Japan's Protest Against the Annexation of Hawaii

TLDR: In this article, the situation finally became so desperate that the Hawaiian officials, alleging irregularities, refused admittance to 1,174 Japanese immigrants during March, 1897, and sent them back to Japan.

Abstract: LTHOUGH the efforts of Hawaii to establish treaty relagA tions with Japan met with success in 1871, no considerable number of Japanese immigrants arrived during the years immediately following. Primarily to offset the numerical preponderance of the Chinese plantation laborers, the Hawaiian government signed an immigration convention with Japan in 1886.1 With startling rapidity the islands were flooded with Japanese, whose numbers increased from 116 in 1883 to 24,407 in 1896, out of a total population of 109,020.2 Faced with the prospect of domination at the hands of a foreign people, the Hawaiian government began as early as 1887 to take fruitless measures to stem this oriental inundation. The situation finally became so desperate that the Hawaiian officials, alleging irregularities, refused admittance to 1,174 Japanese immigrants during March, 1897, and sent them back to Japan.3 It is clear that this drastic step was considered an act of self-preservation, and in some quarters the impending dangers were thouglht to be so serious that annexation to the United States was urged as the only possible alternative.4 There was no hostile demonstration on the part of the Japanese in Hawaii as a result of this rejection, although two mass meetings were held in Honolulu, one of which adopted resolutions of protest.5 Wlhen the returning immigrants arrived in