NEWS from one hundred years ago: JAPAN AND RACIAL EQUALITY

The Press editorialises today about a postwar campaign by the Japanese government for international recognition of the principle of racial equality. Japan proposed last year that the Versailles Treaty include clauses banning discrimination on racial grounds; the proposal was vetoed by the governments of Australia and the United States. The New Zealand government was not keen on the Japanese proposal but handled things less stridently than Australia or the United States. Japan is now angry with state and federal authorities in Canada and the United States, where anti-Japanese racism is growing. The Press editorial points out that while most people in New Zealand ‘sympathise with’ anti-Japanese feeling in Canada and the United States, at the same time it is important to acknowledge how upsetting those feelings are for the people of our ally Japan. A Tokyo journal is quoted as saying that racism is ‘an inhuman and bestial instinct’ at odds with ‘the spirit of the League of Nations.’ Other journals in Tokyo are saying that ‘the Americans are trying to subject the whole world to their selfish plan.’ The Press ends by pointing out astutely that American attitudes have ‘aroused such bitter resentment’ in Japan that ‘future relations between the two great Pacific Powers are likely to be very difficult.’
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The Press, 22 October 1920