Since their rupture of diplomatic relations with Japan in January last year, the Peruvian Government have taken various measures of economic pressure against resident Japanese. They have ordered the compulsory removal of a part of the Japanese from their established homes and, in collusion with the United States, the deportation of several hundreds of leading Japanese to the latter country for internment.
In addition to these measures of maltreatment, they have recently promulgated an order that agricultural, manufacturing, commercial and all other enterprises under the management of resident Japanese be compulsorily transferred to Peruvians and, in case such transfers are not completed by May 31, that they be expropriated by the Government.
Despite the fact that these Japanese residents have contributed enormously to the economic development of Peru during their forty years of residence in that country as law-abiding, upright people, the Peruvian Government, since the outbreak of the present war, have, on no substantial grounds whatever, branded these very people who have done so much for the enrichment and progress of Peruvian life as harmful to the national interest.
Despite the fact that they have gone through revolutions, mob riots and other disturbances and have patiently suffered the consequent damages to life and property, dutifully obeying the laws of their adopted country, yet the Peruvian Governemnt have conceived of no other reward but to consider them dangerous to the maintenance of law and order and have brought to bear upon them the severe pressure already referred to above.
Far from satisfied with these severe steps, they now propose to take even harsher measures such as to prohibit all economic activities by Japanese, depriving them of the right to honest livelihood and wantonly throwing them to their own resources.
The recent order of the Peruvian Government, a step calculated only to expropriate the property of resident Japanese under the guise of compulsory transfer, is indeed, in its inhumanity and harshness, a measure unknown in civilized countries.
Its real motive is to curry the favour of the United States and, at the same time, to benefit the Peruvian people at the expense of the Japanese, as well as to mollify, if only temporarily, the domestic discontent caused by economic depression.
However, the management of economic enterprises, built up by resident Japanese after many years of patient toil, cannot easily be replaced by Peruvians. Even if Peru expropriates these enterprises it is clear that in the near future they will be faced with bankruptcy.
Against these harsh measures of the Peruvian Government, the Japanese Government have lodged a strong protest. If the Peruvian Government fail to reconsider their steps we will hold them strictly responsible for any
consequences thereof.