ADDRESS BY TOYOKICHI IYENAGA

February 24, 1921

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Boston City Club, and Gentlemen, Common interests of supreme importance that are involved in the relations between America and Japan are becoming more and more interwoven in the very structure of the national existence. The com

mercial transactions undertaken between the two countries alone are of no mean magnitude, the total aggregate of their annual trade reaching one billion dollars. America, you know, is the principal market of Japan's stable products, silk and artistic articles, while Japan ranks third among the dealers in American wares. Financially, Tokyo has already become an important factor in making the American metropolis the financial center of the world.

In international affairs it is of most vital consequence to the world whether, in the working out of the destiny, America and Japan join hands or part their ways. However, there are to-day in your country over 120,000 Japanese living and participating in many of your activities. It is, then, but natural that out of such a close relationship there will time and again arise difficulty and delicate questions which demand most considerate handling by the statesmen of both countries. California, the Japanese problem, is one of them. We should never permit the question to becloud our vision to the extent of losing the most comprehensive view of the whole aspect of the American-Japanese relationship. We should approach it with an open, unbiased mind, and we should seek, with the best interests of America and Japan at heart, an equitable solution of the vexing question.

As an introduction, my friends, to the discussion of the CaliforniaJapanese question, I beg your permission to give in the briefest possible way an outline of Japan's foreign policy, for it is closely connected with our theme of to-night.

Col. Theodore Roosevelt once remarked to me, with his characteristic emphasis and gesture, "America's proper sphere of activity is in this hemisphere. Japan's proper sphere of activity is in Asia." With this text the great statesman was propounding to me an idea of deep political significance. As President of the United States, Colonel Roosevelt has translated the idea into deeds by the Portsmouth Treaty of 1905, the gentleman's agreement of 1907, the agreement of 1908 negotiated on behalf of America by the able Secretary of State Elihu Root, and American recognition of the amalgamation of Korea into the Mikado's empire in 1910. The whole scheme of Japan's foreign policy, gentlemen, rests upon the consideration how best to play her part in Asia. Fundamentally Japan's policy is the policy of self-preservation, the policy of defense, and never of aggression. The Japanese alliance, which was and still remains the cornerstone of that policy, was solely for defensive purposes, to preserve peace in Asia and to safeguard the necessities of the two powers. It was solely and entirely in self-defense that Japan took up arms against China and Russia. Once enmeshed in continental policies, however, it became imperative for her to take such measures

as would insure and consolidate the position and gains that were secured at so enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure. Herein, my friends, is the genesis of Japan's foreign status in Korea and Manchuria. Precisely as this position of Asiatic men was the result of arbitrament of sword in response to a challenge by others, Japan's foreign policy, although conceived in self-defense, became, in the eyes of the outside world, a symbol of military aggrandizement.

Consequently, Japan is looked upon as a military nation bent upon conquest, and suspicion and fear are thereby engendered. This is extremely unfortunate. No stone should be left unturned to obliterate this unpleasant memory of the past. No effort would be too great for Japan to demonstrate to the world that her future lies not in territorial conquest but on the sea, and in the carrying trade, and on land in a commercial and industrial development.

Even at the present moment, my friends, the situation which exists there is because of necessity. So long as the Far East remains in such an unstable condition as there exists to-day, and so long as the Far East is not free from the menace of the Bolsheviki, who, professing pacifism, are not slow to imitate the military policy of autocratic Russia, alike and yet so different in many things, they have at last come to the one point in common, namely, in mustering Russia's enormous man power for military purposes. It is variously estimated to-day that Russia has from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 soldiers. We are not sure where these terrible energies of the militant Bolsheviki will be directed. Will it be to the Balkans, or to the nations of Asia?

There is, therefore, good reason for the Japanese people to maintain their military equipment, however welcome may be the move which will remove from them the burden of crushing debt and taxes.

The question of Japan's naval program, however, is a very different matter. It would be a feasible proposition to restrict the naval policy if the nations concerned approached it in good spirit and in dead earnest. Japan's naval program was formulated with a view to insuring the defense of the Island Empire, to safeguard the ready communication with its territories across the seas, and to protect its overseas trade. This, however, will very probably sound to you a mere platitude, for every other naval power will insist that this is its naval program. Manifestly, very plain talking is therefore demanded.

As the case stands to-day, there are only two navies in the world that are liable to threaten, in case of conflict, Japan's safety and her vital communications. It is clear then, to provide against the possible dangers feared from the activities of those two navies, that Japan is spending a vast sum of money for her naval equipment. To spend almost half of her entire revenue for armament, including both the military and the navy, which is ten times more than the expenditure allotted to the important subject of education, this is in itself perfectly absurd, and a tragedy if you may say so. But the irony of it is that this tragedy becomes comic when you consider that one of the naval powers is Japan's ally, and the other Japan's best friend.

Japan in her turn may well, however, inquire of her friends what is the purpose of their maintaining their vast naval armaments as they are doing to-day, and more especially of extending them as America is doing on a gigantic scale. America would doubtless say to Japan in answer, "This naval expansion is not intended at all to intimidate you, but to have a navy which is at least equal to that of any other power.' It is not within my province, my friends, to say what should be the proportion, or the ratio, or the extent of the American and British navies. From the standpoint of Japan I am rather tempted here to give you a homely illustration.

Fishermen, to whom I take pride in belonging, during the summer have no taste among themselves for neat dress, but in the family of nations when Uncle Sam bedecks himself with the most glorious garments which his enormous wealth can buy, and which the concourse of Boston tailors can conceive and get out in the most approved fashion, it becomes rather urgent for Japan to exhaust every possible means for the production of decent apparel, so as to make a respectable presentation in the congress of nations [laughter and applause]. The question of naval armament, my friends, is simply the question of proportion or ratio. Why, you know two million is to one 'million in exactly the same ratio as two is to one. Why not, then, convert the millions of useless and wasted millions of tons, which are devoted to the construction of the engines of destruction, to the building of ships that will carry messages of good-will and commerce between nations? [Applause.]

It is, then, clear, first, that the initiative of limiting naval armament must come from the chief offender who has inaugurated this fashion. In the second place, that the ratio to be maintained between the three great naval powers must be agreed upon, however difficult and delicate may be the task. Otherwise, the three great nations who form the mainstay of the present-day civilization are clearly heading toward bankruptcy, if not a still worse consequence.

Turning now to the California-Japanese question: The first important point to be borne in mind is that the Japanese problem in California is not the immigration, but the question of treatment of Japanese nationals legally already admitted to this country. This question is a national question, and California alone has no right whatever to dictate to the nation what its immigration policy should be. Moreover, over the first question the Washington and the Tokyo governments have no power whatever. They have settled it by the so-called gentleman's agreement, whereby Japan pledged to forbid herself the entrance of her laborers into your country. The federal government also, whether it be under a Democratic or Republican control, has steadfastly pursued the policy of justice and square dealing in its treatment of Japanese nationals already admitted here.

President Roosevelt acted upon this in 1907, President Wilson acted upon this in 1913. This stand of the central government is, I assure you, fully appreciated by Japan. What is not generally well known or, rather, understood in your country is the reason that has induced Japan to acquiesce in the gentleman's agreement and to what

sacrifices is this self-denying ordinance subjecting her. Let me explain it for a moment.

Consider Japan's population, her natural resources, and the living conditions prevailing therein. Japan proper has a population of about 67,000,000, which, together with 21,000,000 in Korea, Formosa, and other provinces, will make the population of the Mikado's empire close to 90,000,000, and the population of Japan proper alone is increasing yearly at the rate of several hundred thousand. While her population is increasing at this tremendous pace, her national resources, which are to give the food and other necessary supplies for the people, are not only extremely limited but they have neither expanded nor developed at a corresponding pace. Japan proper has an area of 147,655 square miles, which is 8,335 square miles less than that of the single state of California. What is more significant is the fact that out of this total area of 147,000 square miles at most only 30 per cent of it is arable, while 70 per cent is made up of mountains, forests, or land unfit for cultivation. It follows, therefore, that 57 or 60 million must eke out their subsistence from the products of 44,000 square miles; in other words, one fourth of an acre per capita. Scarcity of Japan's natural resources is no less striking than the shortage of arable land. You know she produces no cotton; she buys from you. She has no wool and only a limited supply of iron and of coal, of which the last item is the largest.item among those materials which she has. So far as coal is concerned, she as at present independent. She is therefore circumscribed within a narrowly limited area, with scanty resources and crowded with two thirds as many people as the entire population of the United States, and her problem of existence is not an easy one.

You see there the struggle for existence the keenest, society fettered with innumerable chains, and men and women cramped in thought and vision. The government officials occupying important places, learned university professors, and the like receive salaries which efficient bond clerks of America would spurn as too low for their labors. No wonder, then, that the number of ambitious, aspiring youths who want to seek their fortune abroad is legion. To whet their desires, there extends along the borderland of the Pacific shores vast tracts of land, as yet sparsely peopled, immense resources left unexploited, their virgin soil untouched. Yonder, on the opposite shore, there lies the island continent of Australia, which is 50,000 square miles larger than the United States, and with a population only similar to the population of the single city of New York. On the opposite shore of the Pacific is another British colony whose landed area surpasses that of their neighbor, but with a population of only one tenth of that of the Mikado's empire, and here in this United States there is a vast land of opportunity, a refuge for the oppressed, extending a very generous welcome to every race and creed of Europe.

The land area of our globe, you will remember, is approximately about 52,000,000 square miles. It is peopled by approaching 1,750,000,000 souls. Out of this total area of the earth, 85 per cent are under the control of the Caucasian people, who form but 35 per cent of the total

population of the world. Out of the larger portions of this Caucasian controlled land, the Japanese find themselves barred. Wherein is the justice of shutting out an industrious and law-abiding people from the God's earth which lies barren on account of the lack of man's hand? How far does your argument go, we ask of America, which first opened the door in Japan seven decades ago, by the knocking of Commodore Perry?

Neither the pressure at home that I have described, nor the consciousness of justice in asking, for her nationals, the class privileges granted to other nationals, has swerved Japan in keeping faithfully and most loyally the gentleman's agreement which she has entered into. And why? Why? These restrictive immigration measures adopted by the United States and by some of the British colonies have been acquiesced in without much ado from the higher consideration of international comity and of her own national well-being. Japan saw at the bottom of these restrictive measures that there lies the delicate and difficult question of race difference, if you please, which requires a long period for its proper adjustment. To ignore this fact and force the race issue would be to court disaster. It might result in the loss of friendship of her best associates in international affairs, and of the most vital interests involved therein. Take America, for instance, the best customer of Japan, buying annually half a billion dollars worth of goods. Far more important than this business transaction is the relationship existing between the two countries. Although Japan's constitution, her military system, and bureaucratic government have been modeled on those of Germany, the true aspirations and ideals of the Japanese people have been derived mainly from Anglo-American sources. They have imbibed the spirit of democracy from their neighbors across the Pacific.

Japan prided herself as being an honest broker between the East and the West, and in the fulfilment of this mission and in the exploitation or unfolding of the vast hidden resources of Asia, America's cooperation is indispensable. Japan has, therefore, shown the strongest disposition to meet the wishes of the American people. Herein, my friends, lies the spring of the gentleman's agreement, so that, so far as Japan is concerned, the immigration question remains no longer the issue. If any readjustment of the question be needed, or deemed necessary, I can see no reason why it cannot be accomplished on the same basis or by a treaty with the same intent as is reported to have been under discussion between Ambassador Shidehara and the State Department.

Coming now to the California situation, I beg to say at the outset that it would be unfair, ungracious, to put the blame upon the shoulders of Californians and decry them as unjust and inhuman. There are cases of anti-Japanese agitation which it will do well for my fellow-countrymen to seriously ponder and devise ways to remove the root of that trouble. The vast and all-embracing cause is the over-concentration of the Japanese population in California. Out of 120,000 Japanese population, as I have already said, over two thirds are living in California, and it is in that state that they show a marked tendency to increase in numbers