If California's garden lands were as densely populated as Belgium was before the war, there would be no Japanese danger-zone, provided the California cultivators of the soil tilled their own acres, or acre, as the Japanese do in their own country and want to do in California. It would be necessary, in order to settle the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys of California in that way, to use for the irrigation of the San Joaquin Valley, all the flood water now wasted in the Sacramento Valley. That can be done. There is no question about it whatever. The first recommendation to do it was made by a Commission of eminent engineers appointed by General Grant, when President, to report on the irrigation of the San Joaquin Valley. It would require large and comprehensive planning, and the coöperation of the State and the nation. But had not the nation better spend millions to populate the country the Japanese covet, than to spend millions to fight a war with them to keep them out of it. Is it not better to settle the country, and in that way settle the controversy, than to run the risk of losing all the precious lives and treasure that a war would cost, and the risk of having California devastated by that war in the same way that Belgium has been destroyed? Ought not that awful possibility to be enough to awaken the people of the United States to the necessity of doing something, and doing it quick, _to populate the Pacific Coast_? If anyone doubts that the Japanese are gaining a firm foothold in our territory, and a foothold that is steadily growing stronger year by year, they will be convinced by the mere statement of the facts as to the Japanese influx into the United States. The facts relating to that influx and the menace it holds for this country in the event of a war with Japan, are dispassionately set forth in "The Valor of Ignorance," by Homer Lea, published in 1909. The author was a Californian, but had lived many years in the Orient. He had studied it deeply and thoroughly understood his subject. In his book he calls attention to the fact that the Japanese population in Hawaii increased from 116 in 1884 to 22,329 in 1896; and from 22,329 in 1896 to 61,115 in 1909. Then he gives us these facts: "Japanese immigration into the Hawaiian Islands, from 1900 to 1908, has been 65,708. The departures during this period were 42,313. The military unfit have in this manner been supplanted by the veterans of a great war, and the military occupation of Hawaii tentatively accomplished. "In these islands at the present time the number of Japanese who have completed their active term of service in the Imperial armies, a part of whom are veterans of the Russian War, exceeds the entire field army of the United States." Of more startling importance are the facts with reference to Japanese immigration to the mainland territory of the United States, which are given in the same volume as follows: