Japanese Strike in the Sandwich Islands
Japanese workers in the plantations of the Sandwich Islands are trying to raise wages by a strike. The editor of the Jiji, the local Japanese newspaper, has been prominent in the leading of this strike and in fomenting trouble. The sheriff broke into the offices of the Jiji, arrested the editors, seized their private papers and books, and now Ambassador Takahira at Washington has been appealed to and immediate investigation of alleged violation of treaty rights has been demanded. Those who were leading in the trouble in the Sandwich Islands are trying to imbue the minds of the strikers with the idea that the Japanese Government is with their movement and will demand satisfaction of the United States for the recent raid of the editorial offices of the local Japanese newspaper. What adds to the gravity of the situation is that two Japanese training-ships will soon arrive and the Japanese leaders are alleging that when the cruisers are in port lawlessness can not be punished, because the Tokyo government is in sympathy with and is backing the strikers. All evidence goes to show that the matter has not in any sense become international. The United States Government at Washington has not been appealed to by the Japanese Government. Both powers are waiting, allowing the local authorities to deal with the situation. Representative Japanese in San Francisco speak of the strike as assuming a status that they can not consider wise or proper. The consul-general at San Francisco has advised against any attempt to aid the Japanese in Hawaii, and says that the leading Japanese on the Coast are not in sympathy with the movement in Honolulu, H. I., which is largely the result of a few hotheads, and can not be raised to the dignity of an international question.