Malays control the Cape Town fish business - they have not yet
competed with the whites; but I was earnestly assured by many men that
there was danger of their lowering the standard of life and wages. The
demand, therefore, in certain quarters is that they go - absolutely and
unconditionally. (You may have noticed that Democracies are strong on
the imperative mood.) An attempt was made to shift them shortly before I
came to Vancouver, but it was not very successful, because the Japanese
barricaded their quarters and flocked out, a broken bottle held by the
neck in either hand, which they jabbed in the faces of the
demonstrators. It is, perhaps, easier to haze and hammer bewildered
Hindus and Tamils, as is being done across the Border, than to stampede
the men of the Yalu and Liaoyang.[5]
[Footnote 5: Battles in the Russo-Japanese War.]
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.
