4
Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Executive Order.
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.!
JAPAN.
[November 21.]
SECTION 2.
137
BY virtue of the authority vested in me by the Act of Congress, entitled "An Act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection and operation of the Panamá Canal and the sanitation and government of the canal zone, approved the 24th August, 1912, I hereby declare that all land and land under water within the limits of the canal zone are necessary for the construction, maintenance, operation, protection and sanitation of the Panama Canal, and the chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission is hereby directed to take possession, on behalf of the United States, of all such land and land under water; and he may extinguish, by agreement when practicable, all claims and titles of adverse claimants to the occupancy of the said land and land under water.
The White House, December 5, 1912.
WM. H. TAFT.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[F 4271/223/23]
No. 1.
Buenos Aires, October 28, 1921.
Mr. Macleay to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.-(Received November 21.) (No. 244. Confidential.) My Lord,
IN reply to your circular despatch of the 9th August last, I have the honour to report that I learn from the Argentine Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that no special legislation exists in this country regulating the immigration and land- owning rights of Japanese, Chinese and other coloured races.
The Japanese Chargé d'Affaires stated that no difficulties are, in practice, pot in the way of such immigration, but that Japanese immigrants are not admitted into the immigrants' hostel. He added that, once in this country, they are subject to its laws, and their landowning and other rights are not specially restricted.
The Japanese Government, he said, are not "sending" emigrants here, but those who come are well received and seem satisfied.
I beg leave to transmit herewith a copy of a despatch on this subject from His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Asunción reporting that the restrictions placed upon yellow immigration into Paraguay have been modified in theory by the Treaty of Commerce between Japan and Paraguay, a copy of which was forwarded with Mr. Goodhart's despatch No, 57 of the 13th February, 1920, but that in practice obstacles may well be put in the way of such immigration in future.
0
I have, &c.
RONALD MACLEAY.
(No. 70.) Sir,
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Mr. Paris to Mr. Macleay.
Asunción, October 18, 1921. WITH reference to your despatch No. 36 of the 13th September last on the subject of legislation in Paraguay regulating immigration and landowning rights of Japanese, Chinese and other coloured races, I have the honour to transmit to you, enclosed here- with, a summary translation of the Immigration Law of the 6th October, 1903, and of decree No. 11167 of the 22nd January, 1920, regulating the admission of immigrants into this country.
As regards landowning rights of Japanese, Chinese, &c., uo special legislation whatever exists, and they consequently possess exactly the same rights as other foreigners in this respect. In the case of the Japanese, however, it will be noticed that article 14 of the Immigration Law provides that certificates and immigrants' passages shall in no case be issued "to individuals of the yellow races", but article 2 of the Treaty of Commerce between Japan and Paraguay, ratified on the 15th August, 1921, places the Japanese in all respects on the saine footing as the subjects or citizens of the most favoured nation, permitting them to possess every description of immovable property on an equality with those of any other foreign country.
I questioned the Minister for Foreign Affairs regarding this apparent inconsistency, and be informed me that, in order to avoid a discussion of the point in Congress, the executive had decided to regard the Japanese, for the time being at least, as
“isleños" (islanders) and not as a yellow race. At the same time I gathered from him that the prospect offered by the celebration of the treaty, of possible Japanese immigration to Paraguay, is by no means regarded with general favour, and that the request of the Japanese Minister for a modification of article 14 of the Immigration Law was negatived and the peculiar course taken of provisionally adopting the term "isleños," solely with a view to retain some means of putting obstacles in the way of such immigration should occasion arise in the future.
I have, &c.
F. W. PARIS.
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