Japanese Miners

            It is reported that there are one thousand Japanese on their way to the Yukon.  All that is authentically known about their movements up to date is that they have left the land of the Mikado for the gold fields in steamers specially charactered, and that a great many of them are practical miners.  The Japs are a very go-ahead people, and seem determined to compete with their Occidental brethren in every enterprise.  As a rule those we encounter in this country are unskilled laborers although very many have distinguished themselves as artists and are associated with the finer crafts.  Coming here to learn the ways of the new world, they are prepared to work for almost anything that offers.  A couple of years ago when they first made their appearance in any numbers, they succeeded in outdoing the Chinese, not that they were a better class of men as laborers, but that their services could be secured at less cost.  True they try to adapt themselves to the ways of the people among whom they are cast, but as between them and the ordinary white man the competition is not fair, inasmuch as the Japs can live so very much cheaper, his wants being few.  Like the Chinese, they are a most undesirable class of immigrant.  They never intend to settle down in the country, and take no practical interest in its institutions.  Their incoming should therefore not be encouraged, especially on such a large and well organized scale as that in question.  A couple of thousand Japs would make their presence disagreeably felt in any particular section of the country, but as miners are not at all partial to Oriental labor the new comers may reasonably expect a hot time in the gold fields.