treaty. Finally, the use of a portion of the Boxer indemnity fund to aid Chinese students to study in this country bids fair to increase the friendliness between the two peoples.

With Japan the situation has been very different. With that country we now have more points of contact than with any other nation except Great Britain. United States The fact is, though it is not yet recognized and Japan politically, that this embassy has taken the position held by that of Spain until 1898, as the second in importance. In addition to the direct questions involved by a large trade and an unpopular immigration, we have to deal with Japan as occupying Chinese territory in Manchuria, as well as in her relations to Spanish America, which are founded on a large and increasing immigration to nearly all of those republics. The situation is further complicated in the United States by the belief that Japan desires Hawaii and the Philippines, and in Japan by a disappointment, to say the least, that we secured the latter islands, as well as by resentment at our attitude toward Japanese emigrants.

The first difficulty lay in the objection on the part of a large element of American public opinion, particularly on the Pacific coast, to Japanese immigration. Japanese This objection was partly racial and partly immigration due to the fear of competition in the labor market with the overflowing populations of the Orient. The position and the self-conscious pride of Japan made impossible any such treaty arrangement as was made with China. In fact the treaties of 1894 and 1911 both granted a mutual right of immigration. Under these trying circumstances Secretary Root succeeded in putting the question at rest, by an agreement, expressed in a series of notes exchanged in 1907 and 1908, whereby the Japanese government itself undertook to prohibit the emigration of laborers to the United States. A similar understanding between Japan and Canada prevents the danger of the smuggling of coolies across the border, and a United States law prevents Japanese labor already resident

in Hawaii from migrating to the states. In this way Japanese pride was saved, and the desire of American opinion was for the time being met.

Japanese in the United States

The problem of the position of Japanese now resident in the United States has proved more perplexing. By treaty they are secured the rights of citizens of the most favored nation, but they are ineligible to citizenship. In the case of the Italians, who were unpopular in the nineties, the securing of the franchise has, politically at any rate, secured them full acceptance. The Japanese, being politically negligible, are at the mercy of legislation in so far as they are not protected by treaty rights. Their privileges have been interfered with by legislation in several states, in such a way, the Japanese government claims, as to violate our treaty obligation. The chief complaint has been of California. In 1913 the legislature of that state, after many years of agitation with regard to their use of schools and other privileges, adopted a small measure of discrimination by prohibiting leases of agricultural land for more than three years to persons "ineligible to citizenship." In the actual situation this restriction applies almost entirely to the Japanese. The qualifications for citizenship are of course a purely domestic affair; but the making of the standard of eligibility a rule for granting further favors, when that standard applies almost wholly to one nation, certainly raises a delicate question under the most favored nation clause.

This dispute still persists, but otherwise our relations have been exceptionally friendly. The floating of a Japanese loan in the United States at the time of the JapaneseAmerican un- war with Russia established a tie, and our derstanding coöperation in China was generally conducive to good feeling. In 1908 Secretary Root and the Japanese ambassador exchanged notes to the effect that their wish was for the peaceful development of their commerce on the Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced

by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned, and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China;" that they both stood for the independence and integrity of China; and that, should any event threaten the existing conditions, "it remains for the two governments to communicate with each other in order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take."

Avoidance of

liances

In thus defending our interests in the Pacific, and at the same time exerting a decided influence on international policy, even to the point of having possibly prevented the dismemberment of China, with entangling also little resulting international bad feeling and that of a character practically inevitable and without becoming involved in any entangling alliance, American diplomacy has shown itself at its best and worthy of the early traditions of the republic.1

1 W. R. Thayer, "John Hay," Harper's Magazine, 1915, especially 836842, throws much light on Hay's personality and on diplomatic problems, particularly the Alaska boundary and the canal problem. His life of Hay will appear in 1915.

'WITH Our policy of dominance in the Caribbean, of exclusion of foreign influence throughout Spanish America, of equal compromise with Great Britain in British

Africa

North America, of participation in Eastern Asia, of non-interference in Europe, Africa remains open. Our joining in an international receivership for Liberia in 1912, must, of course, be attributed to a special parental interest in that little republic; but our participation in the Algeciras conference in 1906 was merely an accidental result of our signing the act of 1880 concerning Morocco, and led to no entangling consequences. The Senate ratified the "General Act" of the conference with the distinct assertion that it was not to be deemed a departure on our part from our traditional policy of having nothing to do with "the settlement of questions which are entirely European in their scope." We have no African policy.

With Turkey, a power partly European and partly Asiatic, the United States has also assumed no special attitude. It has followed the example of European nations in Turkey reserving to its own consuls the jurisdiction over its own citizens. This matter has been the subject of perennial dispute, as differing texts have been found of our treaty of 1830, upon which our claim to the privileges of extraterritoriality have been chiefly based. Our insistence upon the practice, however, was placed by Hay in 1900 on the most favored nation clause, and we have maintained it. What action will be taken now that Turkey has (1914) abrogated

1 American Year Book, 1910. This annual and the International Year Book give good accounts of the diplomacy of each year.

the privilege in the case of all nations, is uncertain; the most favored nation clause ceases to have any significance in the connection, and our treaty is abrogated with the rest. We have taken no part in the concert of powers which has so often intervened and remonstrated as a result of conditions within the Turkish empire. In 1894 the Senate passed resolutions looking to expostulation because of reported "atrocities;" but President Cleveland stated that, since the European powers were bound together in the matter by the treaty of Berlin, we could not take action without inconvenience, and that he had already declined an invitation of the Turkish government to investigate conditions.

Missions

The protection of our citizens there has, however, been a perpetual source of annoyance and dispute. These controversies have been chiefly of two classes, those relating to missionaries, and those having to do with naturalized citizens of Turkish origin. Our missions, particularly numerous in Syria and including the important Roberts College at Constantinople, have been permitted, and have enjoyed protection. By an agreement of 1874, definitely interpreted in 1910, they have even been allowed to hold property. Our whole position has been simplified by the fact that united Europe demands the fullest freedom in such matters, and that we have since 1903 claimed and have not been denied, equal treatment. Our position has been that whatever concessions of this character have been granted European nations, become automatically ours by right. In the case of injury to missions or to other American property during the disorders so frequent in Turkey, we have never succeeded in making the Sublime Porte acknowledge our claims by formal treaty. In one instance, however, indemnity was virtually granted by an agreed overpayment for the construction of a Turkish war vessel by an American firm.

The situation of our naturalized natives of Turkey is