possessions. Your area is 3,755,608 square miles. The density of your population is 24 per square mile; ours is 286.

In spite of the relatively small number of persons per mile in your country, thousands depart annually for other lands. These are not merely professional men, merchants, and students. but men who work with their hands and who go in the hope of bettering their condition. Yet in the United States you have vast areas of land which are uncultivated; you have an abounding prosperity; your per capita circulation amounts to the large sum of $32, and there is an abundance of opportunity for those willing to work. Compare the situation with what it is in my country. The amount of land available for agricultural purposes is so small that we cannot farm on a large scale but must confine ourselves to gardening. Instead of sweeping plains we have hills and valleys. In our northernmost island the climate is rigorous, the amount of snow-fall being much greater than in the United States. We are a comparatively poor people. Our per capita circulation is only $8. The opportunities afforded to us are few when compared with yours.

You say: There is Korea and Manchuria. But Korea is a very mountainous country and Manchuria suffers from a very severe climate. No capital can be found in either; and industry, consequently, is at a standstill. How long could your farmers exist without capital? What could they do about moving their crops to market? Without capital, what portion of the crops would be purchased by the consumers, and would not the portion unsold remain on the hands of the producers and contribute to their ruin? Apply this situation to Korea and Manchuria. In the present condition of our finances, we have no capital to invest in either of those countries. Consequently, there are no industries of any importance, except those which the Koreans have pursued for generations and which suffice for their simple needs; Japanese who settle in the Hermit Kingdom cannot gain a livelihood. We are not an agricultural people as you are. We have not the immense amount of capital that you have. In the old days, the people added to their rice fare by the results of fishing and hunting. Now, with the introduction of modern industrial plants, requiring a changed diet in order to fit the hands to perform their work, meat is being eaten. Modern sanitation has lengthened life. There is no decrease in the birth-rate. We recognize that our future is as a manufacturing nation, and

our people are laboring industriously in our mills and factories. Competition naturally has become keen.

These are the conditions which are responsible for the movement of Japanese to the Pacific Islands and to the western hemisphere. The government has never encouraged emigration. It was begun by individuals craving a better opportunity. The industry, intelligence, and strength of the Japanese appealed to their employers, and the latter, including Americans, Hawaiians, and others, came to Japan to induce immigration to their respective countries. Such emigrants were without protection from brutality and hardships inflicted upon them by their masters. Unwilling to interfere the government approved the organization of emigration companies. These companies are required to watch over all emigrants, to provide them with funds when without money or work, to furnish them with medical attendance when ill, and to return them home to prevent them from becoming a charge upon the foreign community in which they have settled.

The few Japanese who emigrated to Hawaii have always enjoyed the most satisfactory relations with the Hawaiian people. They made excellent laborers. They have been lawabiding. Without them, the Hawaiian Islands would not be so prosperous as they are. In Hawaii, they learned of the opportunities existing on the Pacific Coast. They came to California, to Oregon, to Washington. Some were voluntary emigrants, others were induced by your railroads and other industries needing labor. Those that remained in San Francisco were herded in a quarter where they had practically no opportunity to learn American customs or to appreciate the character or value of American ideals. They resembled the colonies of Americans, Englishmen, Germans, French, and other nationalities which to-day are found in "settlements" in Shanghai, Tien Tsin, and other Chinese ports, and which, until I negotiated the treaties abolishing extraterritoriality, existed in my own country. When Commodore Perry first penetrated feudal Japan, he found an obstinate objection to the admission of foreigners to Japanese soil. The masses of Japan wanted nothing to do with foreigners. They were unwilling even to treat with them. Eventually, as a great concession, foreigners were permitted to establish "settlements," and were vested with extraterritorial rights. This was done, not for the benefit of the foreigners, but to relieve

the Japanese of any contact whatever with them. It was the adoption in Japan of the old Turkish policy of using the foreigners for the advantage of the country and limiting the relations of the people with them. It took nearly half a century to convince us that the policy was wrong; that, instead of gaining by the policy of extraterritoriality, we really suffered by it, and that our interests required the distribution of foreigners through our territory rather than their segregation. For by this they constituted a grave embarrassment and a real menace.

It has been said that the Japanese cannot assimilate with men of Caucasian blood, has the experiment had a fair trial? It is unnecessary for me to point out the achievements of the Japanese, which have given them recognized equality in all lands, including America. Those men are welcomed and, of course, there is no suggestion that they should be excluded. I am referring to the laboring class. They are frugal and industrious. They make law-abiding citizens. They educate their children. They become acquainted with your institutions. They want to embrace American citizenship, but your laws do not permit their naturalization.

This shows then, that the question is not a racial one primarily. It is economic, and from it have grown the political and racial phases. Now let us see what remedy exists for its removal.

To my mind, the solution lies in the distribution of the Japanese. Any so-called Japanese quarter should be abolished. The men and women residing therein should be encouraged to live wherever they desire. The Bible says that every laborer is worthy of his hire. No one will work for less than he can get. The Japanese certainly will demand the wages of his white competitor if he knows what those wages are and has a chance to obtain them. Living among the whites, the moral pressure of his neighbors will cause him to act as they do. In other words, he will be assimilated, and with his assimilation the economic and other questions will disappear.

Since the time when Perry came to Japan the relations of the United States and my country have been based upon sentiment. The immigration question is the first of any importance to arise between us. We have identical interests in the Pacific Ocean and in the Far East. You want freedom of trade; so do we. We welcomed you to the Philippines. We have

no desire whatever for them. Indeed, we want you to remain in the Far East, for, with your power and prestige, and with your unselfish aims, you can be depended upon to uphold those principles which are as important to us as they are to you. The integrity of China and the open door in that Empire were principles first enunciated by your Secretary of State. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, I accepted those principles, and as heartily approve them to-day as I did in 1899. If the United States were to withdraw from the Far East, the upholding of those principles would be a matter of great difficulty. As we have no designs upon the Philippines, so we have no designs upon Hawaii or your other Pacific possessions. You, on your part, we are convinced, entertain no intention to seek Formosa or other islands or territory belonging to us. There is no point at which our boundaries come in contact; consequently, there is no cause for friction in this respect. You were the first to recognize our preponderance in Korea, an act of friendship which no intelligent Japanese can forget. More than this, you gave us moral countenance in our trying time. These are the reasons why, to every Japanese, the idea of even strained relations with the United States is abhorrent; why we want and have earnestly endeavored to arrange the immigration question to your satisfaction and to ours. That one question is insufficient to disturb a close friendship of nearly sixty years. But, to prevent it from doing so, the American people should recognize our position in the matter. They should understand that we, too, are a proud people. They should appreciate that an Exclusion Act would be a slap in the face which no first-class power could permit to pass unnoticed. I say this in a spirit of the greatest friendliness. I have always been a strong admirer of American energy and of the American institutions. And it is because of this admiration and of the affectionate respect I feel for the American people that I speak plainly, believing that my words will be interpreted in the friendly way in which they are intended.

North American Review. 200: 566-75. October, 1914

Our Honor and Shame with Japan. William E. Griffis.

It is not the business of a foreign nation making a treaty with the United States to inquire into the actual workings of federalism, its defects or advantages; or whether our national government it is too weak, morally or physically, to enforce, a treaty obligation within a certain geographical area. No question is raised as to whether any nation or government has, or has not, the right to keep out of her borders undesirable persons; or who shall or shall not become citizens. It is no matter whether Japan is pleased or displeased with our social or political system, or we with hers. As sovereign parties covenanting together, according to the laws of nations, the only question is that of good faith. To violate a treaty is to break the supreme law of the land and trample on the Constitution of the United States, which reads, in Article VI.:

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

In that august document no provision is more strongly safeguarded against any and all theories of federalism and state rights, and none is so immune from alteration, or the effects of attempted nullification, or secession, by states, judges, courts, legislators, and politicians.

A diligent perusal of the sectional speeches and writings of statesmen so called, and of the Proceedings of the Asiatic Exclusion League, fails to reveal any sound reason why one state should nullify a national obligation. Such perusal has shown, however, that gentlemen, dependent upon votes and in the laborunions (many members of which, Huns, Russians, etc., have more "Mongolian" blood in their veins than has the average Japanese) may be blinded by race hatred and colorphobia, especially when dominated by fears rather than facts. When racial antipathies rule, reason flies. The "history" so often appealed to and the ethnology expounded in California seem to be of a peculiarly local output. On this "hem of the handkerchief," between the Rockies and the Pacific, it is prejudice, animal instinct, and