While this pamphlet is undated, the author refers to it as being "almost 30 years" after the Former Aborigine Protection Act, so before 1929. However, the 1929 Relief Law is mentioned in the text, so it's probably published that year. The point of the pamphlet seems to be in reaction to a growing movement against the law, and the anonymous author is essentially trying to justify the law through racist apologism, while disavowing the very racist nature of the law.
We learn, for example, that Ainu land was nationalized strictly to stop it from passing out of Ainu hands, which ad resulted in Ainu "leaving home" and "wandering aimlessly" around Hokkaido. While Ainu retained de facto ownership, the purpose of the protective nationalization of their land became a "forgotten history", and the legal position of ownership over their land became "extremely ambiguous". (pg. 2)
The author here excuses much of the land theft referred to earlier in this blog by explaining it away as "ambiguity", but is clear that land theft was the impetus for the Former Aborigines Protection Act. However, the author quickly adds that the Act was the continuation of a larger transition from "primitive lifestyles" (原始的な生活) to a "civilized economic life" (文化的な経済生活). But, by no means was this adding to the limits of the legal capacity of the Ainu as "incompetent people" (禁治産者). (pg. 3)
However, the author differentiates the Ainu by claiming that general laws are well and good for most people, however, the Act is intended for passive elements of the Ainu population, and goes on to compare the purpose of the law for the Ainu to the 1929 Relief Law (救護法) which "protected" the sick and poor. This comparison of the Ainu to physically ill people seems to have been a common theme. (pg. 5)
Finally, in the short space of the pamphlet, the author completely reverses their original argument saying that the Act was intended strictly to "protect" Ainu land to saying that the purpose of the Act was to "assimilate the Ainu until they're the same as ethnic Japanese (大和民族) in both name and reality". (pg. 6)
An interesting point in the pamphlet is the author's referring to "young people" (若者) who were demonstrating against the Act. It's not clear who they were, or why, but the author seems incensed and begs them to seek progress very, very gradually. In reality, he's taking a textbook conservativist position, which is interesting considering that it was progressive liberals in the Diet who passed the law in the first place, taking what was in Japan, as elsewhere, a 'radical' step of wanting to grant national citizenship to Indigenous people. This on the surface was anti-racist, since, Indigenous people faced not just social exclusion, but genocide in many countries, around the time this pamphlet was published, such as the Japanese "extermination strategy" against Indigenous people in Taiwan (See Robert Tierney, Tropics of Savagery). It would be interesting to see a true Japanese "conservative" point of view from the 1890s, since many of the proponents of the Former Aborigines Protection Act thought of themselves as dyed-in-the-wool liberals that felt like they were doing the Ainu a great service by unilaterally claiming them for the Japanese states as candidates for future inclusion as full Japanese citizens. While, like the author of this pamphlet, they clearly understood this to be cultural genocide, however, they saw that genocide itself as a benevolent act, in a "kill the Indian, save the man" sense. It's not coincidental that, as with Richard H. Pratt, who coined the phrase, was a liberal involved in Indian education in the United States in the 1870s-1880s. The attitude of liberals in settler colonies at the time strongly advocated for the differential inclusion of Indigenous people based on their ability to participate in the State's goals to colonize their own lands in a way that would exploit the the land economically. This took the role of laws like the Dawes Act in the United States or Former Aborigines Protection Act, as well as residential schools and other forms of assimilative schooling.
But with all that said, as I asked above, I would be genuinely interested in what conservatives thought of this sort of legislation. Not that conservatives were less racist, but for those that absolutely didn't want Indigenous people to be citizens in any capacity, or extreme racists who thought they didn't have the mental capacity to become "civilized", what was their reaction to these laws? And why did things change so quickly that in just 30 years, the conservative position would be one of deep entrenchment of these laws and a disavowal of the racist purpose of the laws?
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