[Note: I utilized the OCR version of the files available here:
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023039153
- and compared it to a scan of the original here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924023039153#page/n1/mode/2up
As the original has been fairly heavily marked up (particularly the
later section), there were many OCR read errors that I have repaired by
comparing the original to the OCR output. After repair work, I
removed hard returns and put the text into HTML, putting quoted
paragraphs in italics. Hopefully I've caught all the
OCR-generated errors, but if I missed any, let me know and I'll (time
permitting) fix this file.
There are two parts to this - first comments by the author (Melville E
Stone) made on May 6, 1911: "Reply
of Melville E. Stone to Certain American Residents in Japan",
and then the original text in question, from October 18, 1910: "Race Prejudice in the Far East" -
LHS]
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Race Prejudice in the Far East
REPLY OF MELVILLE E. STONE TO CERTAIN AMERICAN RESIDENTS IN JAPAN
NEW YORK CITY
MAY 6, 1911
New York, May 6, 1911
D. H. Blake, Esq.,
President American Peace Society, of Yokohama, Japan,
and
E. G. Babbitt, Esq.,
Hon. Sec. American Asiatic Society of Japan.
Gentlemen:
I have your letters, with accompanying copy of Preamble and Resolution
adopted by your organizations. In both of these papers I am asked to
correct certain inaccuracies in an article which appeared in the
National Geographic Magazine, and "to give the same publicity to the
acknowledgment of these errors as was given to the original article."
Meeting your request for a reply, I have some things to say:
First, I have never at any time written any article for the magazine
referred to. In October last I did indulge in an after-dinner talk to a
small company of American friends, perhaps fifty in number, on "Race
Prejudice in the Far East." The dinner was not a public one. A portion
of this talk was reproduced, with emendations, as if it were an article
written by me for the Geographic Magazine. How it was obtained for such
publication, I do not know. The opening sentences of my address (which
were omitted) ran as follows:
"I am here to talk to you in a very
casual way of the impressions left
upon my mind by a hasty journey in Asia. If you expect more, you are
certain to be disappointed. I haven't the slightest intention of
offering any final opinions, nor any pretense that I know it all. I am
not at all the sort of person who can spend one or two days in a
country and then tell you how it should be governed. I have no capacity
which enables me to gallop over a continent and write a book about it.
My largest hope is to find some one in this company who may know less
about this matter than I do, and perhaps I may furnish him a thought,
or awaken his interest. And as I believe the subject a vital one, if I
have done thus much, I shall feel that I have done good."
Obviously, in these circumstances, I have no power to follow the matter
in its various travels, as you wish.
Having thus explained to you how this matter took origin, I take up the
question of accuracy as to detail. It seems to me that it should have
been perfectly clear to anyone that the reference to the employment of
native Japanese physicians was not intended as a reflection upon the
American or European practitioners, but as a comment upon the marvelous
progress made by the Japanese. I do not in the least doubt that there
are foreign-born physicians of high character and admitted ability in
Japan, but I must add in truth that it is the experience of all
widely-traveled persons that such professional gentlemen of ability
living in foreign countries are the exception and not the rule. It
goes without saying that professional men of capacity and distinction
can usually do better in their own country than to attempt to procure a
precarious existence amongst strangers.
What I said of the primitive integrity and of the politeness of the
Asian is affirmed by many writers. If you will turn to Townsend
Harris's diary you will find that was his belief. At first he was
convinced that in their effort to be polite the Japanese ''were the
greatest liars on earth," but in his later journals and in his public
and private letters he "never included the Japanese people under such a
generalization, but, on the contrary, praised the common folks for
their honesty and the Government for keeping its plighted word when
given in treaty form."
I quote the following from a book recently sent me, entitled "The White
Peril in the Far East." It was written by the eminent Rev. Dr. Sidney
L. Gulick, whose long residence in Japan and whose high character seem
to me to qualify him to speak. Dr. Gulick says:
"The presence of the white man in the
Far East has been distinctly
destructive of morality. We count the Oriental immoral, but do we
realize that we have helped to make him so? The Orient, and especially
Japan, has been debauched by white men. The menace of his presence to
the higher and nobler development of the East can hardly be realized by
one who has not lived there and sought the uplift of the people.
The most serious hindrance to Christian work is the immoral life and
selfish spirit so universally exhibited by white men in those lands. *
* *
"I shall venture to propose that the
Governments of America and England
issue orders that their own people treat the Asiatic with courtesy and
consideration. Their Governments might well draw the attention of sea
captains, officers and sailors, as also of all military men sent to the
Far East, to the need of observing Oriental customs of courtesy.
Ministers, consuls, and consular courts in those lands might well
exercise their powers to inspire among their countrymen the importance
of courtesy and fair treatment."
You have taken a general remark on the observance of law in all Asia
and applied it to Japan alone, and this is manifestly unfair. You say
the Japanese are a law-abiding people, but you speak of cases of murder
and pocket-picking at the Shimbashi station. Well, murder has been
committed in every land since the days of Cain, and pocket-picking, it
seems to me, could not have existed in Japan before the invasion of
Western clothing.
Respecting the admission of Japanese to foreign clubs, the limitation
of the clubs to which the remarks would apply as those at treaty ports,
was intended to expressly exempt the club at Tokio, with which I am
perfectly familiar. As to the United Club at Yokohama, the admission of
a certain Mr. Bekkey, and of one or two important Japanese officials on
the honorary list, constitutes the exception which proves the rule. I
do not suppose you will challenge the statement that one of the most
eminent financiers of Japan was refused admission because of his race.
The intimation of one American of Yokohama that I must be very
guileless if I think the question of membership in a club should be
made the subject of diplomatic activity, does not impress me greatly,
for the reason that at no place, in anything I have written or said,
have I made any such suggestion. Neither am I able to quite see the
force of the claim of another Yokohaman that if I am an advocate of
color, I should immediately take up the cause of the negro to secure
his admission to our American clubs. The situation is obviously
different. The white people have gone to Asia and live there now by
sufferance of the Asiatic people. At no time have I said I believed it
was obligatory upon them to admit Asians to their clubs, nor to dance
with them, nor to marry them. What I did was to try to point out to our
own white race, and to them only, the danger with which we were
confronted by establishing and maintaining race prejudice. I recognize
quite as well as any of my friends in Yokohama the right of every
individual to determine his social relations as he will; but if in so
doing he goes to a length which ends in a breach of friendship or of
mutual respect with those with whom he comes in contact, he must be
prepared to take the consequences. And I beg to add that the very
classing of the American negro and the Japanese gentlemen together by
this Yokohaman is not conducive to agreeable relations between the
races in Japan. That there has been marked race-discrimination in the
foreign colony of Yokohama for years cannot be successfully denied. An
observing visitor cannot spend a day there without noting evidence of
it.
Concerning the "house-tax" question, the difference between the
statement I used and the form you adopt, is in large measure the
difference that has existed for years between Tweedledum and
Tweedledee. The denial of land ownership to aliens had been the
practice almost universally among European nations for centuries before
Commodore Perry's expedition. It was a feature of the English law until
1869, and is in general terms the law of the United States to-day with
respect to lands under Federal control. It also has been the law of our
individual States, except in cases where it has been modified by
express statute. In making his treaty, Mr. Harris seized upon an
isolated precedent: the leasing of ground by the Japanese for a Dutch
factory; and pressed for ground possession by Americans, under the
guise of perpetual leases. The Japanese objected. In his diary for
March 3, 1857, Mr. Harris wrote:
"I then read to them an extract from
a letter to me from the Secretary
of State, which was to the effect that, if the Japanese sought to evade
the treaty, the President would not hesitate to ask Congress to give
him power to use such arguments as they could not resist."
How Mr. Harris using such duress inserted provisions in this treaty
"against his conscience," following instructions from our Secretary of
State; how destructive this treaty proved to the Japanese; and how for
thirty-six years "the highest ambition of the Japanese Empire was to
secure release from the bondage in which it was held by the treaties
with the Western Powers," is fully set out in Mr. John W. Foster's able
work on "American Diplomacy in the Orient."
You say that a subject of this character and importance would not have
been left to the decision of a Consul, and that the question went to
The Hague Tribunal, where the foreign claims were upheld. Permit me to
correct your history. It is true that the claims of Great Britain,
France and Germany against the imposition of a house-tax were submitted
to arbitration at The Hague and a decision rendered respecting them in
1905. But it is not true that American rights were passed upon at all.
The United States took no part. The contention of the householders that
their buildings were included with the grounds in an exemption from
taxation, was met by the Japanese Government with the argument that the
fiscal immunity enjoyed by foreigners in Japan was due "to the
circumstance that the consular courts refused to give the necessary
sanction to the fiscal laws of the country." It is hardly possible that
anyone familiar with the subject will contend that from May, 1905,
until now, this question of taxation has not been an open one. Neither
will it be claimed that aliens in Japan pay as high a land tax as do
natives. Yet with this advantage, unparalleled in any European country,
the aliens are now asking exemption from all forms of taxation in which
the perpetual lease property is involved. They even hold that they are
entitled to be relieved from the business tax and carriage taxes. Some
go farther and claim that they have what they call vested rights beyond
the scope of treaty stipulations, for which Japan should furnish
compensation, giving the leaseholders a title in fee and something
additional for their special privileges.
It is under this sort of leasehold, at rental valuations established
many years ago, that the various club properties have been held. To say
that upon the cricket field Japanese have been invited to play does not
answer the statement that natives were not admitted to membership. Your
understanding of this matter seems to be hopelessly in conflict with
Mr. Frazar's.
You say: "The Municipal authorities arbitrarily took the grounds away
from you." He says: "About two years ago, the lease expired and
application was made for a renewal, when we were informed we could not
have it." You say: "The new grounds are not being given to us, or even
leased to us." He says: "With respect to the field offered to us, in
the first place, as a substitute, it was situated in a most inferior
part of the town." In the case of the race track, it was an error to
say that Japanese were not admitted, and I cheerfully make the
correction.
In general, however, I do not believe I have done any substantial
injustice in this matter; nor do I believe that any amount of quibbling
respecting details, several of which you say are inconsequential, goes
to the merit of the matter. I might say as Coriolanus did of his
Volscian critics, that I seem to have caused "a fluttering in a dove
cote." But there are much larger issues involved than the question
whether you have two or three native Japanese in the Yokohama United
Club or have none. It is the general question of race prejudice
throughout Asia, and it was to this that I addressed myself.
It would not be difficult to quote from a great many letters I have
received on the subject. Your own Vice-President, Mr. E. W. Frazar,
while frankly calling in question certain matters of detail, wrote me,
under date of April 9th, as follows:
"To my mind the very advanced (one
might almost call it 'aeroplanic')
view of the Asian question, while startling to the uninitiated, is
undoubtedly the correct one. You have dared to put in print what
students of the situation have hardly formed into whispers. The fact
that Europe's Asian pupil has progressed so fast as to actually expect,
or to demand's equal suffrage, is not altogether palatable, and we have
the old story of its being easier to preach than to practice. I hope
that your words will take root and help to remove the scales from the
eyes of our compatriots."
Bishop Harris, of the Methodist Church, whose long residence in Japan
is not unknown to you, writes:
"I will quote from the lecture often
and thank God upon every
remembrance of it."
Dr. Hendrick Miller, of The Hague, writes:
"It is most useful that you should
draw the general attention to the
great injustice committed not only by private Europeans, but by
European committees and natives in the Far East, and in fact
everywhere, amongst colored races. I have been traveling over the
entire world, with the exception of Australia (having been a diplomat
by career), and have recently returned from a two-years' journey
throughout Asia, and my experience entirely concurs with yours."
In a paper just issued by Baron Weardale, he says:
"Now that West and East are meeting,
the effects of race arrogance are
too terrible to contemplate. Of one thing we may be sure: the harassing
of the East, if continued, will give birth to an intense national
self-consciousness among the Eastern peoples; it will nourish into
strength race pride, and eventually race hatred and race war; and it
will turn the mind of the East towards militarism and conquest. The
yellow peril may yet come true in a more startling sense than even the
yellow journals have contemplated."
We make no apology for calling you to account. It is our right to do
so. You Americans in Japan were not Argonauts. You braved no dangers to
secure your lodgment, or your opportunities there. It was Perry's
warships, and Harris's threats of more warships, that forced the
Japanese to make a place for you. Under these circumstances, you have
held a trust from us.
Some of our people have seriously doubted whether Perry's work was
worth while after all; whether it might not have been better to have
let the Japanese people go on as a hermit nation; and indeed whether we
could not profitably (in some measure at least), have followed their
example. We know the opening of Japan was of inestimable value to the
Japanese, and we know that it has been of profit to the small company
of Americans who have been trading in Japan; but the advantage to the
great body of the American people is not so apparent. A thousand
complications have arisen out of the business to embarrass us. We, by
arms and threats, compelled them to admit our citizens, to give them
permanent land titles, and to accept our goods at a tariff rate of our
own making; now we are refusing their citizens admission to our
country; in several states, we do not permit such as do come to hold
permanent land titles even under a fiction of "perpetual leases"; and
we are raising our customs duties "by leaps and bounds" to keep out the
products of their ingenuity and cheap labor. If in the end it be found
that the Americans resident in Japan, those of us who alone have
benefited from this unfortunate condition, and those peculiarly charged
to interpret Western civilization to the foster children of this
country, have failed in any degree, their responsibility is very great.
And, moreover, inasmuch as we opened Japan not only to Americans but to
all other aliens, the obligation of the Americans in Japan has been
doubly large. They have not been acting for themselves, but have been
trustees for every Western nation. If they have not been mindful of
this fact, but have by injustice, arrogance, incivility, or even race
discrimination aroused hostility tending to endanger our peaceful
relations, they must make answer - perhaps not to the Japanese - but
certainly to their countrymen at home, who have stood as sponsors for
them.
I trust you will feel, as I do, that the directness with which I have
expressed my views is in no sense to be taken in a spirit of personal
controversy. I share with you fully in your expressed desire to promote
more friendly relations between the races and should be exceedingly
sorry if any word of mine (by reason of a publication for which I was
not responsible) should tend to disturb any condition of amity between
foreigners and natives in Asia - a thing which, it seems to me, it is
of the largest possible importance to foster.
Sincerely yours,
Melville E. Stone.
[8754H]
Race Prejudice in the Far East
ADDRESS OF MELVILLE E. STONE BEFORE THE QUILL CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1910
My Friends:
I am here to talk to you in a very casual way of the impressions left
upon my mind by a hasty journey in Asia. If you expect more, you are
certain to be disappointed. I haven't the slightest intention of
offering any final opinions, nor any pretense that I know it all. I am
not at all the sort of person who can spend one or two days in a
country and then tell you how it should be governed. I have no
capacity which enables me to gallop over a continent, and write a book
about it. My largest hope is to find someone in this company who may
know less about this matter than I do, and perhaps I may furnish him a
thought or awaken his interest. And as I believe the subject a vital
one, if I have done thus much, I shall feel that I have done good.
It is a large order to talk of Asia. If Thackeray in opening his
lectures on "The Four Georges" found it impossible to "condense 70
years into 70 minutes," what shall one attempt on this occasion? And,
although whole libraries have been written concerning Asia and the
Asians, there is a widespread belief that, because of the differences
in our mentalities, it is not possible for us ever to understand them,
or they us. Kipling says that "East is East, and West is West, and
never the twain shall meet." The "oldest inhabitant" in India or China
or Japan is sure to tell you that the Oriental mind is unfathomable. I
have not the temerity to challenge these opinions. And yet I venture to
suggest that there is an older authority holding a different view, and
that I still have some respect for Cicero's idea that there is a
"common bond" uniting all of the children of men.
And whatever our ignorance of, or indifference for, the Orientals in
the past, it is well to note that conditions, both for us and for them,
have entirely changed within the last decade. There is a new United
States and a new Asia. The Spanish war created the one; the
Russo-Japanese war the other. When we acquired the Philippine Islands
we assumed the government of eight millions of Orientals and touched
elbow with all Asia. When Japan defeated Russia, the Oriental learned
his power. For untold centuries he had respected power. His native
sovereign was an autocrat, who enslaved him, beat him, killed him, if
need be. Then came the European, with powder and guns and warships; and
thereafter the white man behind the gun represented power. A handful of
British with cannon could enforce obedience from hundreds of millions
of people. Suddenly, the little Empire of Japan, one of the least among
the Asiatic powers, challenged, fought and defeated the great European
Colossus, Russia. The Asian discovered then that it was not the white
man, but the gun that did the business; he learned that a yellow man
behind the gun was quite as effective as a white man, and he found that
the Christian soldier alone was afraid of death. Then followed in
travail, the birth of the new Asia. There were actual revolutions in
Turkey and Persia, a startling recrudescence of unrest in India and
Ceylon, and, at this moment, China is in a state of revolutionary
ferment.
What is to be the outcome? What does all this mean for the future of
the world? Let us view the problem from the political, the commercial
and the moral aspects. How long will the 6,000 soldiers we have in the
Philippines be able to keep our flag afloat among 8,000,000 of natives?
How long will the 75,000 English soldiers in India be able to maintain
British sovereignty over 300,000,000 of Asians? Believe me, these are
not idle questions. They are up to us for an answer, whether we will or
no, and upon our ability to make answer will depend the future of what
we are pleased to call our Western civilization. I would not be an
alarmist, and yet I would have you feel that Macauley's suggestion of
the New Zealander on a broken arch of London Bridge, sketching the
ruins of St. Paul, has come to be more than an extravagant figure of
speech. And I am convinced that there is real danger awaiting us unless
we mend our ways. It is not the Asian who needs educating, it is the
European. I am not worrying half so much about the heathen in his
blindness as I am about the Christian in his blindness. Asia is awake
and preparing for the coming struggle. And we are doing very much to
force the issue and to prepare her for the contest. For a century we
have been sending at enormous cost our missionaries to all parts of the
hemisphere to civilize. There may be doubt as to the amount of
proselyting we have been able to accomplish: there can be no possible
doubt of the work we have done to strengthen the Asian people
politically and commercially.
A statesman of Japan said recently in a conversation I had with him:
"Your missionaries undoubtedly have done good for the morals of our
people, but they have done far more for our health and strength as a
nation . They come to us with doctors, and nurses, and hospitals and
schools. Before Perry's arrival 2,000,000 infants were born every year
in Japan, and for lack of proper sanitary measures they died. Now with
the hospitals and sanitary and hygienic methods introduced by the
missionaries, the 2,000,000 children are born, but they do not die."
This is true of every other Oriental country. Meanwhile in the
countries of Europe the increase of population is slow, and in some
countries, as in France, it is hardly increasing at all. In America
race suicide is becoming alarmingly prevalent .
In the recent war between Russia and Japan, Dr. Louis Seaman, of this
city, who visited their field hospitals and talked freely with their
army surgeons, found that the Japanese had outstripped us in almost
every department of military surgery. The foreign colonies of Tokio and
other Japanese cities employ native physicians in preference to
Europeans.
Asia is coming into her own again. It was Asia through Arabia which
gave Europe the literature, the arts and the Sciences, which we have
developed and which we now boast. Gunpowder was probably invented in
China; it was certainly introduced into Europe from Arabia. The
finely-tempered steel of Damascus went over from Arabia at the time of
the Moorish invasion of Spain, and its manufacture was continued at
Toledo. The coppersmiths of Baghdad supplied the world's market with
their wonderful productions centuries before there were any industries
in Europe. Weaving of silk and cotton had its birth as an industry in
Arabia, and the weaving of wool was learned by the Crusaders in the
same wonderful country. Astronomy, mathematics, the mariner's compass,
all came to us from the Arabs. One cannot have forgotten that the
Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran are all of Arabian origin. The
inhabitants of Central Arabia have today the oldest liberal government
- practically a republic - on earth. And if you go farther afield to
India and China and Japan you shall find a civilization older than
history and marvelous in its character. One cannot read that great
library of Eastern Sacred Writings, edited by Dr. Max Muller, without
being tremendously impressed.
It will not do for us to assume that ours is the only civilization.
What are the basic virtues, the sum of which we call our Christian
civilization? I hope we are all agreed that they are not primarily
beliefs in certain theological dogmas, or certain forms of church
polity, or in the shape or length of priestly vestments, but in the
attributes of correct Christian living. Is frugality a virtue? Your
Asian far exceeds us in frugality. Is industry a merit? No people on
earth work as long, as persistently and as conscientiously as they. Is
integrity esteemed? It is the unchallenged judgment of every European
writer that the word of an Asian was good until they were corrupted by
the inroads of Westerners. Is politeness, which is but another name for
the golden rule, to be commended? Nowhere will you find such scrupulous
politeness as is daily and hourly observed east of Suez. Is observance
of law desirable? The peaceable and orderly lives which the great mass
of the people of Asia have led for centuries attests their habits of
obedience. There are cities in India, Japan and China with crowded
populations running from a hundred thousand into the millions where
there is scarce the semblance of police control and where crime is
hardly known. They are a calm, thoughtful people, to whom what Mr.
Arthur Benson has so well called "the gospel of push," and what our own
vigorous Roosevelt calls a "strenuous life," is unknown. But I am not
at all sure that this is an unmixed evil, for there are no
"brain-storms" there and neurasthenia is provided for nowhere. In the
light of the fact that the number of inmates in the insane hospitals of
our country doubled in six years, according to the latest available
statistics, I cannot but feel that we need less strenuosity rather than
more. Compared with Western civilization, theirs will not suffer
perhaps as much as you would imagine; and perhaps you will agree that
the chief characteristics of our civilization are push and
extravagance, and that in this respect they have the better of us.
All this brings me to my topic. And I must say that, paraphrasing Mr.
Lincoln's words at Gettysburg, in large measure it is not for us to
educate, but to be educated. We shall never meet the problems growing
out of our relation with the Far East unless we absolutely and once for
all put away race prejudice. I believe the European snob in Asia is
distinctly the enemy of the civilized West. And his coadjutor in this
country is a fitting criminal yoke-fellow. Let me give you some
illustrations of what I mean, cases which came under my personal
observation. From Bombay to Yokohama there is not a social club at any
port or treaty point where a native, whatever his culture or
refinement, will he admitted. At the Bengal Club at Calcutta last year
a member in perfectly good standing innocently invited a Eurasian
gentleman, that is, one who is half native and half European, to dine
with him. It became known that the invitation had been extended, and a
storm of opposition broke among the members. The matter was finally
adjusted by setting aside the ladies' department of the club, and there
the offending member and his unfortunate guest dined alone. The next
day the member was called before the board of governors and notified
that another like breach of the rules would result in his expulsion.
The beating of native servants and workmen in India is a daily and
hourly occurrence. It formerly was so at Hong Kong and Shanghai, but
Mr. Sprague, the representative of the Standard Oil Company at
Shanghai, told me that since the Russo-Japanese war the natives would
not stand it, and that all beating of them by Europeans in that city
had ceased.
While in Calcutta I attended a ball at Government House and noted that
while one or two native princesses were on the floor dancing with white
men, there were twenty or more native gentlemen standing about as "wall
flowers." I called the attention of Lady Minto to the fact, and she
explained that no white woman would think of dancing with a native; it
would certainly result in ostracism. The son of a maharajah goes to
England, is educated at Oxford or Cambridge, is lionized in the West
End of London - mayhap he is honored with an invitation to Windsor.
When he goes back home he may enter no white man's club; if he be
fortunate enough to be invited to a white man's function, no white
woman will dance or associate with him; and if by any luck he should
marry a European, he, his wife and his children become outcasts.
Although native troops, like the Sikhs, have shown undying loyalty to
the British flag and on frequent occasions have exhibited courage in
the highest degree, no one of them ever has or ever can achieve the
Victoria Cross.
I have no thought, in saying this, of criticizing British rule in
India. I do not question that it has been of enormous benefit. Neither
do I doubt that under the administration of Lord Morley there is the
most sincere desire to do all for India that the cause of humanity or
Christianity may dictate. And I am also quite ready to say that the
problem is a difficult one; that "the white man's burden" is one not
easy to bear. I know that attempts to do justice are often
misunderstood by the natives, are construed as evidence of fear. I know
that the Bengalis, who are responsible for most of the unrest in India,
are a silly lot whose lives and property would not be worth a groat
were British protection withdrawn. I know that the beneficent British
supremacy has been made possible only by the religious divisions among
the natives. But this is all the more reason why the greatest care
should be exercised not alone in India but throughout Asia, why the
line of cleavage should not be permitted to pass from a religious to a
racial one, and the danger that it may do so grows with every hour.
On the one hand, there is a very perceptible loosening of the bonds of
religious caste; not infrequently to-day high class Brahmins, not only
shake hands with Moslems and Christians, but even sit at table and eat
meat with them. On the other hand, there was startling evidence, during
the recent war, of the secret racial tie that binds all Asia. We are
accustomed to think and speak of India as a British possession,
forgetting that after all only five-eighths of its area is British,
while there are over 600 native princes and chiefs, each governing a
state, which is more or less independent. Some of these princes are
enormously wealthy. So far as they have any religious bent, they are
Hindu, or Mahratta, and in this respect not at all at one with the
Japanese, who are either Shinto or Buddhist. Yet while the war was on,
it was not uncommon for a rich Maharaja to call at Government House and
ask if it would be regarded as an unfriendly act for him to buy
Japanese bonds. Of course the Viceroy was forced to say it would not,
since Britain and Japan were in treaty alliance. Of course these
investments were made through London banks, and the extent of the
transactions will never be known. We do know, however, that there was a
mysterious absorption of Japanese securities which never could be
accounted for by either the London financiers or our own.
What I feel is that the danger of Asiatic ethnic solidarity is
immensely accentuated by the attitude of certain of the British
themselves. It goes without saying that the younger son of a British
nobleman, who does not succeed to his father's estate and does not go
into trade, but who finds the only outlet for his activities in the
Army or Navy, the Church, or in the Indian civil service, becomes far
more of a snob , and therefore far more of a danger, when dealing with
natives in Asia than he would be permitted to be at home in England.
And the harm that one such person can do, it may take an army to undo.
I have spoken thus freely respecting the conditions in India because I
feel at liberty to do so, since my mother was born under the British
flag and I have a very large number of relatives in the British Army,
Navy and Church. But I should be wholly lacking in fairness if I did
not ask your attention to similar cases of race prejudice in which we
are involved and which are equally dangerous - in other parts of Asia.
Let me tell you a story as it was told me by a Harvard graduate who is
now a Minister of the Japanese Crown. "When Perry came here," said he,
"and Townsend Harris (of blessed memory) followed him and made the
first treaty with Japan, it was stipulated that we (the Japanese)
should give them ground for their legation and their consulates,
compounds. We did so. Yokohama was then an unimportant place, a native
fishing village. It was the natural port of Tokio, but as we had no
foreign trade, that meant nothing. We gave them ground in Yokohama for
their consulate. Merchants and traders followed and we gave them ground
also for their shops. The British and the Russians and other European
nations came in, and we gave them like concessions. In Yokohama, as you
know, houses and stores are not numbered as you number them in America
- 110 Broadway, for instance - but are numbered in the order in which
they were built. Thus, "Number 1 Yokohama" may be half a mile distant
from "Number 2 Yokohama." This method of numbering still survives. It
is rather a significant fact that number 9 Yokohama - the ninth
building erected there - is a house of prostitution which to-day has
international fame as the resort for foreigners. Well, as time went on
the village grew into a city. Under the treaty of Townsend Harris and
all the other treaties the right of extra-territoriality was
recognized. That is, whenever a case arose in which a foreigner was
involved, it must be tried by the consul of the country to which the
foreigner belonged. As time went on, Sir Harry Parks, the British
Minister, asked for ground in Yokohama for a race-track. We cautiously
suggested that horse-racing was said to be wicked by the European
missionaries. But he insisted and we gave him the ground. Then, we were
asked for ground for a social club, for the foreigners, and we gave
them a plot on the sea-front, the finest piece of land in the city.
Later, they wanted to play cricket and football, and finally golf.
Well, we gave them ground for this. As the city grew, this
cricket-field was so surrounded by buildings that it was practically in
the center of town. Understand, all of this ground was donated. Last
year we suggested that we could use the cricket-field, and we offered
to give in place of it a field in the suburbs. As railways had been
built meanwhile, the new field would be even more accessible than the
old one was when we gave it. The foreigners demurred and proposed that
we buy the old field and with the purchase money they would secure a
new one. Finally, we compromised by paying for their improvements and
furnishing them a new field with like improvements free of cost. The
question of taxation arose. Yokohama had grown to be a city of 300,000
inhabitants, with millions of dollars invested in buildings, owned by
foreigners. We asked no taxes on the ground we had donated to them, but
we did think it fair that they should pay taxes on their buildings.
They said no, that everywhere in the West the buildings went with the
ground. We submitted the question to the Americans, but they dodged the
issue, saying they would do whatever the others did. Then under the law
of extra-territoriality we were compelled to leave the decision to the
British consul, and he decided against us. The case has now gone to The
Hague Court. Finally, when I tell you that in the light of this
history, no native Japanese gentleman has ever been permitted to enter
the club-house or the grand-stand of the race-track, or to play upon
the cricket field, perhaps you will understand why there is some
feeling against foreigners in Yokohama."
When Commodore Perry went to Japan in 1853 he wrote a letter to the
Japanese Emperor containing these words:
"With the Americans, as indeed with
all Christian people, it is
considered a sacred duty to receive with kindness, and to succor and
protect all, of whatever nation, who may be cast upon their shores, and
such has been the course of the Americans with all Japanese subjects
who have fallen under their protection."
With his warships Perry, compelled Japan to receive citizens of the
United States and to grant them extraordinary domiciliary rights. From
that day to this we have spent enormous sums to establish schools in
Japan for the education of the natives. Yet we now are seeking to deny
them admission to this country and we are refusing to permit them to
attend our schools.
In the Philippines a ruffian American soldier, recruited from the
purlieus of New York, shoves a native gentleman from the sidewalk of
Manila with an oath, calling him a "Nigger." Yet that "Nigger" is very
likely a cultivated gentleman, educated at the Sorbonne, in Paris.
The infamous opium war upon China, and the equally infamous existent
compulsion of China to receive Indian opium, are outrages no whit worse
than our own extortion of absurdly exorbitant damages for losses of
American ships to Chinese pirates in the Yellow Sea. For many years
there was no more profitable undertaking for the owner of an American
clipper ship than to sell it and its cargo to the Chinese Government
after it had been looted by the pirates.
Such, my friends, is something of the shameful record of our relations
with the Far East. In India, in China and in Japan, we have been the
guests who have enjoyed their hospitality, only to rise in the morning
and say to our hosts, "You must not sit at table with us." Believe me,
this condition cannot endure. Politically we are in grave danger,
commercially, with their industry and their frugality, they are fast
outstripping us. They have ceased buying flour from the Minneapolis
mills, because they are grinding Indian and Manchurian wheat with
Chinese labor at Woosung. A line of ships is running from the Yellow
River to Seattle, bringing 72,000 tons a year of pig iron manufactured
at Hankow and delivered, freight and duty added, cheaper than we can
produce it. In Cawnpore, India, with American machinery they are making
shoes so cheaply that the manufacturers of Lynn can no longer compete
with them. The cottons and silks which we one time sent from here to
Asia are now made in Japan and China.
Thus are we related to them politically and commercially. Socially they
are all saying to us: "Stop cheating us, stop swindling us, stop your
treating us as your inferiors who are to be beaten and robbed." Japan
is crying out, "Treat us fairly and we will go more than half-way.
Leave to us the question whether Japanese laborers shall go to America
to annoy you, and we will stop them. But do not say that you will admit
the lazaroni of Hungary and Italy and Russia, simply because they are
white, and shut us out because we are yellow.
The Sinhalese, natives of Ceylon, while I was in Colombo, addressed a
remarkable communication to the Governor-General. They said a hundred
years ago there was established in the United States a new theory of
government - that there should be no taxation without representation.
"Now," said they, "we ask a share in the government of the island. We
pay taxes. You may fix a property qualification and say that no one
having less than a thousand pounds sterling shall share in the
government. We shall not object. You may also fix an educational
qualification. You may say that no one but a college graduate shall
take part in the government. We will not object. In short, you may fix
any qualification except a racial qualification. That would not be
fair." "And what answer have you to make?" I asked Mr. Crosby Rolles,
Editor of The Times of Ceylon. "To meet their request," he replied,
"would mean to turn over the government of Ceylon to them at once,
because there are 6,000 of them and only 5,000 English men, women and
children. We must stop educating them."
What do you think of that for a remedy? Personally, I do not think it
will work, any more than I think any rule of arbitrary repression can
endure. I cannot bring myself to sympathize altogether with the views
expressed by Mr. Roosevelt in his recent Guildhall speech. I take
refuge in what seems to me the larger experience and riper judgment of
Lord Curzon, of Kedleston, who in July, 1904, was also given the
freedom of the City of London in Guildhall, and on that occasion used
these words: "Depend upon it, you will never rule the East except
through the heart, and the moment imagination has gone out of your
Asiatic policy your empire will dwindle and decay." I am also impressed
with the correctness of Lord Morley's attitude. Speaking in support of
the Indian reform proposals two years ago, he said : "The Founder of
Christianity arose in an Oriental country, and when I am told that
Orientals always mistake kindness for fear, I must repeat that I do not
believe it, any more than I believe the stronger saying of Carlyle,
that
after all the fundamental question between any two beings is, Can I
kill thee, or canst thou kill me? I do not agree that any organized
society has ever subsisted upon either of those principles, or that
brutality is always present as a fundamental postulate in the relations
between rulers and ruled."
And Curzon and Morley have many supporters in their view. In smug
complacency, you may close your doors which look toward Asia, while you
open wide those which look toward Europe; you may refuse the Oriental
admission to your schools, while you accord the privilege to any child
of a European; you may pile import duties mountain high, and raise our
standards of living to any pitch of extravagance; you may build
warships without limit, and you may continue to treat the Asian as
legitimate prey. But I am confident that it will not avail.
As a soldier, whether at Omdurman, in the Sudan, or on 203-Metre Hill,
at Port Arthur, the man of color has shown himself a right good
fighting man; in commerce he has, by his industry, perseverance,
ingenuity and frugality, given us pause; and before the eternal throne
his spiritual welfare are worth as much as yours or mine.
Cornell University Library
DS 518.S87
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