talking about us year in year out. We may have to get out any time. Why should we invest anything in this old ramshackle building? Our money is hard-earned, every penny of it; it would be rank foolishness to waste it as you suggest, when we don't know what is going to become of us next year. As well dump it in the mud! If our position were legally secure, why, that would be different."

It was extremely unfortunate that the Japanese came after the Chinese. The Chinese was submissive to the point of servility. He was easy to satisfy, and was happy sleeping and eating in his dismal hut. Had there not been in existence thousands of such huts vacated by the Chinese and waiting for new tenants, the Japanese might have built more respectable dwellings. The presence of Chinese, moreover, had instilled in the bosoms of the Californians a fixed prejudice against all Oriental peoples. They had got the notion that Asiatics must come to their country, if they are to come at all, only to hew wood and draw water for them, and not to become independent and self-reliant. So long as, therefore, the Japanese walked in the footsteps of the Chinese and showed no desire for independence, they were tolerated and even praised. But once the little brown men showed their mettle, Californians heaped upon them vituperations and slanders which they did not deserve. What success the Japanese farmers have achieved is due to naught but their perseverance, their temperance, their willingness to work. As Miss Alice Brown, of Florin, says in a pamphlet, "the very fact that the Japanese is an industrious being and a highly successful producer gives white farmers spasms of alarm. They are taking our farms' is the woeful wail, which means that the slothful must get to work. So, in their blindness, they would destroy the

productivity of the Japanese, return to the past status of barren fields, that their meagre and inferior product would meet no competition. It is blind, selfish greed that recognizes only self as a factor in the world's struggle. It is ignorance and inhumanity that does not consider the larger whole."

What I have said about the mode of living of Japanese farmers may furnish anti-Japanese agitators a pretext for restricting their rights. The Japanese, they may argue, do not spend their earnings on American merchandise, but buy Japanese goods, thus benefiting little the community in which they live. Ah! the old story of the pennywise. As a matter of fact, the Japanese patronizes American stores more than he patronizes Japanese dealers. But, even if he sent all his profits to his native country, what of that? His contribution to California would still be great.

Take, for example, the case of Florin, which has been cited by the anti-Japanese legislators at Sacramento as a pretext for the need of laws discriminating against the Japanese. In the neighbouring region of Florin the soil is a shallow bedrock, abounding in sloughs. The land has to be irrigated by means of artesian water conducted through ditches. Because of the great amount of money and labour required in the boring of wells and the levelling of land for irrigation, there was but little inducement for the white farmer, though the soil, with adequate preparation, was especially adapted to grapes and strawberries. Before the advent of Japanese, the country was poor, its output of fruits being extremely meagre. The vast fields had been sowed to grain, but the fertility of the soil was found so limited that each succeeding year decreased the yield until the grain industry was no longer profitable. At last the land was permitted to lie

idle; but when the Japanese came in its owners saw a chance to turn it into a profit, offering it to them on yearly payments for a price they never would have gotten from the white investor. In a year's time the barren fields were changed into attractive berry gardens. With their usual foresight, the Japanese plant grape-vines along with strawberries, so that when the three-years' life of the strawberry ceases a productive vineyard takes its place. Their vines are robust and their berry plants luxuriant, and in comparison with them those raised by the white farmers look sadly neglected. The Japanese spare no pains in their efforts to improve the quality of their produce, knowing that the best quality brings the highest price.

And to-day Florin boasts of shipping $150,000 worth of strawberries annually. The shipment of grapes is also large. Who created this profitable industry but the Japanese? He it was who put Florin on the map, a tiny sleepy town up to fourteen years ago. The opponents of the Japanese naturally ask, "What becomes of this money that the Japanese get?" The answer is given by an American resident of Florin, Mr. L. M. Landsborough. He informs me that the Japanese strawberry growers of Florin annually pay the express company from $15,000 to $20,000. Then, the production of strawberries, valued at $150,000, must confer a considerable profit upon the box-maker, besides giving employment to his millhands. The railroad, too, shares in the growers' profit, while the well-borer and the engine-man are paid high wages. Finally, the storekeeper sells the Japanese growers and their employés provisions and sundry articles, for these eclectic folk from the Orient are no more satisfied with Japanese articles alone than they are satisfied with American goods-they wish to enjoy

both. Last, but not least, the local banker, who is always willing to advance cash for the Japanese, has due share in their profitable industry. No industry can be carried on without due investment. Farming means expenditure as well as profit-making. He indeed must be blind who fails to see that a strawberry industry of $150,000 confers a great benefit upon the community in which that industry is carried on.

We think ill of the Russians because they ill-treat the Jews. The Jewish problem in Russia is a problem arising out of the contact of a wonderfully alert and adroit race with a peculiarly phlegmatic, dull race. The Russian peasants, ignorant and guileless, usually go to the wall when confronted with the business acumen of the Jews. The Japanese question in California presents a totally different aspect. Here relations of the Japanese with the white farmers are not relations between two races separated from each other by a chasm of intellectual discrepancy. Intellectually both, I believe, stand on a par; there is neither inferiority nor superiority between them. The American, however, has the advantage over the Japanese in that he is conversant with English and is familiar with the farming methods and tools employed in this country. In the stratagem of bargaining, too, the American is, on the whole, more than the equal of the Japanese. I should be the last man to accept without much qualification such sweeping assertions as are made by Miss Alice Brown as to the relative moral integrity of the Japanese and American, and I give the following passage from her pamphlet for what it is worth:

"It is the whites that bear the record of shame and dishonour in dealing with the Japanese. It is no disgrace to swindle them in their ignorance, to sell them

a worthless horse as a perfect animal for a round sum, to unload worthless things on them for a big price, and to overcharge them at every turn. It is these very same white tricksters who denounce the Japanese when they are foiled in their own game; for the Japanese are an alert, brainy people, and they soon learn a means for selfdefence. When they can no longer be exploited, they are dishonest. It is the same old story of greed and the unscrupulous factor is the white man."

It is chiefly untiring industry and unwavering perseverance, and little else, which crown Japanese enterprise with success even where the white farmer reaps a failure.