Pattullo Papers and Premier's Papers, BC Archives: letters to and from Mackenzie King, and other papers, on Japanese and Chinese Canadians, 1938-1940

The typed carbons and originals, read 10 Oct 2026 in the scans published by the Landscapes of Injustice project (University of Victoria). Quotations are from the page images.

26 January 1938, Pattullo to King (vol. 73 file 3, scan). “The people of British Columbia are very much exercised over the Japanese situation here.” A survey by his Economic Council had found “that the Japanese population was rapidly increasing, while the Chinese population was decreasing, the reason being that there are comparatively few Chinese females in proportion to the male population.” A Conservative member had charged that Japanese were being “bootlegged into British Columbia,” beyond “the quota of one hundred and fifty a year.” He asked for “a most careful survey… to ascertain what number of Japs, if any, are here who should not be here,” and wrote: “When I go to Ottawa I would like to talk over the problem with you and suggest that no Japs be allowed admission. I feel that I must make a public statement, but will do so guardedly.” His statement for the press the same day: “No one can blame the Oriental for trying to make a living. The mistake has been their admission into the country, constituting as it now does a very serious problem.”

9 March 1939, Pattullo to King, “Private” (vol. 73 file 3). “It has been the policy of this Government to discourage Japanese industrial activity in this Province, but the Japanese continue to insinuate themselves into various avenues of endeavour. We have a clause in our Timber Licenses against the employment of Chinese or Japanese in connection with timber operations… We would like to take action which would drive the Japs out of business here and would result in many of them having to go back to Japan,” but a Dominion statute (the Japanese Treaty Act of 1913) prevented it. “Japanese also occupy foreshore for which we have never given them any lease… but we do not wish to give the Japs any tenure.”

20 October 1939, Pattullo to King, “Private and Confidential” (vol. 69 file 1, scan). On the Japanese chargé d’affaires’ protest against “the decision of our Fisheries Department not to issue any licenses this year for salting of dry salmon”: the Japanese consul had spoken of the Japanese “colony” in British Columbia. “I may be prejudiced and may be putting a wrong interpretation on his intentions, but we in British Columbia would like to see the day when all the Japanese are repatriated to their own country.”

17 and 19 June 1940 (Premier’s Papers, GR-1222 box 153 file 8, scan). After the Japanese consul complained of the Vancouver alderman Halford Wilson’s attacks, Pattullo replied (19 June): “I very much deprecate insulting remarks towards groups of individuals within our Province whose intentions may be of the very best.” His press statement of 17 June: “Everyone should be compelled to serve according to his capacity… On the other hand, I think it is a great mistake for anyone to recklessly slur as a body those of foreign birth, whose position, to say the least, is difficult.”

23 September 1940, Pattullo to King (vol. 70 file 4, scan). “I have been informed that it is the intention to call up for war service Japanese and Chinese citizens. I most strongly urge that nothing of the kind be done. In the first place, it would put the Japanese in possession of arms, when recently measures were formulated to collect arms. Perhaps an even more important consideration is that if they are called up for service, there will be a demand that they be given the franchise, which we in this Province can never tolerate. If any instructions have been given to call up Japanese or Chinese, I sincerely hope that you will have them immediately countermanded.” King replied on 27 September that the letter had been “considered carefully, last evening, by the War Committee of the Cabinet,” and that “instructions are being given not to include Japanese and Chinese citizens in British Columbia in the first call for military training”; and on 25 October that the exclusion would apply to the second training period too, while a special committee (Colonel Sparling, Assistant Commissioner Mead of the RCMP, H. L. Keenleyside) studied “the whole problem of Orientals on the Pacific Coast” in “a strictly private and informal way.”

28 October 1940, Pattullo to King, “Personal and Confidential” (vol. 70 file 4). “Our Government will co-operate to the full. In fact, we have been co-operating in tangible fashion for many years. Our opponents have been trying to get some kudos on this question and have talked blatantly. On one or two occasions I succeeded in preventing resolutions passing the House which would, I thought, be of harmful character. Ever since I first took office in the Government of 1916, we have had to meet pressure of the Japanese in many directions, and we have had many awkward situations, but we have endeavoured to meet them, not only in the interests of our own Province, but in the national interest.”

Also reported from the same collections by the research brief, not checked here: a letter of 17 October 1940 to K. T. Shoyama of the Japanese Canadian Citizens’ League (“very much out of accord with the activities of Alderman Wilson”; GR-1222 file 155-09). In the same file as the March 1939 letter (vol. 73 file 3), a Lands Department memorandum, checked here: “It has always been the practise of the Department to refrain from dealing with Japanese in respect to the acquisition of Crown lands and timber.”

See thomas-pattullo-1873 and pattullo-bloody-sunday.