to enter the United States are coming to this country.

CHINESE IN TRANSIT.

The persistence of the Chinese in coming to the New World, despite the inhospitable attitude of Canada and the United States, is in part shown by the number annually passing in transit through Canada, bound for the West Indies and elsewhere.

The following table shows this movement through the port of Vancouver for the past three years:

TABLE 44.-Chinese in transit through Canada, via Vancouver, by destination, fiscal years 1907 to 1909.

[Compiled from statistical table furnished by department of trade and commerce, Canada.]

During the same years 88 Chinese destined to the United States were, according to the same authority, admitted at the port of Victoria. During the fiscal year 1908, 2,800 Chinese passed through the United States in transit to other countries. Of these, 1,962 reached the United States overland, and of course many of them are recorded in the Canadian statistics quoted. Of this class of immigrants the United States Commissioner-General of Immigration says: "

a

There is no doubt that with these transits, as with the same class in the past, many enter Mexico and other near-by countries with the purpose, often accomplished, of eventually taking up a residence in the United States despite the provisions of law,

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION.

Until recent years no record was kept of Japanese immigrants arriving in Canada, and consequently the development of the movement can not be accurately traced. The Canadian census of 1901 shows that 4,674 persons born in Japan were in the Dominion at that

a Report of United States Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1908, p. 159. The Canada Year Book, 1908, pp. 2 and 4.

time, 4,515 of whom were in the Province of British Columbia. According to the same census," 27 persons born in Japan were present in the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. A census taken in 1906a in these three Provinces shows an increase of only 77 in the Japanese population. In the meantime a considerable number of Japanese had come to Canada, but, as in the United States, they appear to have settled near the Pacific coast. Statistics are available relative to Japanese immigration to Canada beginning with the fiscal year 1905, and the movement since that time has been as follows:

1904-5.

1905-6

1906-7 (9 months).

1907-8

1908-9-

April 1-August 31, 1909

Total.

с

354 1, 922

2, 042

7,601

495

147

12, 561

It was estimated that at the beginning of the year 1907 the Japanese population of British Columbia was about 7,500, although W. L. Mackenzie King thinks the number was considerably less. During the year 1907 Japanese immigration exceeded the total estimated Japanese population of the Province at the beginning of the year. This increased the already existing and determined opposition in western Canada to oriental immigration. In this connection Mr. Mackenzie King, in the report referred to, says:

Assuming, however, that 7,500 was the total Japanese population at the beginning of the year, it is not a matter of surprise that with the arrival at their shores of 8,125 Japanese in the ten months following, the people of British Columbia, and more especially the residents of Vancouver, should have experienced some concern, and that as vessel after vessel landed an ever-increasing number, until in fewer months than it had taken years to bring the Japanese population of British Columbia to what it was, this total was exceeded by new arrivals, that consternation should have been felt in many quarters. If anything more were needed to occasion unrest, it was to be found in the simultaneous arrival from the Orient of Hindus by the hundreds and Chinese in larger numbers than those of immediately preceding years. It was an alarm at numbers, and the cry of a white Canada was raised.

Of the 8,125 Japanese immigrants above referred to, 77 were refused admission and 3,619 held passports for the United States, so that the actual number admitted to Canada was 4,429. According, to the same authority, 2,779 of these immigrants came from Hawaii, 9 from Mexico, and 1,641 direct from Japan. Of the immigrants direct from Japan, says Mr. Mackenzie King, 900 in round numbers were sent out by the Tokyo Emigration Company at Yokohama at the instance of the Canadian Nippon Supply Company at Vancouver, in accordance with an arrangement effected between these two companies. The business of the latter company was to furnish Japanese laborers to contractors and other large employers and to furnish supplies to such laborers.

a The Canada Year Book, 1908, p. 163.

Statistical tables furnished by Canadian immigration department.

Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the methods by which oriental laborers have been induced to come to Canada. W. L. Mackenzie King, C. M. G., Commissioner, Ottawa, 1908, p. 21.

d Ibid., p. 22.

It appears that the influx of Japanese from Hawaii into Canada was largely due to the restriction placed upon such immigration into the United States, and because of this Mr. Mackenzie King's report upon the movement is of particular interest. He says in part:a

The Japanese emigrant who reaches the Hawaiian Islands passes beyond the jurisdiction of his native country and comes beneath the flag of the United States. If employed in the sugar or rice fields, where most of his fellow-countrymen work, he will find himself the servant of an association of capitalists who control the political and financial destinies of the island. The Planters' Association of Honolulu is an organization of employers formed for the protection of their mutual interests. Its influence is limited only by the wealth it represents, while the indirect effects of that influence are of vaster sweep than its possessors know. It is reported that the wishes of this association were not forgotten when the United States Government enacted in January of last year, "that whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any foreign government to its citizens to go to any country other than the United States, or to any insular possession of the United States or the Canal Zone, are being used for the purpose of enabling the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States from such other country, or from the Canal Zone, or from such insular possessions

* *

It is believed, at least by the Japanese who reside in the islands, that the members of the Asiatic Exclusion League in San Francisco were not without contributions from the association's incidental expense fund, to assist them in an agitation which by excluding Japanese from the mainland would confine that class of labor to the islands, to the greater economic advantage of the members of the association. It was suggested by one of the Japanese witnesses who gave testimony before the Commission, that the influence of the Planters' Association was not altogether inoperative in British Columbia to-day. Inoperative it certainly has not been, if we recognize the fact that it was in the efforts of the Planters' Association to lower the wages of the Japanese resident in Hawaii, that we find the beginnings of that unrest which has led to Japanese coming in such large numbers from the Hawaiian Islands to British Columbia during the past year. A ship that landed over 1,000 Portuguese at Honolulu, brought by the Planters' Association from Madeira to help weaken the competition of the emigrant arrivals from Japan, carried away from that port within a fortnight later, Japanese in equal numbers, who, failing to find admission to the American continent via San Francisco, as before, came at the instance of those who engineered the expedition to Canada instead; nor was this the only expedition of the kind. There was, however, a curious irony in the whole situation; more especially, as it happened that United States citizens practicing law in Honolulu, acted as the legal representatives of the Japanese boarding-house keepers, the parties primarily responsible for the exodus of their fellow-countrymen from the islands, and that in their efforts to go one better, planters and boardinghouse keepers alike were losers in the ventures they had planned.

As has been seen, the total Japanese immigration to Canada from the Hawaiian Islands during the ten months ending October 31, 1907, was 2,779. This immigration had its beginning in arrivals in small numbers brought by Australian lines to the port of Victoria during the early months of the year. It was in the summer months, with the arrival at the port of Vancouver of the Admiral Jaureguiberry, and especially the arrivals subsequently of the Kumeric and Indiana that the citizens of Vancouver saw landing at their wharves a foreign multitude for which accommodations within the city's precincts could not be found. It was then that many of the indifferent were alarmed and that the people at large became aroused to what the possibilities of an unlimited immigration of persons from the Orient might mean. * * * The expeditions of the Admiral Jaureguiberry and the Kumeric were each in the nature of twosided speculations. Their promoters were desirous of changing the attitude of the Planters' Association toward the Japanese residents in the islands; they were hopeful also of reaping a considerable profit from the transportation supplied to the Japanese who might be persuaded or desirous of leaving for Canada. The trips of the Indiana were not dissimilar in this respect.

The ground had been well prepared, unintentionally doubtless, but most effectively, by the action of the Planters' Association. When the Japanese came to a Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the methods by which oriental laborers have been induced to come to Canada. W. L. Mackenzie King, C. M. G., Commissioner, Ottawa, 1908; pp. 54-63.

the Hawaiian Islands they worked for very small wages. It is estimated that they came to the number of 50,000 or 60,000, this being in part, through the efforts of the planters to replace native labor on the plantation by Japanese coolies, a movement which started some twelve years ago. Of recent years, however, and especially since the Japanese war, the emigration of Japanese to Hawaii has been considerably restricted, and the resident Japanese have sought hard to secure an increase in their wages and improved conditions of employment. This the planters refused to grant; instead they began to arrange for the importation of Portuguese labor. The unrest thus created by the action of the planters, the boarding-house keepers sought to intensify through the agency of a local subsidized Japanese press, by means of which advantages of British Columbia as a place where labor was in demand, wages high, and opportunity great, were brought before the minds of the workers in the plantations. Many were the articles appearing, some as press dispatches from Vancouver, others simply descriptive. They were met by articles of a different sort inspired from another source; but the fact that wages for common laborers on the plantations were anywhere from $18 to $35 per month, whereas on the railways of British Columbia they were from $1.35 to $1.50 per day, gave the best of the argument to those who were seeking to bring about an exodus sufficiently great to make the planters aware of the limited supply of available labor, and secure for it remuneration at an increased rate. A brief account of the several expeditions will serve to illustrate the methods employed.

The Japanese boarding-house keepers of Honolulu, having learned that with the consent of the Government at Washington, some 3,000 Portuguese were to be brought under contract from the Canary Islands to work on the sugar plantations, that they were being brought by the Savaric and the Kumeric of the Andrew Weir Line, entered into negotiations with the Theodore Davis Company, of Honolulu, for the chartering of vessels to take Japanese to Canada. They succeeded in chartering the Admiral Jaureguiberry, and when the Kumeric arrived at Cote in Chile on her way from Madeira to Honolulu, the agents of the Theodore Davis Company succeeded in chartering her for the boardinghouse keepers, to be in commission for them as soon as the Portuguese were landed. The Admiral Jaureguiberry got away without much difficulty; she carried only a small number of Japanese emigrants, 241 in all. When she landed at Vancouver, however, Doctor Munro, the medical inspector and immigration agent, acting under the regulation of his department that "no person shall be permitted to land who is a pauper or destitute or likely to become a public charge," assuming that the several emigrants had no employment awaiting them, demanded that before landing each should produce at least $25 to insure that he would not become a public charge, and not being supplied with this amount he was about to reject 150 of the new arrivals. Members of the Japanese Boarding-House Keepers' Union at Vancouver, on learning that a number of Japanese had arrived at the port and were about to be turned away for lack of funds, knowing that there would be little difficulty in securing for them immediate employment, and seeing the opportunity for a slight revenue in the way of commission for their services, and possibly also out of subsequent business dealings, came to the rescue of the party about to be rejected and advanced in cash the sum of over $3,000 as a guarantee bond that the Japanese would not become public charges. This was accepted by Mr. Munro on the condition that he should be given later a statement showing that employment had been secured by these men and where they were at work. The immigrants were then allowed to land. The passports belonging to these men were retained by the Japanese consul pending their detention. They were later given to the Boarding-House Keepers' Union, which, it is alleged, collected $5 apiece from each Japanese before returning his passport.

While the Admiral Jaureguiberry was meeting with difficulties at Vancouver, the Kumeric was having her own troubles at Honolulu. Having landed 1,400 Portuguese, she began to take on board the Japanese who had purchased their transportation for Canada. The planters, greatly incensed, threatened actions against the captain and used every means to prevent the ship putting out to sea, but she got away eventually and arrived at Vancouver on the 23d of the month.

When the Japanese boarding-house keepers of Honolulu decided on the chartering of the Kumeric, they retained Mr. Charles F. Chillingworth, a United States attorney, resident in Honolulu, as their solicitor and legal representative. Mr. Chillingworth had in his employ a Japanese interpreter, Mr. Kiro