Oriental immigration had been an issue in Canada ever since
Chinese navvies had been imported in the early eighties to work
on the government sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Mine
owners, fruit farmers, and contractors were anxious that the
supply should continue unchecked; but, as in the United States,
the economic objections of the labor unions and the political
objections of the advocates of a "White Canada" carried the day.
Chinese immigration had been restricted in 1885 by a head tax of
$50 on all immigrants save officials, merchants, or scholars; in
1901 this tax was doubled; and in 1904 it was raised to $500. In
each case the tax proved a barrier only for a year or two, when
wages would rise sufficiently to warrant Orientals paying the
higher toll to enter the Promised Land. Japanese immigrants did
not come in large numbers until 1906, when the activities of
employment companies brought seven thousand Japanese by way of
Hawaii. Agitators from .the Pacific States fanned the flames of
opposition in British Columbia, and anti-Chinese and
anti-Japanese riots broke out in Vancouver in 1907. The Dominion
Government then grappled with the question. Japan's national
sensitiveness and her position as an ally of Great Britain called
for diplomatic handling. A member of the Dominion Cabinet,
Rodolphe Lemieux, succeeded in 1907 in negotiating at Tokio an
agreement by which Japan herself undertook to restrict the number
of passports issued annually to emigrants to Canada.
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