favor of this act, it called attention to the rapid increase of the Japanese birth-rate in California. This increase in the birth-rate was due, it was claimed, to the custom followed by many of the poorer Japanese settlers in California of having pictures sent to them from Japan of eligible girls, to whom they were married in absentia, these so-called 'picture brides,' being thus legally married, having the right under our laws to join their husbands in the United States. The more picture brides, the more children, and the more children, the more land passing under Japanese control; for the Japanese circumvented the prohibition against their holding land by purchasing in the name of their American-born children, who were automatically American citizens and of whom the parents were the legal guardians. Japan, in order to remove another source of controversy, in February, 1920, ceased to issue passports to 'picture brides.' But this did not satisfy the anti-Japanese element in California, which succeeded in having the adoption of the Alien Land Act put to a popular vote. This act-perhaps the most stringent measure ever directed against the civil rights of residents in the United States provides for the prohibition (a) of landownership by Japanese; (b) of leasing of agricultural lands by Japanese; (c) of land-ownership by companies or corporations in which Japanese are interested; (d) of land-ownership by Japanese children born in the United States, by removing them from the guardianship of their parents in such cases.

At the elections in November, 1920, this measure was carried by a minority of the registered voters and by a threeto-one vote of those who expressed an opinion on the subject. The vote stood 668,483 in favor and 222,086 opposed.

There you have the Japanese immigration situation up to the minute.

Now, the point I wish to emphasize is this: the Japanese are not clamoring for the removal of any of the present restrictions on Japanese immigration. They consider these restrictions offensive and humiliating, sive and humiliating, that goes without saying, but they concede our right to decide who shall enter our doors and who shall stay out. Not for a moment, however, have the Japanese accepted our assertion that our exclusion of them is based on economic grounds. They know, and we know, that the cause of their exclusion is racial. No one realizes more clearly than the Japanese that, in excluding them from the United States, we have virtually proclaimed them an inferior race. I repeat, however, that they concede our right to exclude whom we please. But what they do not concede, what they will not agree to, is the right of the United States, or of any state in the United States, to discriminate against those Japanese who are lawfully resident in this country. To attempt to deprive those Japanese dwelling within our borders of the personal and property rights that we grant to all other aliens is so obviously unjust that it scarcely merits discussion. The Japanese have excellent grounds for believing that such discriminatory legislation is unconstitutional; they know that it constitutes an open defiance of justice and equity. They feel — and their feeling is shared, apparently, by the 222,000 Californians who voted against it that such legislation makes ridiculous our oftrepeated boast that we stand for the 'Square Deal.'

The bitterness of Japanese resentment over the immigration question is not entirely due, however, to wounded racial pride, but quite as much, I think, to the rudeness and lack of tact which have characterized the anti-Japanese campaign in California. For it should

be remembered that in no country is the code of social courtesy or consideration for aliens so rigidly observed as in Japan. In dealing with the Japanese nothing is ever gained by insults or bullying. Politeness is the shibboleth of all classes, and the lowest coolie usually responds to it instantly. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the Japanese are irritated and resentful at the lack of courtesy and ordinary good manners which we have displayed in our handling of so peculiarly delicate a matter as the immigration question? It may be that local conditions justify the wave of anti-Japanese hysteria which is sweeping the Pacific Coast. It may be that the people of the Western states can offer valid reasons for their constant pin-pricking and irritation of Japan. But I doubt it. I am no stranger to California, I have lived there, off and on, for years, nor am I ignorant of the relations between labor and politics in that state. That is why I refuse to become excited over the threatened 'conquest' of California by a little group of aliens which comprises only two per cent of the population of the state, and which owns or leases only one and six tenths per cent of its cultivated lands. The Californians assert that their anti-Japanese legislation is a matter for them to decide and does not concern the rest of the country. Therein they are wrong. For in the unwished-for event of war with Japan, it would not be a war between California and Japan, but between the United States and Japan, Therefore, in its treatment of the Japanese, it behooves California to take the rights and interests of the rest of the country into careful consideration. So, because we must all share in the responsibility for California's treatment of the Japanese, let us make cer

(The

tain beyond doubt or question that that treatment is based on equity and justice. Under no conditions must racial prejudice or political expediency be permitted to serve as an excuse for giving the Japanese anything save a square deal.

From talks that I have recently had with many of the leading men of Japan, including the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for War, and the President of the House of Peers, I am convinced that an understanding can be reached with the Japanese Government over the immigration question, — and, indeed, over most of the other questions pending between the two nations, including that of Yap,provided we approach Tokyo in a courteous manner and with at least an outward show of sympathetic friendliness. My conversations with the Japanese leaders showed me that they have a much clearer understanding of our difficulties and perplexities than most Americans suppose. It might be well for us to remember that the Japanese Government is itself in an extremely trying position, and that its leaders are extremely apprehensive of the effect on Japanese public opinion of any settlement of the immigration question which might be interpreted as an affront to Japanese racial pride or national dignity. But of this I can assure you: Japan is genuinely, almost pathetically, anxious for American confidence and good-will, and, in order to obtain them, she is prepared to make almost every concession that her selfrespect will permit and that a fairminded American can demand.1

1 For many valuable suggestions and for many important data incorporated in this article I am deeply indebted to the Hon. Roland S. Morris, former American Ambassador to Japan, and to Nathaniel Peffer, Esq., correspondent in the Far East of the New York Tribune.

End)

THERE has been little public discussion in England of the problems of the Washington Conference; but on that account people have been thinking the more. Six months ago it used to be said that all roads in English politics led to Dublin, so strongly did people feel that on a just settlement of the Irish problem depended the health of the whole State. In regard to Ireland, the British Government has done everything that it could do to bring about a settlement; and whether it is reached or not rests with the Sinn Fein leaders rather than with England. At any rate, we have done enough, it is hoped, to prove the sincerity of our desire for peace, and to disprove that strange legend of England as a nation besotted with Imperialism and caring nothing for the liberty of mankind, so long as her own interests are served. From this point of view, the negotiations with Sinn Fein, whether they succeed or fail, will serve to strike the keynote both of our policy and of our reputation at Washington.

This is not a Liberal government in the party sense; but in the real sense, especially in the domain of foreign affairs, it is perhaps the most liberal government that England has ever had. Let Americans compare the ease with which a great, humane, liberal idea gains acceptance in official circles now, with the passive obstinacy it used to encounter in the past, and they will realize that this is no idle boast.

Observe, too, how interest and sentiment unite from the most diverse quarters to make Washington the focus of

every political orientation just now. Is relief from heavy taxation the dominant desire in the British electorate? It can look nowhere for hope except to the success of Washington in producing some effective scheme of disarmament; for, apart from economy in armaments, the anti-waste compaign is only a succession of cat-calls. Is the conscience overborne with a sense of the horror and wickedness of war? We cannot escape the sense of impending tragedy except by settling before they become acute the political differences in the Far East, which, left alone, are even now shaping themselves toward another great war. Does this man long for the power and opportunity to sweeten the toil of the poor? He too must fix his hopes on Washington, for the expenditure on war is the greatest of obstacles to all political schemes for promoting domestic happiness. Or is that man's principal interest in the personalities of politics? For him, too, Washington will provide one of the most moving of dramas.

By his offer of peace to Ireland, Mr. Lloyd George has proved that war has not dulled the edge of his Liberal faith. If, in addition, he can in conjunction with American statesmen settle the problem of disarmament, which has defied the efforts of good-will for generations, his power is assured for the rest of his life, and the policy of England will be Liberal for another generation, or more. Mr. Lloyd George knows that, and the spur of ambition will speed him in the same direction as the

America has been led to propose the Conference for reasons that are parallel to, but not identical with, those which lead us to support her effort so warmly. She has, like us, economic reasons for desiring a reduction in the expenditure on armaments, though they are less strong than with us. America has not passed the limit of her taxable capacity (or so it seems to us here) so far as we have done. On the other hand, her political reasons for desiring a settlement with Japan which shall avoid the occasion of war are stronger even than ours. In no conceivable circumstances, should we go to war against America on the side of Japan; our risk of war lies in the remote contingency of our intervention if America were really hard pressed; for we could not afford to let America be defeated any more than America could have afforded to let us be defeated in the late war. And it is safe to say that, if Japan knew that that would be our attitude, there would be no risk of war between her and America. We hold the keys of peace between America and Japan, and America must allow us to use them in the sense that we think would be most effectual for the purposes of peace. If we were to denounce the alliance with Japan, the danger could be met only by a military alliance between England and the United States, by which we should bind ourselves to provide an army for the defense of China against military aggression by Japan. That is a prospect that is agreeable to neither of us. As neither of us wishes to engage in difficult and dangerous operations in China, let us rather use the instrument that we have

to hand in the Japanese alliance, and, by associating Japan with our policy, prevent the occasion of war from ever arising. It would be a great mistake on the part of America if she were to make the abandonment of this alliance the test of our friendship with her, for that would be to precipitate the danger we are both anxious to avoid. But if America were to say, 'Make this alliance the means of preserving peace and the interests that we have in common,' that is a test that we should accept with alacrity, because we are sure that we can satisfy it.

The main motive, however, of President Harding's invitation to the Conference at Washington is not the outcry against excessive taxation or the fear of war with Japan, but a view of world-policy with which England has a very close sympathy. America fears that, if expenditure remains at its present height, not only will the expansion of commercial enterprise be checked, but an irresistible popular movement will arise for the repudiation of debts. There are people in England who fear it too, and on that account Lord Birkenhead is believed to be anxious to democratize the House of Lords and to give it some control over finance, in order to prevent a chance Labor majority in the House of Commons from measures of confiscation.

A second motive with America is that she has made the discovery that the world is, in the economic sense, all one. Nations live on each other's prosperity, and the first condition of healthy exchange of commodities is a healthy state of the exchange in money. We had just made up our minds that the 'economic man' of the Manchester school did not exist, when lo, a very big economic man comes into life. America is that man; and she is interested in the political and economic health of Europe because (apart from humane reasons) without it her own foreign trade

must languish. So true is it that nations, however wealthy and prosperous, cannot live alone.

And, lastly, America, dissatisfied with the political arrangements made at the Paris Conference for preserving the peace of the world, knows that she cannot rest in an attitude of mere negation, but that, if she rejects those arrangements, she must substitute something better for them. That arises from her discovery that the political as well as the economic world is one; indeed, that you cannot separate politics and economics any more than you can separate the head from the tail of a coin.

America is coming into world-politics, not from choice but because she must that is the first and most important meaning of the Conference. England welcomes the decision, not because she thinks that America will support any particular views of hers, but because she will be a new arbiter in European affairs, who, whether she agrees with us or not, will at any rate speak our idiom. That idiom is the idiom of the Common Law, which we share. Its main characteristic is the view that the State is, after all, only the sum of the individuals that compose it, and has no separate abstract entity, which has rights of its own; and it follows that it resents the conception of foreign politics as a game of the chancelleries, to be played in secret, with human lives as its pawns. It insists that the test of foreign policy is not the welfare of an abstraction called the State, but the sum of happiness among the individuals who compose it.

The Paris Conference was far from realizing that ideal, and, so far from composing the differences between nations, has exhibited in sharp conflict two opposing conceptions of foreign policy: the French conception, which holds that one state is strong by another's weakness, prosperous by its

depression, secure by strategic combinations and alliances, and the AngloAmerican conception, which believes in the family of nations and in a concert of powers based on law and justice. At Paris this conflict could be resolved only by compromise, for, in the face of the enemy, our first duty was at all costs to maintain, at any rate, the semblance of unity. It is nothing to be surprised at that such compromise has aroused dissatisfaction; the wonder rather is that so much promises to be durable. But now the conditions are different. The Paris Conference was governed by the conditions of war; the Washington Conference will be held in an atmosphere of peace a state, however, not of tranquil acquiescence on the part of the peoples, but of clamant demand that they shall cease to be ridden by the nightmare of the omnipotent State exacting toll of life and treasure from its citizens.

The more one thinks of the work of the Washington Conference, the more one realizes that it must develop into a revision of a great deal that is in the Treaty of Versailles. The article that I wrote for the July number of the Atlantic Monthly insisted that no effective disarmament was possible except on the basis of certain political settlements. It was not, therefore, surprising that, for the reasons then advanced and doubtless for many others, President Harding's invitation to a disarmament conference was also an invitation to survey some of the problems that make for swollen armaments by the political friction that they engender. But no survey of political conditions can be restricted artificially to one part of the world, even though that part be a hemisphere like the Pacific. For every political settlement implies a political philosophy, and in laying down conditions in the Pacific, we create a presumption in favor of similar conditions,