The Canadian Commonwealth Part 7

Simultaneously there broke out from Alaska to Monterey the anti-j.a.p, anti-Chinese, anti-Hindu agitation. California's exclusion and land laws became party planks. British Columbia got round it by a subterfuge. She had the Ottawa government rush through an order-in-council known as "the direct pa.s.sage" law. All Orientals at that time were coming in by way of Hawaii. s.h.i.+ps direct from India were not sailing. They stopped at Hong Kong and Hawaii. The order-in-council was to forbid the entrance of Brown Brothers unless in direct pa.s.sage from their own land. That effectually barred the Hindu out, till recently when a j.a.panese line, to test the Direct Pa.s.sage Act, brought a s.h.i.+pload of Hindus direct from India to Vancouver.

Vancouverites patrolled docks and would not let them land. A head tax of five hundred dollars was leveled at John Chinaman. That didn't keep John Chinaman out. It simply raised his wages; for the Chinese boss added to the new hand's wages what was needed to pay the money loaned for entrance fee. A special arrangement was made with the Mikado's government to limit j.a.panese emigration to a few hundreds given pa.s.sports, but California went the whole length of demanding the total exclusion of Brown Brothers.

Why? What was the Pacific Coast afraid of? When the State Departments of the United States and Canada met the State Department of the Mikado, practically what was said was this. Only in very diplomatic language:

Whiteman: "We don't object to your students and merchants and travelers, but what we do object to is the coolies. We are a population of a few hundred thousands in British Columbia, of less than three million in the states of the Pacific. What with c.h.i.n.k and j.a.p and Hindu, you are hundreds of millions of people. If we admit your coolies at the present rate (eleven thousand had tumbled into one city in a few months), we shall presently have a coolie population of millions. We don't like your coolies any better than you do yourself!

Keep them at home!"

This conversation is paraphrased, but it is practically the substance of what the representative of the Ottawa government said to a representative of the Mikado.

Brown Brother: "We don't care any more for our coolies than you do. We don't in fact, care a hoot what becomes of the sp.a.w.n and dregs of no-goods in our population. We are not individualists, as you white men are! We don't aim to keep the unfit c.u.mbering the earth! We don't care a hoot for these coolies; but what we do care for is this--we Orientals refuse to be branded any longer as an inferior race. We'll restrain the emigration of these coolies by a pa.s.sport system; but don't you forget it, just as soon as we are strong enough, in the friendliest, kindest, suavest, politest, most diplomatic way in the world, we intend not to be branded any longer as an inferior race. We intend to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the management of the world's affairs. If we don't stand up to the job, throw us down! If we stand up to the job--and we stood up moderately in China and Russia and Belgium--we don't intend to ask you for the sop of that Christian brotherhood preached by white men. We intend to force recognition of what we are by what we do. We ask no favors, but we now serve you notice we are in to play the game."

Neither is this conversation a free translation. Shorn of diplomatic kotowing and compliments and circ.u.mlocutions, it is exactly what the Mikado's representative served to the representatives of three great governments--Uncle Sam's, John Bull's, Miss Canada's. If you ask how I know, I answer--direct from one of the three men sent to j.a.pan.

Can you see the white men's eyes pop out of their heads with astonishment? They thought they were up against a case of labor union jealousy, and they found themselves involved in a complex race problem, dealing with three aggressive applicants for places at the councils of rulers governing the world. California was ordered to turn on the soft pedal and do it quick, and officially, at least, she did for a time.

Canada was ordered to lay both hands across her mouth and never to speak above a whisper of the whole Brown Brother problem; and England--well--England openly took the j.a.ppy-Chappy at his word--recognized him as a world brother and entered into the famous alliance. And the coming of coolies suddenly stopped to the United States and Canada. It didn't stop to South America and Mexico, but that is another play of the game with facts for chessmen.

Chinese exclusion, j.a.panese exclusion, Hindu exclusion suddenly became party s.h.i.+bboleths--always for the party _out_ of power, never for the party _in_ power. The party in power kept a special Maxim silencer on the subject of Oriental immigration. The politician in office kept one finger on his lip and wore rubber-soled shoes whenever an almond-eyed was mentioned. With that beautiful consistency which only a politician has, a good British Columbia member, who rode Oriental exclusion as his special hobbyhorse, employed a j.a.p cook. In the midst of his stump campaign against Orientals he found in the room of his cook original drawings of Fort Esquimalt, of Vancouver Harbor and of Victoria back country. I was in British Columbia at the time. The funny thing to me was--all British Columbia was so deadly in earnest it didn't see the funny side of the inconsistency.

III

I was up and down the Pacific the year the Mikado died, and chanced to be in San Diego the month that a j.a.panese wars.h.i.+p put into port because its commander had suicided of grief over the Emperor's death. The s.h.i.+p had to lie in port till a new commander came out from j.a.pan. j.a.panese coolies were no longer coming; but the j.a.panese middies had the run and freedom of the harbor; and they sketched all the whereabouts of Point Loma--purely out of interest for Mrs. Tingley's Theosophy, of course.

Diaz's ministry had been very hard pressed financially before being ousted by Madero. Some Boston and Pacific Coast men had secured an option from the Diaz faction of the sandy reaches known as Magdalena Bay in Lower California. The Pacific Coast is a land of few good natural harbors; especially harbors for a naval station and target practice. Suddenly an unseen hand blocked negotiations. Within a year j.a.pan had almost leased Magdalena Bay, when Uncle Sam wakened up and ordered "hands off."

Nicaragua has never been famous as a great fis.h.i.+ng country. Yet j.a.panese fishermen tried to lease fis.h.i.+ng rights there and may have, for all the world knows. In spite of exclusion acts, they already dominate the salmon fis.h.i.+ng of the Pacific.

Coaling facilities will be provided for the merchantmen of the world at both ends of Panama. Yet when England and France began furbis.h.i.+ng up colonial stations in the Caribbean, j.a.pan forthwith made offers for a site for a coaling station in the Gulf of Mexico.

But it was in South America and Mexico that the most active colonization proceeded. There is not an American diplomat in South America who does not know this and who has not reported it--reported it with one finger on both lips and then has seen his report discreetly smothered in departmental pigeon-holes. Up to a few years ago Mexico and South America were enjoying marvelous prosperity. Coffee had not collapsed in Brazil. Banks had not blown up from self-inflation in Argentina. Revolution at home and war abroad had not closed mines in Mexico. All hands were stretched out for colonists. j.a.pan launched vast trans-Pacific colonization schemes. s.h.i.+ps were sent scouting commercial possibilities in South America. To colonists in Chile and Peru, fare was in many cases prepaid. Money was loaned to help the colonists establish themselves, and an American representative to one of these countries told me that free pa.s.sage was given colonists on furlough home if they would go back to the colony. There is no known record outside j.a.pan of the numbers of these colonists. And j.a.pan asks--why not? Does not England colonize; does not Germany colonize; does not France colonize? We are taking our place at the world board of trade. If we fail to make good, throw us out. If we make good, we do not ask "by your leave."

IV

When a s.h.i.+pping investigation was on in Was.h.i.+ngton a year ago, many members of the committee were amazed to learn that j.a.pan already controls seventy-two per cent. of the s.h.i.+pping on the Pacific. Ask a Chilean or Peruvian whether he prefers to travel on an American or a j.a.panese s.h.i.+p. He laughs and answers that American s.h.i.+ps to the western coast of South America would be as tubs are to t.i.tanics--only until the new registry bill pa.s.sed there were hardly any s.h.i.+ps under the United States flag on the Southern Pacific. Each of these j.a.panese s.h.i.+ps is so heavily subsidized it could run without a pa.s.senger or a cargo; high as one hundred thousand dollars a voyage for many s.h.i.+ps.

Its crews are paid eight to ten dollars a month, where American and Canadian crews demand and get forty to fifty dollars. In cheapness of labor, in efficiency of service, in government aid and style of building no American nor Canadian s.h.i.+ps can stand up against them. And again j.a.pan asks--why not? Atlantic commerce is a prize worth four billions a year. When the Orient fully awakens, will Pacific commerce total four billions a year? Who rules the sea rules the world.

j.a.pan's s.h.i.+ps dominate seventy-two per cent. of the Pacific's commerce now.

So when the war broke out, j.a.pan shouldered not the white man's burden but the Brown Brother's and plunged in to police Asia. Again--why not?

As Uncle Sam polices the two Americas, and John Bull the seas of the world, so the Mikado undertakes to police the sea lanes of the Orient.

The j.a.ppy said when he met the diplomats on the subject of coolie immigration that he would prove himself the partner of the white man at the world's council boards--or step back.

Is it a menace or a portent? Certainly not a menace, when accepted as a matter of fact. Only the fact must be faced and realized, and the new chessman's moves recognized. Uncle Sam has the police job of one world, South America; Great Britain of another--Europe. Will the little j.a.ppy-Chappy take the job for that other world, where the Star of the Orient seems to be swinging into new orbits? The j.a.ppy-Chappy isn't saying much; but he is essentially on the job for all he is worth; and Canada hasn't wakened up to what that may mean to her Pacific Coast.

CHAPTER IX

THE HINDU

I

Is it, then, that Canada fears the growth of j.a.pan as a great world power? No, the thing is deeper than that. We have come to the place where we must go deeper than surface signs and use neither rose water nor kid gloves. The question of the Chinese and the j.a.panese is entirely distinct from the Hindu.

If you think that shutting your eyes to what you don't want to know and stopping your nostrils to the stench and gathering your garments up and pa.s.sing by on the other side ever settled a difficult question, then the Pacific Coast wishes you joy to your system of moral sanitation; but don't offer the people of the Pacific Coast any plat.i.tudinous advice about admitting Asiatics. They know what they are doing. You don't!

Theoretically the Asiatic should have the same liberty to come and go with Canada as Canadians have to come and go with the Orient.

Theoretically, also, the colored man should be as clean and upright and free-and-equal and dependable as the white man; but practically--in an anguish that has cost the South blood and tears--practically he isn't.

The theory does not work out. Neither does it with the Asiatic. That is, it does not work out at close range on the spot, instead of the width of half a continent away.

Canada is being asked to decide and legislate on one of the most vital race problems that ever confronted a nation. She is also being asked to be very lily-handed and ladylike and dainty about it all. You must not explore facts that are not--"nice." You must not ask what the Westerner means when he says that "the Asiatic will not affiliate with our civilization." Is it more than white teeth and pigments of the skin? Is it more than skin deep? Had the Old Book some deep economic reason when it warned the children of Israel against mixing their blood with aliens?

Has it all anything to do with the centuries' cesspools of unbridled vice? Is that the reason that women's clubs--knowing less of such things--rather than men's clubs--are begged to pa.s.s fool resolutions about admitting races of whose living practices they know absolutely nothing?

If it isn't the labor unions and it isn't the fear of new national power that prejudice against the Oriental--what is it? Why has almost every woman's club on the Pacific pa.s.sed resolutions against the admission of the Oriental, and almost every woman's club in the East pa.s.sed resolutions for the admission? Why did the former Minister of Labor in Canada say that "a minimum of publicity is desired upon this subject"?

What did he mean when he declared "that the native of India is not a person suited to this country"? If the native Hindu is "not a person suited to Canada"--climate, soil, moisture, what not?--why isn't that fact sufficient to exclude the Oriental without any legislation?

Italians never go to live at the North Pole. Nor do Eskimos come to live in the tropics.

You may ask questions about Hindu immigration till you are black in the face. Unless you go out on the spot to the Pacific Coast, the most you will get for an answer is a "hush." And it would not be such an impossible situation if the other side were also going around with a finger to the lip and a "hush"; but the Oriental isn't. The Hindu and his advocates go from one end of Canada to the other clamoring at the tops of their voices, not for the privilege, but for the right, of admission to Canada, the right to vote, the right to colonize. At the time the first five or six thousand were dumped on the Pacific Coast, twenty thousand more were waiting to take pa.s.sage; and one hundred thousand more were waiting to take pa.s.sage after them, clamoring for the right of admission, the right to vote, the right to colonize. Canada welcomes all other colonists. Why not these? The minute you ask, you are told to "hush."

South Africa and Australia "hushed" so very hard and were so very careful that after a very extensive experience--150,000 Hindus settled in one colony--both colonies legislated to shut them out altogether. At least South Africa's educational test amounted to that, and South Africa and Australia are quite as imperial as Canada. Why did they do it? The labor unions were no more behind the exclusion in those countries than in British Columbia. The labor unions chuckled with glee over the embarra.s.sment of the whole question.

II

Each side of the question must be stated plainly, not as my personal opinions or the opinions of any one, but as the arguments of those advocating the free admission of the Hindu, and of those furiously opposing the free admission.

A few years ago British Columbia was at her wit's ends for laborers--men for the mills, the mines, the railroads. India was at her wit's ends because of surplus of labor--labor for which her people were glad to receive three, ten, twenty cents a day. Her people were literally starving for the right to live. It does not matter much who acted as the connecting link,--the sawmill owners, the canneries, the railroads, or the steams.h.i.+ps. The steams.h.i.+p lines and the sawmill men seem to have been the combined sinners. The mills wanted labor. The steams.h.i.+p lines saw a chance to transport laborers at the rate of twenty thousand a year to and from India. The Hindus came tumbling in at the rate of six thousand in a single year, when, suddenly, British Columbia, inert at first, awakened and threatened to secede or throw the newcomers into the sea. By intervention of the Imperial government and the authorities of India a sort of subterfuge was rigged up in the immigration laws. The Hindus had been booked to British Columbia via Hong Kong and Hawaii. The most of the j.a.ps had come by way of Hawaii. To kill two birds with one stone, by order-in-council in Ottawa, the regulation was enacted forbidding the admission of immigrants except on continuous pa.s.sage from the land of birth. Canada's immigration law also permits great lat.i.tude in interpretation as to the amount of money that must be possessed by the incoming settlers. Ordinarily it is fifty dollars for winter, twenty-five dollars for summer, with a five hundred dollar poll tax against the Chinaman. The Hindus were required to have two hundred and fifty dollars on their person.

One wonders at the simplicity of a nation that hopes to fence itself in safety behind laws that are pure subterfuge. The subterfuge has but added irritation to friction. What was to hinder a direct line of steams.h.i.+ps going into operation any day? As a matter of fact, to force the issue, to force the Dominion to declare the status of the Oriental, a j.a.panese s.h.i.+p early in 1914 did come direct from India with a cargo of angry armed Hindus demanding entrance. Canada refused to relent. The s.h.i.+p lay in harbor for months unable to land its colonists, and a Dominion cruiser patrolled Vancouver water to prevent actual armed conflict. When the final decision ordered the colonists on board deported, knives and rifles were brandished; and Hopkinson, the secret service man employed by British authorities, was openly shot to death a few weeks later in a Vancouver court room by a band of Hindu a.s.sa.s.sins.

"We are glad we did it," declared the murderers when arrested. Hopkinson himself had come from India and was hated and feared owing to his secret knowledge of revolutionary propaganda among the Vancouver Hindus, who were posing as patriots and British subjects. The fact that many thousands of Sikhs and Hindus had just been hurried across Canada in trains with blinds down to fight for the empire in Europe added tragic complexity to an already impossible situation.

The leaders of the Hindu party in Canada had already realized that more immigration was not advisable till they had stronger backing of public opinion in Canada, and a campaign of publicity was begun from Nova Scotia to the Pacific Coast. Churches, women's missionary societies, women's clubs, men's clubs were addressed by Hindu leaders from one end of Canada to the other. It did not improve the temper of some of these leaders posing in flowing garments of white as mystic saints before audiences of women to know that Hopkinson, the secret agent, was on their trail in the shadow with proofs of criminal records on the part of these same leaders.

These criminal records Hopkinson would willingly have exposed had the Imperial government not held his hand. When I was in Vancouver he called to see me and promised me a full exposure of the facts, but before speaking cabled for permission to speak. Permission was flatly refused, and I was told that I was investigating things altogether too deeply. I can see the secret agent's face yet--as he sat bursting with facts repressed by Imperial order--a solemn, strong, relentless man, sad and savage with the knowledge he could not use. Without Hopkinson's aid, it was not difficult to get the facts. Canada is a country of party government. One party had just been ousted from power, and another party had just come in. While I was waiting for permission from Ottawa to obtain facts in the open, information came to me voluntarily with proofs through the wife of a former secret agent.

It did not make things easier for Hopkinson that the whole dispute as to Hindu immigration was relegated into that doubtful resort of all ambiguous politics--"the twilight zone"--or the doubtful borderland where provincial powers end and federal powers begin and Imperial powers intervene. England was shoving the burden of decision on the Dominion, and the Dominion was shoving the burden on the Province of British Columbia, and to evade responsibility each government was shuttling the thing back and forward, weaving a tangle of hate and misunderstanding which culminated in Hopkinson's a.s.sa.s.sination in 1914.

As "the twilight zone" between provincial and federal rights comes up here, it should be considered and emphasized; for it is the one great weakness of every federation. _Who_ is to do _what_--when neither government wants to a.s.sume responsibility? Who is to enforce laws, when neither government wants to father them? It was this gave such pa.s.sion to Vancouver's resentment in Hindu immigration. Indeed this very question of "a twilight zone" gives pause to many an Imperial Federationist. In a dispute of this sort, involving the parts of the empire, could England give force to an exclusion act without losing the allegiance to her British Empire?

Every conceivable argument has been used in this Hindu dispute. I want to emphasize--they are _arguments_, used for argument's sake--not reasons. The plain brutal bald reasons on each side of the dispute are British Columbia does _not_ want the Hindus. The Hindus want British Columbia. Simultaneously with the campaign for publicity action was taken: (1) to force the resident Hindu on the voters' list; (2) to break down the immigration laws by demanding the entrance of wives and families; (3) to force recognition of the status of the Oriental by bringing them in the s.h.i.+ps of j.a.pan--England's ally.

If the resident Hindu had a vote--and as a British subject, why not?--and if he could break down the immigration exclusion act, he could out-vote the native-born Canadian in ten years. In Canada are five and one-half million native born, two million aliens. In India are hundreds of millions breaking the d.y.k.es of their own national barriers and ready to flood any open land. Take down the barriers on the Pacific Coast, and there would be ten million Hindus in Canada in ten years. The drawing of j.a.pan into the quarrel by chartering a j.a.panese s.h.i.+p was a crafty move.

j.a.pan is the empire's ally. Offense to j.a.pan means war.

III

The arguments from both sides I set down in utter disinterest personally.

Here they are: