CORRESPONDENCE.
JAPANESE AMERICA.
[TO THE EDITOR. OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—An obvious commentary upon the title of this letter might take the form of saying "Anglo-Saxon America, we know, and Spanish and Portuguese; even German America has recently been discovered in Guatemala ; but as for Japanese America, there is no such place." Strictly speaking, and just for the moment, this is true enough, but it is not likely to continue true much longer. It is not yet so fully recognised as it should be that Japan is undergoing a process of expansion, that she is desirous of playing a part upon a larger stage than that represented by the territories imme- diately adjoining her own shores, that, in fact, she must for the future be reckoned with as at least a candidate for world- power. Her movement in this direction is not primarily prompted by political ambition, though national pride has no doubt a part in it. The tendency is natural, almost inevitable, largely influenced by commercial considerations, but having its real origin, its true causa causans, in the inexorable pres- sure of increasing population within the limited area of the Japanese islands proper. The acquisition of Formosa has for various reasons failed to afford the relief which was expected to result from it, and Korea, for the present at all events, is unavailable for purposes of settlement save of a sporadic and incidental character. In these circum- stances, Japan has been compelled to go further afield in search of a suitable emigration ground, and, startlingly enough, she appears to have found it in the Western Hemisphere. It is a far cry from Tokio to Buenos Ayres, and at first sight there would not seem to be any common interests between the countries of which these two places are the respective capitals. It has, nevertheless, commended itself to the Governments of Argentina and Japan to enter into a treaty of commerce and friendship of the usual type, which has been signed by their Ministers at Washington, and when this document has been duly ratified, diplomatic relations will be formally opened and Legations established. By the terms of the treaty, Japan is to enjoy in Argentina the rights accorded to the most favoured nation, a provision which will doubtless prove highly advantageous to the trade of Japan, where exports are largely and steadily increasing and new markets are being sought for. Probably, however, the genuine inwardness of the treaty and the motive cause for its negotia- tion are to be found in the circumstance that organised and systematic emigration on a large scale is being arranged for from Japan to Argentina. The Government at Buenos Ayres has granted a concession of two hundred square leagues of land in the valley of the river Pilcomayo for the founda- tion of an agricultural colony, and by the conditions of the contract twenty thousand Japanese settlers are to be planted in this territory. The agreement, superficially considered, seems, perhaps, commonplace and unimportant, but it is really significant, and must, almost certainly, lead to very far-reaching consequences. It should always be remem- bered that the colonisation of South America is proceeding on special and peculiar lines. Although the great peninsula lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Straits of Magellan is, in a political sense, entirely occupied, and its full title claimed by its constituent States, yet these amongst them- selves tend in a very curious way towards the establishment and continuance of a system of separatism which is not South American, but has its basis in the abiding relations of the sectional parts with the countries of their origin. The immi- grants, as a rule, are not absorbed into the general population, as is the case in Canada and the United States. On the con- trary, they frequently form themselves according to nation- ality into so many self-contained and semi-independent com- munities, and there is quite sufficient precedent to justify the belief that such will be the outcome of Japanese emigration to Argentina. That Republic furnishes already a striking illustration, a concrete instance, of the way in which its colonists assert the principle and perpetuate the fact of racial distinction. Only last year a deputation visited this country in order to urge upon the Government the claims, as Britons, of the interesting little Welsh settlement of Chupat, in Pata- gonia, which, though administratively in Argentina, is socially and in sentiment quite outside it, being in blood, language, slid religion a veritable transplanted fragment of the Principality of Wales. The same kind of thing is, in the making, observable elsewhere. In 1898 Venezuela contracted with an Italian Colonisation Society to re- ceive and settle in a specified district "a minimum of a thousand families per annum for fifteen years," the Society, on its part, undertaking certain financial obligations. Negotiations of a like sort are now being carried on between Brazil and Germany by which German settlers would be established in the provinces of San Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Pacana, and Santa Catarina, with the express stipulation that "their perfect political independ- ence" is guaranteed. It is fully understood by Brazil that this proviso amounts essentially to a surrender of sovereignty, but it is hoped that diplomacy may discover a convenient formula wherewith to gloss over this awkward point, and once the matter has been settled with Germany, it is expected that similar Conventions will be entered into with Austria and Switzerland, and perhaps with other countries. For more reasons than one it is a subject for satisfaction that Japan has found so suitable an outlet for her surplus popula- tion. Her necessity in this kind was not without a certain potentiality of menace to the general peace, and at one time it even threatened to develop into a possible danger to the integrity of the British Empire. The fact may not be com- monly known, or is perhaps forgotten, but it is none the less true that only a few years ago "the Island Empire of the East" was casting longing eyes upon the unoccupied lands of Northern Australia. This was in 1896, when Japan was suffering simultaneously from the "swelled head" induced by her easy triumph over China, and also from the mortification caused by the manner in which she had been deprived of the fruits of her victory. At -that time a scheme was openly being discussed in military and official circles in Tokio by which m the event, as was considered not improbable, of complications arising with this country a Japanese settlement might be established—forcibly if necessary—somewhere about the Gulf of Carpentaria. Such a project was, of course, im- practicable, and would now be impossible, but it was more or less seriously entertained. It was in the air, and a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Tasmania publicly declared that he had had as a fellow-traveller from Yokohama to Sydney an official of the Japanese Intelligence Department who was charged with a mission to Queensland and West Australia,' "with the object of ascertaining openings for labour, and lands suitable for the grovrth of tropical products." It is altogether certain that the Australian Commonwealth would not for a moment tolerate anything in the nature of whole-
sale immigration from Japan. Such an attempt is not now likely to be so much as proposed, and it is well that a likely cause of friction has been removed. Argentina, as we see, is ready to welcome the Japanese settler as a means of utilis- ing her vast and, at present, unprofitable domains, where the population does not amount to more than 2.5 per square mile, being the lowest rate which obtains even in sparsely-peopled South America. If the experiment proves successful, and there is no apparent reason why it should turn out un- favourably, then the twenty thousand settlers above referred to. will be probably only a first instalment. There is capacity for almost infinite repetition in the supply of land and of people to occupy it, and Japan seems to have taken a long step towards the settlement of what in an economic sense is her gravest practical difficulty. It may be that the manner of her solution of this question of her own will have the effect of adding a new complexity to the larger problem of East and West. Once Japan has made good her foothold upon the American Continent it would not be easy to forecast the issue of so suggestive an event. The exceptional status occupied by the colonies of foreigners, as distinguished from the colonial possessions of foreign Powers, in South America sup- plies all the conditions requisite to lead to international com- plications, and the entry of Japan will furnish an additional element of danger. Sooner or later the confused relations of these colonies to their local suzerains and to their mother. countries is bound to conflict with the modern interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. That famous declaration asserted that the American Continents were "not to be considered as 'subjects for future colonisation by any European Power." Literally, of course, Japan does not fall within the scope of this definition, but she is included in its spirit, and it would be impossible for the statesmen of Washington to differentiate between Europe and Asia if ever they felt compelled to make good their rather shadowy claim to the guardianship of South
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