File No. 811.52/190.
The Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Japanese Ambassador.1
The two communications addressed to you by the Honorable the Secretary of State on the 16th of July last, in further discussion of the question of the recently enacted alien land law of California, have been received and carefully considered by the Imperial Government.
That act, by depriving the Japanese subjects of the right of land ownership, while freely continuing the right, not only in favor of the subjects and citizens of all the other powers with which the United States maintain reciprocal treaty relations, but in favor of many nontreaty aliens, has established a discrimination of the most marked and invidious character against Japan. The measure is, moreover, in the opinion of the Imperial Government, unjust and inequitable, and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Japanese-American treaty, as well as at variance with the accepted precepts governing and regulating the intercourse of good neighborhood, and being admittedly ex industria discriminatory against this Empire as compared with other states, it is also mortifying to the nation and disregarded of the national susceptibilities of the Japanese people.
This is the gravamen of Japan’s complaint. The notes of the Honorable W. J. Bryan contain remarks in explanation and extenuation of the action of California, but nothing, in the estimation of the Imperial Government, which answers fundamentally to that complaint or which tends to shake their conviction regarding the main question. If, as is confidently believed, the existing treaty between Japan and the United States has been violated, there is but one remedy, and the Imperial Government are unable to escape the conclusion that the duty of applying that remedy devolves solely upon the Government of the United States, as the measure complained of has, despite the protest lodged by you, been permitted to go into operation.
The Imperial Government reserve for the present the further discussion of the question at issue. There are, however, some statements and conclusions advanced by Mr. Bryan which the Imperial Government feel it their duty forthwith to call in question. This instruction is designed to answer those observations.
I hasten, in the first place, to say that the Imperial Government do not for a moment imagine that the discrimination complained of was the outcome of a national policy. They regard, and have from the outset regarded, the action in question as of a local character. But, whatever causes may have been responsible for the measure, it can not be denied that, in its final manifestation, it is clearly indicative of racial antagonism. Nor, in the opinion of the Imperial Government, can any justification for such enactment be found in the assertion that it was “the emanation of economic conditions.” It is the high office of modern treaties of commerce to prevent undue international discriminations, and the most favored nation principle, which finds a place [Page 652] in nearly all such compacts, has had the effect, in an international sense, of equalizing opportunities in all the various avenues of commercial and industrial life. It is true that special privileges are, in exceptional circumstances, sometimes granted by one nation in favor of another, but the present case stands out, it is believed, as the one single instance without historical parallel, in which a state maintaining, by treaty, the reciprocal most favored nation relations with another state, has ever, in a matter such as that under discussion, essayed to discriminate against such other state, as compared with third powers with which no such relations exist. The action of Mexico in 1863, which was so strongly condemned by the United States, furnishes no such parallel, since the law in that case was, it appears, based upon considerations of a geographic nature exclusively.
The Secretary of State denies the proposition advanced by you to the effect that the California statute discriminates against the Japanese subjects, and that in the matter of land ownership aliens are usually, internationally speaking, placed on national or most favored nation footing. In support of that denial he cites the practice which prevails in the United States on the subject of alien land ownership, and he adds. “that the citizens of countries not having such treaty with the United States (i. e., treaty granting, either expressly or by inference, under the most favored nation clause, the right of land ownership) were unable to enjoy the right of ownership.” This statement has naturally caused surprise to the Imperial Government, and they confess their inability to understand it. It not only conflicts directly with the California law in question and is irreconcilable with the statutes of many States of the Union by which the right of alien ownership is accorded independently of a treaty stipulations, but it declares, in effect, that the discrimination complained of, which has been repeatedly recognized as a fact, is without foundation. In these circumstances it is quite sufficient for the Imperial Government to repeat their contention that, by the California enactment, the Japanese subjects are denied the right of real estate ownership in localities in which that right is freely conceded to aliens belonging not only to the states which have no treaty engagements with the United States on the subject, but to the powers which have no commercial treaties whatever with the United States.
Recurring to the subject of the Mexican incident, I desire to say that the Imperial Government are unable, upon the record in the case, to concur with Mr. Bryan in the view that the United States was in the end, obliged practically to abandon its contention. Reading in natural sequence the correspondence exchanged between the United States and Mexico, the conviction is, it seems to me, irreprovable, that the quoted words of the Secretary of State on the occasion, instead of being regarded as an argument, must be accepted as a deliberate conclusion of the American Government on the subject.
It is unnecessary, it seems to me, to follow Mr. Bryan in his remarks concerning the negotiations connected with the conclusion of the treaty of 1911. It is sufficient to say that the reason, why no stipulation regarding land ownership was inserted in the treaty, is because neither contracting party desired at that time such a stipulation, the United States equally with Japan. The assurance contained in Viscount Uchida’s note of February 21, 1911, on the subject [Page 653] of liberal interpretation of the Japanese land law, was given at the instance of the United States, because of the condition of reciprocity contained in that law. The assurance was given, as stated in the note, “In return for the rights of land ownership which are granted to Japanese by the laws of the various States of the United States.”
The laws of Japan on the subject of alien land tenure are not illiberal, but, in any case, they contain no provisions discriminating, in any manner whatever, against the citizens of the United States. On the contrary, in all that relates to land ownership, as well as in the matter of all other civil rights, the American citizens, without distinctions and without conditions, are accorded in Japan full and complete most favored nation treatment, and there is no desire on the part of the Japanese administration to modify this state of things. What Japan claims is nothing more than fair and equal treatment.
The Secretary of State, it is observed, dwells at length upon the subject of labor immigration into the United States, and, in the same relation, he refers to the action of Japan in circumstances somewhat analogous to those existing in America. The reason or necessity for this exposition is not understood by the Imperial Government. The question of immigration has nothing whatever to do with the present controversy, and any reference to it only tends to obscure the real issue. This announcement I wish to make very categorical. More than four years ago, the Imperial Government willingly cooperated with the American Government in adopting suitable measures in regulation of labor movements from Japan to the United States. The steps thus taken were entirely efficacious, so that during the past three years considerably more Japanese laborers left the United States than have entered that country. The Government of the United States has recognized and frankly admitted the sufficiency of the measures enforced by the Imperial Government in the matter. The Japanese Ambassador to the United States, at the time of the conclusion of the treaty of 1911, declared under the authority of his Government that the Imperial Government were fully prepared to maintain with equal effectiveness the limitation and control which were then exerted in regulation of the emigration of laborers to the United States. Accordingly, in order to correct and finally dispel the popular error, I wish to say that there is no question whatever between Japan and the United States on the subject of the Japanese labor immigration into the United States. The present controversy relates exclusively to the question of the treatment of the Japanese subjects who are lawfully in the United States or may hereafter lawfully become resident therein consistently with the existing regulations. So far as such subjects are concerned, the Imperial Government claim for them fair and equal treatment, and are unable either to acquiesce in the unjust and obnoxious discrimination complained of, or to regard the question as closed so long as the existing state of things is permitted to continue.
You are requested to explain the substance of this instruction to the Secretary of State and deliver a copy.
- Received by the Ambassador August 23, 1913, and received at the Department of Slate August 26, 1913.↩