But in achieving this policy we should bear steadily in mind that it is our duty to combine the maximum of efficiency with the minimum of offensiveness. Only the National Government can carry out such a policy effectively, and the surest way to do harm is for State, municipal, or other local governments to pass laws which would be ineffective to obtain the real object and yet would produce intense irritation. The best of all possible ways in which to achieve the object is that which the governments of the two countries have now by common agreement adopted; for the Japanese Government has on its own initiative and of its own accord undertaken to prevent the coming hither in any appreciable numbers of Japanese of the classes to which I have referred. This agreement during the last year or thereabouts has worked so well that actually more Japanese have left the country than have come into it, and there has therefore been a diminution of their numbers. If this continues, all difficulties will cease without the need of further action, whether by treaty or by legislation. On the one hand, it is for the common interest of both countries that Japan should effectively and rigorously carry out this policy. On the other hand, it is not only the interest but the duty of America to take no further action until it can be seen whether this policy is successful; and this is just as wise, just as incumbent on us, whether we do or do not believe that it will be successful. The success of the policy must be gauged by its actual results; that is, by the extent to which it arrests the immigration of large bodies of Japanese. If the Japanese Government proves unable to carry its policy through, then undoubtedly this Government, by treaty or by legislation, must protect itself and secure the desired result on its own initiative. But in such a case it would be doubly incumbent upon us to take the action in the way that would provoke the least possible friction and cause the least possible hard feeling. Moreover, we should make it evident that the recognition of the fact that it is to the interest of both races that the masses of both races should be kept apart is in no way incompatible with the heartiest feelings of mutual respect and admiration between the two races.