811.5294/430
The Chargé in Japan (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 30.]
Sir: With reference to my Despatch No. 179–E, of December 31. 1923,1 and to previous despatches reporting a recrudescence of agitation over the recent Supreme Court decisions in the West Coast land cases,2 I have the honor to report that, in answer to an interpellation (Enclosure l1) by Mr. Kayose Kikuo, a member of the Seiyukai party, the Government made the following written statement:
“1—Immediately after the United States Supreme Court’s decision regarding the alien landownership dispute was made known, the Imperial Government took steps to call the serious attention of the United States to its grave consequences3 and is now awaiting a reply from that Government.
2—The time is still premature for disclosing full details of the steps taken.
3—The Japanese agriculturists in America are bestowing their best consideration on the steps to be taken to save the situation. In view of this fact, the Government intends to wait and see the result of their deliberations, while causing the Japanese Consulates in the affected districts to give such help as is deemed appropriate.
4—All circumstances must be fully considered in deciding the propriety or otherwise of revising the Japanese-American treaty of commerce and navigation in force, and the Government is not yet in a position to state whether to revise it or not.
5—For the above-mentioned reason, the Government has not yet approached the United States Government on the matter, but it is now studying the problem.
Double Nationality
6—The Government recognises the need for enabling those who have secured foreign nationality by virtue of their having been born in those foreign countries to forsake Japanese nationality even in [Page 334] the case of men of over seventeen years old, and investigations are now being made with this end in view.
Japan’s Alien Land Law
7—The Government intends to enforce the alien landownership law promulgated in 1910 after due revision and the matter is now being studied.”
It is significant that the answer of the Government to the interpellation was subscribed to by the Foreign Office, the Home Office, and the War and Navy Departments which thus put themselves on record for the first time as being prepared to concede their claims for military service on children born in America of Japanese parents.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, pp. 458 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩
- See memorandum of Dec. 4, 1923, from the Japanese Embassy, ibid., 460.↩