British Warning To Japan's Jingoes.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 29, 1913:
London Paper Tells Them They May Face a United Western World.
YAMAMOTO IS UNDER FIRE
Opposition Uses Land Law to Weaken the Premier's Strong Position.
    LONDON, Thursday May 29.— In an editorial on the California situation the Standard advises Japan to deal with the question as a purely business matter rather than to import into it sentiments of offended racial and National pride.
    "As the allies of Japan and the firm friends of the United States, the British people would deem it a misfortune of the first magnitude if the negotiations left behind feelings of exasperation on either side."
    The Standard proceeds to show that the Occidental world is interested in the larger aspects of the question raised by the Californian land law. In British Columbia no less than in California the feeling against the settlement of Japanese and Chinese is strong. Australian democracy has its own very decided views on the subject, even if the danger of a Japanese invasion is not great. But, the paper adds, the precedent of unrestricted admission would be dangerous should awakening China demand the same privileges, because a Chinese is a most efficient machine and has learned through a grimy struggle for existence, in his own over-populated country, the secret of subsisting on a minimum,
    "These considerations," continues the editorial, "should be borne in mind when the Japanese talk indignantly of the California attitude as an insult to their nation. The Japanese, if they have undergone a self-examination, must be conscious that race feeling plays no small part in their own attitude toward the foreigner.
    "The desire 'to take it out of the foreigner' in matters of business is confined to no one class in Japan. In no country are the Judges and Magistrates less inclined to show partiality, and sometimes even bare justice, to foreign claims. No people aim more successfully to squeeze out foreigners who are striving to make a living among them."
    The Japanese, therefore, are advised to go slow in making an issue of the race question, which, if allowed to develop, would oblige Japan eventually to face the united Western world.
    "It is unthinkable," says The Standard in conclusion, "that Great Britain could view with indifference any disposition on the part of her present allies to attack America. Between the people of the great republic and ourselves there are ties of blood and common interests which could under no circumstances be disregarded."

    TOKIO, May 28.— The Executive Committee of ex-Premier Count Katsura's party to-day passed a resolution, in which it was asserted that the Cabinet headed by Count Gombei Yamamoto could not be relied upon to settle the Californian alien land ownership question, and it was declared that, after a conference with Count Katsura, now convalescing from his recent illness, the party must adopt its own propaganda with regard to the dispute.
    There are indications that the opposition parties in Japan are utilizing the Californian alien land ownership legislation in attempts to discredit the Yamamoto Ministry, and to further their own interests. The Cabinet, however, is generally conceded to be in a strong position with the public, chiefly because of the extensive economies and administrative reforms which it has brought about since taking office.
    The Japanese Foreign Office has given out a statement that the efforts of the Foreign Office in the California question have not been as successful as might be wished, but that the negotiations with the United States Government are proceeding.