Farewell to the Japs

Like their neighbors in the Pacific states, British Columbians say now that they never want to see the Japs back on the Pacific Coast. Last week it looked as if their wish might come true. British Columbia's Premier John Hart said that the Dominion Government had purchased Japanese-owned land in the Fraser Valley.

These lands will be made available to veterans of World War II. The purchase of the farms liquidated the last and most important Japanese holdings on the Canadian Pacific coast. Canadian Japs' 1,270 fishing boats, their rooming houses and their small stores in Vancouver's "Little Tokyo" have long since been sold. To British Columbians, all this meant that after the war the Japanese would have to look elsewhere for a place to live and earn a living.

The Protests. Premier Hart did not explain just how the Dominion had acquired the Japanese farms. But this week in Vancouver it was reported that lawyers representing the Japanese were preparing to carry to the highest courts a protest against enforced sale of Japanese-owned residential properties.

Ottawa already has on its hands the report of a Royal Commission appointed to investigate other Japanese complaints (TIME, Jan. 3). These complaints come from Japanese in British Columbia's resettlement camps, which are either specially built communities like Tashme (see cut) or old mining towns. Through the Spanish Government, which protects Japanese interests, the camp councils asked more generous family allowances, better housing and recreational facilities.

The Larger Problem. In these camps are some 12,000 Japanese, both Canadian-born Nisei and immigrants from Nippon. Eleven thousand others have found temporary work in lumber camps or farms in other provinces. Of the 23,000 Japanese in Canada, only 431 have been interned since Pearl Harbor, 256 of them Canadian citizens. In spite of this record, British Columbians (and most Canadians) view both Nisei and other Japanese with deep suspicion. Unlike the U.S., Canada has not called any Canadians of Japanese blood in her draft.

On the Pacific Coast some Canadians argue that the only way to handle Canada's Japanese after the war is to repatriate them to Japan. But since 13,000 of them are Canadian-born and many of these do not even speak Japanese, this proposal offers no solution of the larger problem: what to do with this now-homeless and unwanted minority.*

*A Dominion-wide Gallup poll this week revealed that 80% of all Canadians think that Japs who are not citizens should be deported to Japan. On the other hand, 59% think naturalized or Canadian-born Japs should be allowed to stay.

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