The Path Of Empire [70]
schools. The Japanese promptly protested, and their demand for their rights under the treaty of 1894 was supported by the Tokio Government. The international consequences of thus discriminating against the natives of so rising and self-confident a country as Japan, and one conscious of its military strength, were bound to be very different from the difficulties encountered in the case of China. The United States confronted a serious situation, but fortunately did not confront it alone. Australia and British Columbia, similarly threatened by Japanese immigration, were equally opposed to it.
Out of deference to Great Britain, with which she had been allied since 1902, Japan consented that her immigrants should not force their way into unwilling communities. This position facilitated an arrangement between the United States and Japan, and an informal agreement was made in 1907. The schools of San Francisco were to be open to oriental children not over sixteen years of age, while Japan was to withhold passports from laborers who planned to emigrate to the United States. This plan has worked with reasonable success, but minor issues have kept alive in both countries the bad feeling on the subject. Certain States, particularly California, have passed laws, especially with regard to the ownership and leasing of farm lands, apparently intended to discriminate against Japanese who were already residents. These laws Japan has held to be violations of her treaty provision for consideration on the "most favored nation" basis, and she has felt them to be opposed in spirit to the "gentlemen's agreement" of 1907. The inability of the Federal Government to control the policy of individual States is not accepted by foreign countries as releasing the United States from international obligations, so that, although friendly agreements between the two countries were reached on the major points, cause for popular irritation still remained.
Philander C. Knox, who succeeded Root as Secretary of State, devoted his attention rather to the fostering of American interests in China than to the development of the general policies of his Department. While he refrained from asking for an American sphere of influence, he insisted that American capitalists obtain their fair share of the concessions for railroad building, mining, and other enterprises which the Chinese Government thought it necessary to give in order to secure capital for her schemes of modernization. As these concessions were supposed to carry political influence in the areas to which they applied, there was active rivalry for them, and Russia and Japan, which had no surplus capital, even borrowed in order to secure a share. This situation led to a tangled web of intrigue, perhaps inevitable but decidedly contrary to the usual American diplomatic habits; and at this game the United States did not prove particularly successful. In 1911 there broke out in China a republican revolution which was speedily successful. The new Government, as yet unrecognized, needed money, and the United States secured a share in a six-power syndicate which was organized to float a national loan. The conditions upon which this syndicate insisted, however, were as much political as they were pecuniary, and the new Government refused to accept them.
On the accession of President Wilson, the United States promptly led the way in recognizing the new republic in China. On March 18, 1913, the President announced: "The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be a party to those conditions." The former American policy of non-interference was therefore renewed, but it still remained uncertain whether the entrance of the United States into Far Eastern politics would do more than serve to delay the European dominance which seemed to be impending in 1898.
CHAPTER XV. The Panama Canal
While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the morasses of the Philippines,
Out of deference to Great Britain, with which she had been allied since 1902, Japan consented that her immigrants should not force their way into unwilling communities. This position facilitated an arrangement between the United States and Japan, and an informal agreement was made in 1907. The schools of San Francisco were to be open to oriental children not over sixteen years of age, while Japan was to withhold passports from laborers who planned to emigrate to the United States. This plan has worked with reasonable success, but minor issues have kept alive in both countries the bad feeling on the subject. Certain States, particularly California, have passed laws, especially with regard to the ownership and leasing of farm lands, apparently intended to discriminate against Japanese who were already residents. These laws Japan has held to be violations of her treaty provision for consideration on the "most favored nation" basis, and she has felt them to be opposed in spirit to the "gentlemen's agreement" of 1907. The inability of the Federal Government to control the policy of individual States is not accepted by foreign countries as releasing the United States from international obligations, so that, although friendly agreements between the two countries were reached on the major points, cause for popular irritation still remained.
Philander C. Knox, who succeeded Root as Secretary of State, devoted his attention rather to the fostering of American interests in China than to the development of the general policies of his Department. While he refrained from asking for an American sphere of influence, he insisted that American capitalists obtain their fair share of the concessions for railroad building, mining, and other enterprises which the Chinese Government thought it necessary to give in order to secure capital for her schemes of modernization. As these concessions were supposed to carry political influence in the areas to which they applied, there was active rivalry for them, and Russia and Japan, which had no surplus capital, even borrowed in order to secure a share. This situation led to a tangled web of intrigue, perhaps inevitable but decidedly contrary to the usual American diplomatic habits; and at this game the United States did not prove particularly successful. In 1911 there broke out in China a republican revolution which was speedily successful. The new Government, as yet unrecognized, needed money, and the United States secured a share in a six-power syndicate which was organized to float a national loan. The conditions upon which this syndicate insisted, however, were as much political as they were pecuniary, and the new Government refused to accept them.
On the accession of President Wilson, the United States promptly led the way in recognizing the new republic in China. On March 18, 1913, the President announced: "The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be a party to those conditions." The former American policy of non-interference was therefore renewed, but it still remained uncertain whether the entrance of the United States into Far Eastern politics would do more than serve to delay the European dominance which seemed to be impending in 1898.
CHAPTER XV. The Panama Canal
While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the morasses of the Philippines,