immigration, an action which Japan has never protested.1 Canada failed to take similar action, but later sought to remedy the omission by a gentlemen's agreement with Japan, limiting yearly admission from Japan to 400. This agreement has not worked satisfactorily in Canada, and the Dominion Parliament in May 1922, requested the Government to take immediate action looking to excluding further oriental immigration.

Time to Remedy the Situation

It would appear from these facts that the United States has been grossly lax in permitting the increase in her territory of an unassimilable population ineligible for citizenship, and that she has deferred too long the adoption of remedial measures.

The exclusion of aliens ineligible for citizenship has been strongly urged on Congress by the American Legion, the American Federation of Labor, and the National Grange, under resolutions adopted unanimously by the respective national conventions of those organizations from year to year. The absence of any political issue in the matter is sufficiently demonstrated by the widely differing compositions and purposes of these national organizations, all imbued, however, by a strong spirit of Americanism.3

"The accuracy of this statement should be checked against the citations on pp. 332, 339.

"The accuracy of this statement should be checked against the citations on p. 334. 'H. Rept. No. 350, 68th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 6–9.

III. THE QUESTION OF DISCRIMINATION

Japan is the only Oriental country to be recognized as a firstclass power. That such is her position is shown by the AngloJapanese Alliance, which lasted from 1902 to 1923; her participation in the world war as a Principal Allied Power; her permanent membership in the Council of the League of Nations; and her partnership in the Four-Power Treaty of the Pacific. Japan's great strides in adapting herself to Western standards has made her particularly sensitive to discriminatory treatment. She objects particularly to being classed with Chinese, Tartars, and Hindus-under the indiscriminate heading of "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Such a classification refuses to recognize, in her opinion, the extent to which Japan and the Japanese have outdistanced other peoples in the Orient in their readjustment to Occidental civilization.

RACIAL EQUALITY AND THE LEAGUE

At the Paris Peace Conference, the Japanese delegation proposed an amendment to the Covenant of the League of Nations guaranteeing "to all alien nationals of States Members of the League, equal and just treatment in every respect, making no distinctions, either in law or fact, on account of their race or nationality." This suggestion was later revised in favor of an amendment to the Preamble which would endorse "the principle of the equality of Nations and the just treatment of their nationals." Eleven out of the seventeen members voted in favor of this latter proposal, the United States being in the negative. President Wilson, the chairman, declared that the amendment was not adopted since it had not received unanimous approval.1

Although the Japanese amendment was defeated, the same principle was imposed, if somewhat vaguely, upon ten European

'Ray Stannard Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (1922), p. 235. Commission de la Société des Nations, Procès-Verbal No. 10, séance du 13 février, 1919. Makino said the amendment would not "encroach on the internal affairs of any nation." Venizelos said that Japanese had declared that the proposal would not involve any State in the obligation to pass measures in regard to immigration.

states in treaties providing for the protection of minorities.1 For example, the treaty between Poland and the United States, British Empire, France, Italy and Japan, of June 28, 1919, provided that "Poland undertakes to assume full and complete protection of life and property to all inhabitants of Poland without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion." 992

THE MANDATES

This principle was more minutely defined in the "A" and "B” mandates granted over territory taken from Germany and Turkey as a result of the world war. For example, Article 6 of the British Mandate for the Cameroons provides:

"The Mandatory shall secure to all nationals of States Members of the League of Nations the same rights as are enjoyed in the territory by his own nationals in respect of entry into and residence in the territory, the protection afforded to their person and property, and acquisition of property, movable and immovable, and in the exercise of their profession or trade, subject only to the requirements of public order, and on condition of compliance with the local law.

"Further, the Mandatory shall insure to all nationals of States Members of the League of Nations on the same footing as to his own nationals, freedom of transit and navigation, and complete economic, commercial and industrial equality. . . ."4

Under such provisions, Chinese, Japanese and Indians have unlimited right of entry into mandated territory.5

Japan attempted to secure the insertion of the same principle of the Open Door in the Class-C mandates-the ex-German colonies in the Pacific and German Southwest Africa. But this attempt failed because of the opposition of the British Dominions who insisted on the omission of such a provision, partly for racial reasons. The Covenant provided that "there are territories, such as Southwest Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which... can be best administered under the laws of the Man1For texts, cf. Treaties and Conventions of the United States, III, p. 3699. "Treaties and Conventions of the United States, III, p. 3717.

'Articles 22, 119, Treaty of Versailles; Article 16, Treaty of Lausanne. 'League of Nations, Official Journal, August, 1922, pp. 869, 870.

"On the Indian invasion of Tanganyika under the mandate system, cf. Dr. H. Schnee, Die deutschen Kolonien unter fremder Mandatherrschaft, (1922), p. 13 ff.

datory as integral portions of its territory By virtue of this authority re-embodied in the "C" mandate terms, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Union of South Africa, extended their emigration laws to their mandated territory, with the result that Asiatic immigration was excluded, although India, China, and Japan are members of the League of Nations.1

JAPAN AND THE CLASS "C" MANDATES

At the failure to secure the open door for the Class-C mandates, the Japanese Government filed this declaration, December 17, 1920:2

"From the fundamental spirit of the League of Nations, and as the question of interpretation of the Covenant, His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Government have a firm conviction in the justice of the claim they have hitherto made for the inclusion of a clause concerning the assurance of equal opportunity for trade and commerce in "C" mandates. But from the spirit of conciliation and co-operation and their reluctance to see the question unsettled any longer they have decided to agree to the issue of the mandate in its present form. That decision, however, should not be considered as an acquiescence on the part of His Imperial Japanese Government in the submission of Japanese subjects to a discriminatory and disadvantageous treatment in the Mandated territories; nor have they thereby discarded their claim that the rights and interests enjoyed by Japanese subjects in these territories in the past should be fully respected.

JAPAN AND DISCRIMINATORY LEGISLATION IN UNITED STATES

The Japanese Government has taken the same attitude toward discriminatory legislation in the United States. It protested vigorously against the San Francisco school ordinance of 1906 and the California land law of 1913. In a note of June 4, 1913, the Japanese Ambassador declared that in the opinion of the Japanese Government:

'For the application of the dictation test, see Report to League of Nations on the Administration of the Territory of New Guinea, 1921–1922; No. 18, F. 15724, sec. 452. Also L. F. Rushbrook Williams, India in 1922-23; a Statement prepared for presentation to Parliament in accordance with the requirements of the 26th Section of the Government of India Act, Calcutta, 1923, p. 11.

2League of Nations, Official Journal, January-February, 1921,

p. 95.

"The measure is unfair and intentionally racially discriminatory, and, looking at the terms of the treaty between our two countries, they are equally well convinced that the act in question is contrary to the letter and spirit of that compact and they moreover believe that the enactment is at variance with the accepted principles of just and equal treatment upon which good relations between friendly nations must, in the final analysis, so largely depend."

He further said:

"The provisions of law, under which it is held that Japanese people are not eligible to American citizenship, are mortifying to the Government and people of Japan, since the racial distinction inferable from those provisions is hurtful to their just national susceptibility. The question of naturalization, however, is a political problem of national and not international concern. So long, therefore, as the distinction referred to was employed in relation to rights of purely political nature the Imperial Government had no occasion to approach the Government of the United States on the subject. But when that distinction is made use of, as in the present case, for the purpose of depriving Japanese subjects of rights and privileges of a civil nature, which are freely granted in the United States to other aliens, it becomes the duty of the Imperial Government, in the interests of the relations of cordial friendship and good understanding between the two countries, to express frankly their conviction that the racial distinction, which at best is inaccurate and misleading, does not afford a valid basis for the discrimination on the subject of land tenure."

As far as Japanese residents in the United States were concerned, "The Imperial Government claim for them fair and equal treatment, and are unable either to acquiesce in the unjust and obnoxious discrimination complained of, or to regard the question as closed so long as the existing state of things is permitted to continue."

Ever since about 1911, general immigration bills have contained a clause barring immigrants "ineligible to citizenship" unless already excluded by treaty or agreement.3 But at Japan's protest against the mere use of these words, they were dropped. Such a phrase was originally inserted in the immigration bill of 1917, but was again omitted at Japan's protest.

1U.S. Foreign Relations, 1913, p. 633.

Ibid., p. 653; cf. also ibid., 1914, p. 434.

'Statement of W. W. Husband, Commissioner General of Immigration, in Jenks and Lauck, The Immigration Problem, (1922) p. 434.