Japan by the Japanese/Chapter 19

It may be said that the rapid progress of foreign trade which the Far Eastern island empire has made during some thirty years is a well-known fact to all the world. It may be said, too, that the smallness or non-existence of the foreign commerce of Japan in former times was evidently due to her national policy of seclusion, and therefore so much weight cannot be laid on the great increase in recent years, rapid and great though it was. Apart from this, however, the prosperous state of her foreign trade can be seen easily through the fact that the total imports and exports, which only amounted to £30,000,000 in value in 1897, rose to £40,000,000 in 1898, £50,000,000 in 1901, and £60,000,000 in 1903.

If we compare her trade with that of China, which has a land area two-and-twenty times as large as, and a population nine and a half times that of Japan, no one can deny that the commercial expansion of Japan is something that cannot be ignored. The following table shows the amount of the export trade of both countries in short:

It will be noticed that the export trade of Japan was about one-half that of China ten years ago, and it surpassed the latter last year. The following table shows what kinds of goods take the principal parts in the export trade of Japan:

The above are the proportions of the principal goods in 1903, and from this it will be seen that raw silk, silk tissues, and cotton yarns together, occupy more than half of the whole exports. Of these, the exportation of cotton yarn, which now ranks second in value, is of quite recent origin. It is only eleven years since Japan began to sell cotton yarn abroad, during which time the yearly export has leaped up to the sum of £3,000,000.

Although the cotton industry is no doubt the most successful element, there are few articles of export which have not doubled their amounts during the last decade. The following figures show the relative proportion of increase during the eleven years 1893–1903:

As most of the above-mentioned goods are those which used to be imported from foreign countries not many years ago, these proportions show not only the progress in those branches of export trade, but in a far greater degree the industrial development at home.

Turning to the imports, the trade returns for 1903 show that nearly 60 per cent. of the total import trade consists of six articles—these are raw cotton, 20.7 per cent.; rice, 16.4 per cent.; sugar, 6.6 per cent.; woollen goods, 5.1 per cent.; kerosene, 3.6 per cent.; iron manufactures, 6.9 per cent. Besides these, machinery, engines, cotton goods, manures, drugs, dyes, paints, flour, etc., are the goods of which Japan imports a supply from foreign countries.

As rice is the principal food-stuff, it has to be remarked that its importation, which amounted to 12,000,000 picul in the last year, was no doubt due to the bad Japanese crop in 1902, and that from the experience of the previous nine years the average deficit of home supply was 2,500,000 picul.

Taking the figures of 1903 and reckoning the imports to and the exports from Japan, her external commercial relations are in the following proportion to the various foreign countries: