The Japanese protest against the new American Immigration Act was
delivered last Saturday. It will be remembered that even President Coolidge's earnest recommendation that the Bill should not be passed, was disregarded. The Gentlemen's Agreement which, so far as we know, had worked very well, has been done away with by the passing of this new Act, and in future most Japanese, and not merely Japanese labourers, are to be excluded. The Japanese protest points out that the Act is manifestly intended to apply to the Japanese, and is discriminatory in intention. Discrimination in any form, it is argued, is opposed to justice, but discrimination " based on race " is even more unwelcome, as America herself acknowledged when, in 1911, she denounced a commercial treaty with Russia on the ground that the treatment of aliens of a particular race (meaning the Jews) was unfair. Japan also reminds. America of the sincerity with which for sixteen years she has carried out the provisions of the Gentlemen's Agreement. We may add that a nation which is one of the Great Powers constituting the Council of the League of Nations has by that very fact a strong ground for resentment against contemptuous exclusion. Mass demonstrations have been held in Japan and feeling there runs very high. The two countries face the issue of racial equality, and ulti- mately that issue may be stated in language plainer than responsible Governments of different races- have yet eared to use to one another.
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