[Enclosure—Extract]
Speech by the Japanese Minister for Foreign
Affairs (Shidehara) at the Opening of the Japanese Diet, July 1,
192469
As you are aware, a new Immigration Act recently passed the United
States Congress, and having been approved by the President, it has
been finally written into the statute-books of the country. As to
the genesis of this Act, you will recall that of late years in the
United States, immigration from foreign countries, especially from
Southern and Eastern Europe, has been showing a marked increase. It
has come to be generally believed that it will
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be a matter of practical difficulty to
merge these foreign elements in the homogeneous community of
original Americans. It has accordingly been felt necessary to impose
a more rigorous restriction upon foreign immigration. As for the
emigration of Japanese laborers to the United States, an arrangement
popularly called the Gentlemen’s Agreement has long been in force.
Under that arrangement the Japanese Government has been exercising a
prohibitory control over the departure to the United States of all
classes of laborers except certain relatives of those living in the
United States and persons who are returning to that country after a
temporary visit to Japan. Consequently, the increase of new Japanese
immigrants in the United States has not been, in fact, of any
appreciable number. It is believed that the new Immigration Act was
originally intended to institute a rigorous restriction of
immigration in general, and that there was no reason for embodying
in the Act a provision designed specifically to exclude Japanese
immigrants. It is sincerely to be regretted that while the Bill was
under discussion in Congress, certain leaders of anti-Japanese
persuasions should have succeeded in putting through a clause to the
effect that aliens ineligible to citizenship should, as a rule, be
denied admission into the United States.
In reviewing the development of this question, there are three points
which engage our attention.
- First, no intimation has lately been made, even by the
exclusionists, of any inferiority of the Japanese race. Their
contention is in effect that the Japanese are to the Americans
what oil is to water. Neither oil nor water can be said to be
superior or inferior to the other, but the fact is that in no
case can oil dissolve and merge in water. In other words, they
say, Japanese are unassimilable to American life, and the
introduction of such alien elements will prove a source of
danger to the United States. Such an argument formed one of the
essential phases for the exclusion of Japanese; it was not on
the ground of the inferiority of the Japanese race that the
exclusion clause was adopted. It should, however, be pointed out
that the plea of Japanese unassimilability is no more than an
arbitrary presumption unsupported by any evidence of facts. Our
views on this point have been already roughly set forth in the
Note of May 31 last addressed by the Japanese Government to the
Government of the United States.
- Secondly, it has always been consistently maintained by the
United States, that the liberty to limit and control immigration
is one of the essential attributes of the inherent sovereign
rights of each nation. The same argument was repeatedly invoked
with special emphasis in the discussion of the exclusion clause.
“We understand that the importance placed on this point by the
United States is due to the
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special conditions of that country. But we
have no intention of calling this doctrine in question. The
recognition, however, of such principle does not lead to any
conclusion that the exclusion clause is in no respect repugnant
to the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Japan and the
United States.
- Thirdly, it should be appreciated that the President and the
Secretary of State of the United States have from the outset
shown their opposition to the exclusion clause, and have made
all possible efforts to have it eliminated from the Act. Public
opinion in the United States, as reflected by a great section of
the American press, also appears to be sympathetically disposed
to Japan’s position in the matter. It is a significant fact that
the legislation in question has met with uniform disapproval by
many influential newspapers of the United States.
Our protest against the exclusion clause is based upon the conviction
that a discriminatory treatment, as laid down in that clause, is
contrary to the dictates of justice and fairness, and is imposed
upon us in disregard of the ordinary rules of international comity.
The legislation is now an accomplished fact in the United States,
but we can by no means concede that the question is closed. Until
our just contentions shall have been given satisfaction, we shall
maintain our protest, and shall use our best possible endeavors to
seek an amicable adjustment of the question and to ensure forever
the traditional friendship between the two nations.
