e
Act, brought a shipload of Hindus direct from India to Vancouver.
Vancouverites patrolled docks and would not let them land. A head tax
of five hundred dollars was leveled at John Chinaman. That didn't keep
John Chinaman out. It simply raised his wages; for the Chinese boss
added to the new hand's wages what was needed to pay the money loaned
for entrance fee. A special arrangement was made with the Mikado's
government to limit Japanese emigration to a few hundreds given
passports, but California went the whole length of demanding the total
exclusion of Brown Brothers.

Why? What was the Pacific Coast afraid of? When the State Departments
of the United States and Canada met the State Department of the Mikado,
practically what was said was this. Only in very diplomatic language:

Whiteman: "We don't object to your students and merchants and
travelers, but what we do object to is the coolies. We are a
population of a few hundred thousands in British Columbia, of less than
three million in the states of the Pacific. What with Chink and Jap
and Hindu, you are hundreds of millions of people. If we admit your
coolies at the present rate (eleven thousand had tumbled into one city
in a few months), we shall presently have a coolie population of
millions. We don't like your coolies any better than you do yourself!
Keep them at home!"

This conversation is paraphrased, but it is practically the substance
of what the representative of the Ottawa government said to a
representative of the Mikado.

Brown Brother: "We don't care any more for our coolies than you do. We
don't in fact, care a hoot what becomes of the spawn and dregs of
no-goods in our population. We are not individualists, as you white
men are! We don't aim to keep the unfit cumbering the earth! We don't
care a hoot for these coolies; but what we do care for is this--we
Orientals refuse to be branded any longer as an inferior race. We'll
restrain the emigration of these coolies by a passport system; but
don't you forget it, just as soon as we are strong enough, in the
friendliest, kindest, suavest, politest, most diplomatic way in the
world, we intend not to be branded any longer as an inferior race. We
intend to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the management of the
world's affairs. If we don't stand up to the job, throw us down! If
we stand up to the job--and we stood up moderately in China and Russia
and Belgium--we don't intend to as