But when one began to ask questions one got lost in a maze of hints, reservations, and orations, mostly delivered with constraint, as though the talkers were saying a piece learned by heart.  Here are some samples:—­

A man penned me in a corner with a single heavily capitalised sentence.  ’There is a General Sentiment among Our People that the Japanese Must Go,’ said he.

‘Very good,’ said I.  ‘How d’you propose to set about it?’

‘That is nothing to us.  There is a General Sentiment,’ etc.

’Quite so.  Sentiment is a beautiful thing, but what are you going to do?’ He did not condescend to particulars, but kept repeating the sentiment, which, as I promised, I record.

Another man was a little more explicit.  ‘We desire,’ he said, ’to keep the Chinaman.  But the Japanese must go.’

’Then who takes their place?  Isn’t this rather a new country to pitch people out of?’

’We must develop our Resources slowly, sir—­with an Eye to the Interests of our Children.  We must preserve the Continent for Races which will assimilate with Ours.  We must not be swamped by Aliens.’

’Then bring in your own races and bring ’em in quick,’ I ventured.

This is the one remark one must not make in certain quarters of the West; and I lost caste heavily while he explained (exactly as the Dutch did at the Cape years ago) how British Columbia was by no means so rich as she appeared; that she was throttled by capitalists and monopolists of all kinds; that white labour had to be laid off and fed and warmed during the winter; that living expenses were enormously high; that they were at the end of a period of prosperity, and were now entering on lean years; and that whatever steps were necessary for bringing in more white people should be taken with extreme caution.  Then he added that the railway rates to British Columbia were so high that emigrants were debarred from coming on there.

‘But haven’t the rates been reduced?’ I asked.

’Yes—­yes, I believe they have, but immigrants are so much in demand that they are snapped up before they have got so far West.  You must remember, too, that skilled labour is not like agricultural labour.  It is dependent on so many considerations.  And the Japanese must go.’

’So people have told me.  But I heard stories of dairies and fruit-farms in British Columbia being thrown up because there was no labour to milk or pick the fruit.  Is that true, d’you think?’

’Well, you can’t expect a man with all the chances that our country offers him to milk cows in a pasture.  A Chinaman can do that.  We want races that will assimilate with ours,’ etc., etc.

’But didn’t the Salvation Army offer to bring in three or four thousand English some short time ago?  What came of that idea?’

‘It—­er—­fell through.’

‘Why?’

’For political reasons, I believe.  We do not want People who will lower the Standard of Living.  That is why the Japanese must go.’