it was then announced that, under the terms of the treaty, it would continue, without definite renewal. But at the Washington Conference, in Dec., the agreement made for a four-Power treaty (America, France, England, Japan) provided for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance being brought to an end.
The Chinese Loan Consortium.—A gradual change came about in the opening years of the 20th century in the general policies toward China of the Great Powers, who had become convinced of the fruitlessness of mutual competition; signs also became visible of the altered attitude of Western financiers in regard to the investments in that Empire. In 1908, a British and a German bank undertook to finance in common the Tientsin–Pukow railway. In 1911, a four-Power group consisting of Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States, was formed in connexion with the Hankow–Szechuen railway loan, as well as the loan for currency reform in China and industrial enterprise in Manchuria. Japanese and Russian bankers agreed to join this Consortium in 1912, with the understanding that the special interests of Japan and Russia in Manchuria and Mongolia would not be interfered with in the internationalization of the Chinese loans. With the inauguration of Mr. Woodrow Wilson as President in 1913, the U.S. Government decided to withdraw their bankers from the Consortium, and subsequently the World War prevented Germany from remaining in the financial league. In 1917 the Consortium, now comprising the four Powers, Great Britain, France, Japan and Russia, invited the United States to rejoin in its activities. The American Government hesitated at first to respond to this call, but in June 1918, took the initiative for the reconstruction of the financial group. By that time the Tsarist régime in Russia had come to an end, but the other nations interested expressed their assent to the American proposal; and negotiations were started in May 1919, in Paris, between the financial representatives of Great Britain, France, Japan and the United States, simultaneously with the Peace Conference. After considerable interchange of views, part of which concerned the reservations by Japan as to S. Manchuria and E. Inner Mongolia, an agreement was signed in New York on Oct. 15 1920. The most important feature of the new agreement was that the object was purely and simply economic, being entirely free from any political complexion. All the members were to pool their existing and future loans (i.e. options) both as regards industrial and administrative undertakings, with the exception of the industrial enterprises upon which substantial progress had already been made. As to Manchuria and Mongolia, the Powers arrived at a satisfactory understanding, Japan withdrawing her previous reservations. The statement of the Japanese Government issued on April 1 1921 contained the assurance that Japan only desired in those regions definitely to ensure “her national defence and the security of her economic life,” and she was confident that she could safely rely upon the mutual trust and friendship of the Powers in regard to the exigencies of any situation that might arise in future.
Equality of opportunities was fully guaranteed to all members, thus eliminating unnecessary and harmful competition. It was believed that this cooperative action of the various banking groups, which alone could offer the enormous amount of capital necessary for the reconstruction of Chinese economic life and for the building of sufficient means of communication and transportation all over her vast territory, would be in the best interests of the Chinese people.
The Anti-Japanese Movement in America.—In the opening years of the century, the continuous influx of a large number of Japanese immigrants from the Hawaiian Islands to California had caused much alarm to the labour organizations in that state, and even in wider circles. Anti-Japanese feeling first overtly manifested itself by the attempted segregation in 1905 of Japanese children in the public schools of San Francisco. With characteristic perspicacity, President Roosevelt early discerned that public sentiment on the Pacific slope towards the Japanese was taking an untoward course, and, bent upon stemming the tide in time, in 1906 he advocated, in his presidential message to the Federal Congress, that an Act should be passed investing the Japanese, who had “won in a single generation the right to stand abreast of the most intelligent and enlightened peoples of Europe and America,” with the right to naturalization, which had been reserved to “free white persons, aliens of African nativity and persons of African descent.” The lawgivers at Washington, however, did not, or could not on account of the agitation in the West, so much as consider the question. Nevertheless, an informal agreement was reached between the Washington and Tokyo Governments, by which Japan pledged herself that she would not issue passports for the continental United States to those classes of Japanese who would, or might, engage in manual labour. Those Japanese who had previously resided in the United States, or were the immediate relatives of Japanese immigrants already in the United States, or the “settled agriculturists” who were to assume active control of an already established farming interest (only three or four persons actually came under this last category), were to be accepted. Japan engaged herself to observe this arrangement voluntarily, and the sincere efforts of her Government in executing it received recognition from many American publicists.
This “Gentleman’s Agreement,” as it was generally styled, was confirmed by a declaration on the part of Japan made simultaneously with the revision of the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation in Feb. 1911. However, the feeling against the Japanese in the United States subsequently became more and more pronounced. Apart from sporadic legislation imposing restrictions on them with regard to civil rights, such as marriage and the pursuit of an avocation, the Alien Land Act was passed by the California Legislature in May 1913, and put into force three months later, despite strong Japanese protests and repeated admonitions from Pres. Wilson’s Cabinet. This law prohibited aliens ineligible to citizenship of the United States (including companies the majority of whose interests were under the control of such aliens either in point of their number or the amount of capital held) from owning land in the state of California, allowing them only the privilege of leasing land on a three years’ tenure. The terminology employed invested this law with an appearance of innocent impartiality, but it was none the less obvious that the Japanese alone would, in point of fact, be the sufferers from an invidious discrimination.
The exigencies of American participation in the World War tended to lull Californian opposition towards the Japanese. But, with the termination of the war, it was renewed. In spite of the efforts of the Japanese Government to respect the susceptibilities of their American neighbours, of which the stoppage of passports in the spring of 1920 to the so-called “picture brides” was an example, the day of the presidential election—Nov. 2—witnessed the passage by the Californians of the most drastic law yet enacted against “ineligible aliens,” by which they forfeited even those rights which they had formerly been allowed to retain of holding land under a three years’ lease. The Federal authorities had been averse to such a step, but the “initiative” poll decided in favour of the enactment by a majority of three to one (668,483 to 202,086 votes), and the law came into force as from the Dec. following. Thus in 1921 no Japanese might own or lease land, neither could he act as guardian of his own American-born offspring (who are of right American citizens) in whose name land is held, nor might he possess a share even in American-controlled landowning companies. “In that State,” wrote The Nation (New York), “America’s traditional sense of fair play has been swept away in a ferment of race prejudice and campaign buncombe. The notion that the Japanese land ownership constitutes a ‘menace’ in the sense employed by anti-immigrationists is entirely refuted by the facts. Of the 28 million acres of farming area which compose one-fourth of the State’s total acreage, only 458,000 acres, or 1.6 per cent, are under cultivation by Japanese. But this is not all. Of this small proportion not over 27 thousand acres—less than one-tenth of one percent—are owned by Japanese, the balance being made up of lands cultivated by Japanese under leases, under crop share contracts, under labour contracts, and finally, of 48,000 acres owned by American corporations with some Japanese shareholders.”
