The recent" settlement" of the dispute between the people of
San Francisco and the Japanese residents seems to have settled very little. At the end of last week there was a riot in which a Japanese restaurant was attacked. According to the New York correspondent of the Times, two members of the Labour Union committed the unforgivable offence of dining at this: alien house. They were observed, and some of their fellow-members demanded that they should leave the restaurant or give up their Union cards. They refused. A mob then gathered and the attack began. The Japanese have since retaliated by an assault on two Americans. A curious indication of the deplorable irresponsibility of San Francisco is that it was not thought worth while to mention the riot in the ordinary news telegraphed to New York. The Times correspondent says that the first information came in the form of a protest from Tokio. No arrests are reported from San Francisco, although, according to the Times correspondent, attacks on Japanese property occur daily. Racial animosity is at the root of the whole matter. And owing to the domina- tion of the Union of Labour there are about forty thousand persons out of employment, whose idle bands find plenty of opportunities for mischief. The Japanese public are said to be indignant, but their inclination is evidently to distinguish between the known right feelings of Mr. Roosevelt and the carelessness of Treaty obligations in San Francisco. The old difficulty of the helplessness of Washington in dealing with State rights is a very real one. A Japanese news agency, which is thought to be inspired by the Foreign Office, says of the worst of the recent riots : "Even the most conserva- tive and hopeful fear that a repetition of the occurrence
would have serious results on the relations of the two countries."
