Conscience Payment

After Pearl Harbor, Canada's West Coast, like the U.S. West Coast, was swept by panicky anger against its Japanese population. From British Columbia, where almost all of the Dominion's 23,000 Japanese lived, the new suspects were hustled into the interior. Their homes, farms and fishing boats were confiscated by the government, sold at sacrifice prices.

Last week, after about three years of study, Justice Minister Stuart Garson contritely declared that the property taken from the Japanese had been sold too cheaply. The government, he announced, would pay $1,222,829 to 1,300 citizens of Japanese descent to compensate them for their losses. Commented the Ottawa Citizen: "The settlement. . . will wind up an affair of which no Canadian can be proud."

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