The Brisbane Courier, 23 July 1898, p. 9
THE JAPANESE QUESTION
Sir,—In a recent leading article you review the report of
the Government Resident on Thursday Island, and dealing with the Japanese
question you assert—“and Mr. Hodel is astray in telling us that their (the
Japanese) power has ‘ruined nearly all the white labouring men in Torres
Straits,’” the assertion having reference to a letter which you published from
me. I fail to note where the Government Resident has in any sense disproven my
assertion, although I admit my contention would have been better expressed by
the addition of two words, “who were,” between “men” and “in Torres Straits,”
as I was referring more especially to the past history of Torres Straits. At
the time of the Resident’s report there were few white “labouring” men in
Torres Straits, if we accept the word as applicable to those engaged in manual
labour—divers, tenders, carpenters, painters, jumper, and suchlike. Clerks,
counter-jumpers, storekeepers, commission agents, parsons, doctors, publicans,
bankers, and Government employees are still left in the Straits, and are not
likely to be driven out of it by the Japs, for the heavy annual expenditure by
the Government upon their officials and the garrison, by shipping companies and
the travelling public, and by the small mining developments, must create
employment for a number of other white people; but beyond these I think there
exists but a few white master shellers, one boat-repairer, a butchering firm,
an undertaker, a grave-digger, and possibly a rouseabout or two who have not
yet been hunted from the Straits. The interests referred to necessitate their
existence.
When I went to Torres Straits ten years ago there were a
large number of European boatowners and divers, and a few white tenders. Their
number must have totalled over forty; but how many of those men are left?
Perhaps I am within the bounds if I put the number down at less than a dozen.
The number of white owners has increased in connection with the commission
agents and the Clark combinations; but the total would not equal the number
previously existing, even though the number of boats engaged in the industry
has nearly doubled during the period under review. The forty men I refer to
were mostly divers, but the white men of the present day are men of means who
do not themselves dive. They have conserved profits or introduced capital from
Southern centres; and yet with all their expenditures the number of white men
has decreased, while in one year the impecunious Japanese increased their
number by nearly 300.
When the late Premier visited Torres Straits in 1894, I
acted as the corresponding medium for the white “working” shellers, who then
numbered over twenty. They made a fervent, but I am sorry to say, fruitless,
appeal to the Government to restrict the Japanese, for disaster stared them in
the face. Man’s greatest comforter and best friend, hope, had vanished from
their hearts; and they appealed for the sympathy of the authorities as men who
felt themselves gradually slipping over a dangerous precipice. At the present
time I know of only five of those men left, and only one of the leaders who
spoke with such deep conviction is now in the Straits. I feel justified in
asserting that most of those who collapsed were driven from the industry mainly
through the evil influence of the Japs. Add to the general depression in the
industry owing to the low price of shell and its scarcity, the “funk” created
by the Japanese, who rushed every little patch of shell discovered by the white
divers, although they would not prospect for themselves, and you have the
reason why they sold out or abandoned the boats, upon which, in nearly all
cases, large deposits had been paid. The departure of these men with their
families was a decided loss to the Straits.
Of the other white men driven from the Straits, two of them
are now in Dunwich who might still be earning a bare living at repairing boats
but for the keen competition of Japanese boat-builders. What has become of the
other dozen or so white boat-builders if they have not been driven out by the
Japanese cheap labour? Where are the numerous white artisans of eight years
ago? Carpenters, painters, rouseabouts, and others? I could name a score of
these who left partly because Japanese performed at cheaper rates the work they
relied upon for their subsistence. The doctors had two Japanese competitors in
my time; while the hard-working white washerwomen were offering special prayers
for the Japs because the latter had secured the most important of the work—that
from the garrison. The house and nurse girls had long since been out of the
running; in fact, I don’t think they were ever allowed a foothold in the
Straits.
The Government can do little or nothing to protect white
labourers now, but they can do much to create future employment for white men
in Torres Straits. In the sugar industry it is ordained the Kanaka must be an
agricultural employee, pure and simple; and why is it asking too much to seek
the restriction of the Japanese to working as seamen or tenders, or even
divers, if necessary? If the restriction kept them off the shore work, some
good would be done; but even greater good would eventuate were they forbidden
to own or license boats (excepting those now holding licenses). This
restriction (upon “all” coloured men, of course), would ease the minds and save
the downfall of many white master-shellers, and clear the way for the
encouragement once more of white divers. If this course made openings for only
fifty white men, it would create a healthier and better tone in Torres Straits;
and their presence would be of more value than 500 Japanese. All this can be
done without endangering the industry or affecting prejudicially the vested
interests concerned, and has already been done in South Australia (Northern
Territory).
Let it not be forgotten the money earned by the Japanese is
rarely circulated with white people, as the Kanaka circulates his; but it goes
either to Japan or to build up storekeeping and other combinations which are
rivals to white people. It would be interesting to learn what amount is sent to
Japan each year through the Savings Bank, even though the amount thus sent away
only represents only a small portion of the wealth drawn to Japan from Torres
Straits, for a departing Japanese is like a departing Chinese—very careful his
wealth is not known. This information might be made available by a motion in
the Assembly from Mr. W. H. Browne, whose persistency in opposing the Japanese
is praiseworthy.
It is pleasing to me to note the Hon. John Douglas, in his
report admits the possibility under altered conditions of manning the industry
entirely with white men, as contended by myself in a letter to your columns
many months ago. Under present conditions it is not practicable, but I am
hopeful that many years hence will witness the industry worked by white men.
The following sentence from the Government Resident’s report
commands more attention than has been devoted to it:—“My somewhat prolonged
experience in these latitudes leads me to come to the conclusion that we may,
without prejudice to our future prospects as a people, avail ourselves of such
assistance as we can obtain from an alien population in order to develop our
nascent industries, provided we take care to build up our own native-born
population in such a way as to constitute it the dominant factor in our
Constitution.”
“Avail ourselves of such assistance * * * provided we take
care to build up our own native-born population,” says the hon. gentleman, and
so says Mr. Clark, I think, and, in fact, so say all the opponents of Japanese
in the pearlshelling fishery. But does the indifference—(remarkable
indifference, when viewed by the side of the prompt action of South Australia,
where the evil had hardly commenced its work)—of the Queensland Government tend
to “build up our own native-born population” and restrict the aliens to
“assisting” the development of the industry? * * * It has been pretty
conclusively proven in Torres Straits that the Japanese are not content with
“assisting,” but have assumed “control” of about one-fourth of the product of
the fisheries; and the other three-fourths will slowly but inevitably follow if
the M‘Ilwraith-Nelson-Byrnes Ministry are not replaced by a more sympathetic
party. Mr. James Clark appeals on behalf of the white shellers, that the
Japanese may be allowed to “assist” only, the Royal Commission’s report
recommended a similar restriction, and the Government Resident, after a
“somewhat prolonged experience,” can go no further than advocate that aliens be
allowed to “assist” the development of the industry; and yet the Government
(and yourself, Mr. Editor) cannot be induced to support the Japanese as
“assistants” only, even though another alien (the Kanaka) is relegated to a
similar position in the sugar industry.
Even though I have used my pen (and will continue to use it)
strenuously to oppose the building up of any industry upon a foundation of
“syndicates,” still I readily accept this form of development as preferable to
allowing the industry to pass entirely into the hands of aliens. If we cannot
have all white men in the industry, or even only white divers, then at least
let us have only white owners. Only one “pearl king” controlling all the
shellers and distributing the profits in the colony must be more beneficial to
the colony than even a multitude of alien owners sending the profits to another
country, and also drawing their food supplies from that foreign country.
You quote Mr. Douglas as stating “there must be Japanese
labour if there is to be a pearl-shelling industry.” I do not think the hon.
gentleman will thank you for crediting him with such a statement, for my
reading of his report is that “alien” labour is a necessity, and there are many
forms of alien labour not so objectionable as the Japanese, because they do not
drain the wealth from the country, but marry and settle down in the colony. Mr.
Douglas knows, as well as all other who resided in the Straits years ago, that
the shelling industry was more profitable when Japanese were almost unknown to
it. Kanakas were then more largely employed; but they, too, have fled before
the Japs. Most shellers prefer Kanakas in their boats. Failing Kanakas, the
shellers would have little difficulty in getting Malays from Singapore. In
fact, does it not seem strange that shellers should indent Malays from
Singapore when labour is scarce if the Japs were better and a necessity? I have
never heard of Japs being indented by the shellers; but it is not very long ago
since a number of Malays were indented from Singapore.
Another questionable statement in your leader is contained
in the sentence, “From which it follows that the revival of the industry . . .
is due to that very increase of alien labour.” Surely you are ignorant of the
fact that the price of pearl-shell had gone down below £100 per ton three years
ago, while last year it reached over £200 per ton. The average value at the two
periods would show that in the “revival” the shell brought to its owner quite
double what it did in the days of depression. This was the cause of the great
improvement; and the influx of the Japanese had, in my opinion, very little
whatever to do with it. They brought no money into the industry, and preferred
to live upon their friends to accepting a low wage. They were the first and only
alien race to combine and maintain high wages as seamen in the Straits. Rather
credit Mr. Clark and a few other Europeans with rendering some assistance by
spending money in introducing other boats.
Mr. Douglas says, and you endorse the statement in your
leader:—“The Government of Japan is quite willing that emigration should be
controlled. It is controlling the emigration with a vengeance when it allows a
vessel to leave port for Queensland with nearly 100 Japanese bearing passports,
as was done this year. It may be controlling it to suit the desires of the
Byrnes Ministry, who appear to have taken no notice of the fact; but it is
hardly in accordance with what the public have been led to believe would result
from signing the treaty.
Discussing the agitation on this question, you do not admit
of any correspondent being disinterested. You say, “these cries have little in
common beyond the self-seeking we use the term in no disparaging sense) of
those who make them.” Who, I ask, has more right to raise a cry, or seek the
redress of evils, than those most injured by the dangers? And, again, I ask, is
it not possible to find correspondents who are as disinterested as even you,
Mr. Editor? The gentleman who so ably disproved the Premier’s interpretation or
explanation of the Japanese treaty is a perfect stranger to myself, and as I
know almost all connected with the industry, I fancy he can claim to be
disinterested. My only claim to take part in the discussion is the fact I have
lived eight years amongst the shellers themselves, as their “mouthpiece,” in a
sense, and, as previously stated, acted as secretary for the one-boat owners in
their correspondence to the Premier. Nearly all my old co-workers in the cause
have been ruined, and most have gone I know not where; but while I am able to
throw any light upon the question, I gladly seek your permission to be able to
do so. Beyond that, my interests in the discussion extend no further than that
of your good selves, unless it be that a good Japanese tenant, who occupies a
cottage owned by the writer on Thursday Island, should take umbrage and vacate
his present domicile—to my loss. But if I can open the way for the return of a
few white divers into the pearlshelling industry, with the hope of their
ultimate expansion, then I am amply repaid. Or, failing that, if I can assist
to check the expansion of the Japanese, and thereby render a service to even
the white capitalist owners, then my writings will give me peace and
pleasure.—I am, sir, &c.,
FRED. C. HODEL.
Bald Hills, 17th July.
Two replies to the letter were printed in The Japanese Question, Brisbane Courier, 16 August 1898, p. 7. The first is signed J. Crase, Clayfield; the second A. Corran, Thursday Island
THE JAPANESE QUESTION.
Sir,—In your issues of the 8th and 23rd instant you published leaders, respectively, on the Thursday Island report of the Hon. John Douglas and on the correspondence in your journal by Messrs. James Clark and Hodel on the “Japanese Question.” Both of these leaders, I feel sure, will have been read by all classes of the people with more than usual interest, seeing that the future welfare of the entire community (not even excepting those engaged in journalism) is involved in this Asiatic problem. Commenting on the Thursday Island report you expressed yourself as follows:—“Can we, admitting Japanese as labourers, take the step of refusing to admit them as employers, or letting them pass (as they have a rare faculty of passing) from the labourer to the employer? Now, we have no sympathy with many of the statements made on this subject. We have before exposed the attempt to find in the alleged Japanese treatment of Britons a basis for our drastic treatment of the Japanese.”
Now, to say the least, this is a very kind and sentimental
phase of the doctrine of an ultra-cosmopolitanism, obviously founded on the
erroneous assumption that the nations of the world are one family, and that in
framing our economic policy we should not only consider what is good for our
own people, but what is beneficial to other communities as well; hence, we are
advised to submit to the inevitable, and raise no defences to preserve our
industries from the destructive industrial warfare which is constantly raging
between nations in the efforts of the strong to supplant the weak. To attempt
to establish the negative that a people should not discriminate in favour of
its own citizens in legislating to advance their industrial interests, appears
to me to be an indulgence in very extravagant ideas and vain assumptions.
That national interests ought not to be sacrificed in the
interests of a “World State” has been ably dealt with by John W. Burgess in his
“Political and Constitutional Law,” wherein, among other things, he
said:—“Mankind cannot yet act through so extended and ponderous an
organisation, and many must be the centuries, and probably cycles, before it
can. The national State is the most perfect organisation of the world for the
interpretation of the human consciousness of right. It furnishes the best
vantage ground yet to be attained for the contemplation of the purpose of the
sojourn of mankind upon the earth. It represents itself the highest good. It is
the highest entity. The world has, as yet, no organisation into which a State
may merge its existence. The duty of a State to the world is a duty of which
the State is the highest interpreter. The highest duty of a State is to
preserve its own existence, its own healthful growth and development.”
Surely the above great fundamental principles may be
regarded as a sufficient refutation of your contention against “our drastic
treatment of the Japanese.” Your asking Mr. Hodel to look again at the leader
of the 8th instant to make sure that he had not misrepresented your journal, by
stating that it cannot be induced to support the Japanese as “assistants only,”
made me sufficiently interested in the controversy to again read it myself.
Permit me, then, to say that I was struck as to the import of the following
sentence:—“But it is not the policy of the British Government to permit people
to land on our shores and then impose upon them special disabilities.” In this
connection I beg to point out that it is not at all likely that such treaty
conditions as would suit Great Britain would be equally acceptable to
Queensland. On the contrary, the position of the Japs with regard to us is in
an intense degree to exploit our resources, to win our wealth, by purchasing
from us raw material, and selling to us manufactured goods. They appreciate in
the most practical way the opportunity which is theirs, and they propose to
realise it if possible without stir or undesirable agitation. The bogey which
has been set up of effective personal invasion may be extremely useful to
occupy the minds of those hide-bound and truly denationalised theorists of an
obsolete political economy. But, while the terms of the treaty are being
discussed and carried out, it may be discovered that it is really of little use
to have any anxiety regarding it, for by that time Japan will have the London,
Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds of the Southern world, and Queensland the
mines, fields, and pastures of the raw materials, and the mean, narrow, and
serf-like life which naturally appertains thereto.
The outlook for Queensland is not of a great and populous
white man’s land, but of a few scattered winners, and garnerers of the various
raw materials. These may live and produce by the grace of the Asiatic Powers,
as did the Jews of old, under the accepted mastery of the old Assyrian kings,
and by-and-by a Mongol Nebuchadnezzar may resolve to swoop down with his own
multitudes of people and deport us elsewhere. It was just before
self-government was granted to this colony that Commodore Perry negotiated the
treaty with Japan, after steaming into the harbour of Yokohama, with a squadron
of United States war vessels. The exact date of the treaty with the United
States was the 31st March, 1854, and with Great Britain in 1858. Thus Japan,
after a withdrawal of 216 years, opened her ports to foreign traffic, and
resumed intercourse with the outer world. Since then she has educated her youth
at all the best institutions throughout the Western world, and has gathered the
best features of the systems and methods of the West, and has built up a social
organism peculiar to herself. The “London Times” not long since mentioned “the
new activity of the country of the Mikado as a dread portent in the commercial
sky.” Under the terms of the treaty between Japan and China at the close of the
late war, we may reasonably expect that the people of China will develop as
rapidly as those of Japan, under similar opportunities and influences. If China
adopts the same vigorous and enterprising policy, it is impossible to compute her
industrial power after her people have had the training Japan has had. What the
vast population of these two countries will be capable of accomplishing when it
is intelligently directed as an industrial force, staggers human comprehension,
and it may be that Western nations, in order to preserve their higher
civilisation, will be compelled to adopt a system of non-intercourse with
Asiatic races, or by treaties, or otherwise, outlaw the products of their
low-priced labour. Our own progress and civilisation are based upon the earning
power of our productive forces. If we are to be compelled to compete with Japan
and China, their rates of wages must rise, or ours fall, until the two are
equalised. If we are to meet them half-way, the earning capacity of this colony
must be impaired one-half, and to this extent the volume of trade, business of
every description, and values of every kind, must be affected.—I am, sir,
&c.,
J. CRASE.
Clayfield, 25th July.
THE JAPANESE QUESTION.
Sir,—The interesting instances of Japanese success at Thursday Island, as related by Mr. F. C. Hodel in your issue of 8th July, will doubtless help to draw attention to this, the greatest and most real danger threatening Australia—primarily Queensland, and subsequently the other colonies. My first object, however, in writing now is to express resentment at the hurtful and unjust inference to be drawn from Mr. Hodel’s remarks in “the third case,” which specially concerned himself. On reading the paragraph referred to, it appears that this “third case” deals more with other people’s business than his own, since he states, in his eagerness to prove the ability of this Japanese house-boy of his, that he understands that the “T. S. Pilot” had been manipulated single-handed by him from the time the copy left the editor’s pen until the paper was in the runboy’s hands, as well as executing the usual weekly round of job printing! If this were true, the possibility of a Japanese proprietary for the newspaper on Thursday Island would not be very remote. But it is not a fact. It takes two white men and a white boy now to get through the work to be done; and Mr. Hodel’s receptive faculty, which enables him to understand one Japanese boy doing the whole of it, shows that he is more credulous, to say the very least, than most men of his profession. Kasuga, the boy in question, served under articles of apprenticeship, or an agreement the equivalent of such, for three years; and was required, besides performing his printing-office duties, to work in Mr. Hodel’s house and garden, and also on his boat, mostly used for pleasure purposes. Kasuga’s apprenticeship was concluded just at the time the change in proprietary of the “Pilot” took place. There was no one else available or conveniently procurable, at the time to do the necessary mechanical work on the paper, and in employing the Jap Mr. Hodel’s successor was the victim of circumstances. Neither pleasure at the Jap’s ability, nor anything else but the necessity of getting the work done, was the reason for engaging the Jap. His was the only labour available, and, perforce, it was utilised. However, the “Pilot” office does not now turn out full-fledged Japanese compositors after three years’ apprenticeship, nor has Kasuga been employed on the paper for some months past; and it is a pity, for the sake of Mr. Hodel’s consistency in his present anti-Japanese feeling, that it can be said he taught at least two Japanese, under properly drawn up indentures, something of an English printer’s trade.
Perhaps, Mr. Editor, you will permit me to say a few words
on the Japanese question itself? To Thursday Islanders interested in the
restriction of Japanese, there has appeared to be an unworthy indifference
displayed by the Government in this matter. The assurances given by Mr.
Dalrymple in Parliament last session, Sir Horace Tozer’s utterances on the
question, and the speech at Warwick by the new Premier, wherein he touched on
the matter and sought to allay fears of an influx, all seem to indicate a failure
on the part of these gentlemen to appreciate the really serious nature of the
matter. Mr. Byrnes, at Warwick, inferred that the number of Japanese in the
colony was then no greater than twelve months previously. However, Mr. Douglas,
in his last report on Thursday Island, just published, states that the number
of Japs on the island on the 1st March, 1898, was 619, against 331 in 1897, the
number of females being 76 as against 48. We know here that this increase is
mainly due to arrivals from places outside of Queensland. And they continue to
come. Only last Saturday did the Tsinan land here a batch of fifty-nine, the
curious feature of whose landing was that they all had passports. This shows
distinctly the failure of the means adopted to secure the restriction of the
Japs. The issuing of the passports, we were assured last year, was a means
which would effectually block them leaving Japan for Queensland. And doubtless
the Government is aware that the Japs take out passports for other countries,
thence immediately reshipping to Queensland, thus defeating the regulations.
But it is another curious feature of this business that if a
Japanese comes without a passport, we have not a tittle of power nor authority
to prevent him landing, as the first occasion on which the shipping master here
demanded passports from Japanese arriving revealed that there was no means of
refusing a landing to those who had no pass. It is also possible to judge from
this that the Government of Queensland is sincere in its efforts to lessen the
influx of Japs; and there is sufficient evidence obtainable to conclude that
the Japanese Government is desirous of serving Queensland in restraining the
emigration of their people to this colony; yet the foregoing shows that the
means employed are not efficacious, and another and better way of securing the
object in view must be discovered. Being fully aware of all the facts and
circumstances, the Government must be in a position to judge of the best course
to pursue in order to overcome the little Japanese trick, which set at nought
mutual regulations between Japan and Queensland. But the situation here is
becoming so menacing, in whatever relation it is considered, that promptness in
dealing with the matter should be the first characteristic of the Government’s
action. The longer it is left neglected, the more difficult will it become to
deal with. If not already too late, this Japanese bull must be taken by the
horns and tied down, if not killed outright.—I am, sir, &c.,
A. CORRAN.
“Pilot” Office, Thursday Island, 21st July.
