Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/636

annum. Taking into account the area of the colony, over 15,000 square miles, the average expenditure was a trifle over £7 yearly per square mile, a remarkably low rate when all the drawbacks incidental to the economical government of a new colony are fairly considered.

The subsidy already alluded to is being diminished year by year, as the colony gains strength, and from £694,000 in 1896 the total fell in 1901 to £238,000. Conversely, the Formosan revenue grew from £271,000 in 1896 to six times this amount—viz., £1,637,000—in 1901, and it is computed that by 1910, if not earlier, the colony will be entirely self-supporting. The new land survey has already added £100,000 to the annual revenue, though as yet but partially carried out, and after 1905, when the new regulations will have full effect, the addition to the colony’s income from this source will be at least £200,000 per annum more.

Mention of an annual subsidy seems at first sight to annul the proposition that Formosa already yields a profit to the Home Government. Yet the fact can be established without difficulty. Substantial benefits are being derived from the interstate commerce between the colony and the mother country in a trade that in the aggregate already amounts to close upon £2,000,000 per annum.

The profits enjoyed therefrom by Japan proper being quite 15 per cent., or £300,000 in the twelve months, they constitute something more than a mere set-off to the grant in aid, which last year was reduced to £238,000, and which will before the year 1910 be entirely extinguished. The profits on the interstate trade, on the other hand, are bound to grow. Moreover, if we go back a little way, we shall find that the commerce of Japan with Formosa has from the beginning amounted to not less than £7,000,000 sterling, and if upon this gross value we take 15 per cent. as the share of clear profit that Japan proper has obtained from the trade, we have over £1,000,000 sterling as the result, a sum that represents a fair return for the investment of £12,182,000 capital, for that is the precise sum that Japan has spent upon Formosa since it was acquired from China.

It will perhaps be admitted that when a colony can be shown to have been of profit to the mother country in even the first seven years of its existence, proof has been given of a vitality and of capabilities in general that are undoubtedly above the average.

Formosa in Japanese hands has achieved this distinction. The facts can be set forth in another way, and possibly with greater force still. As previously shown, after subtracting the revenue of £5,930,000 collected in Formosa during seven years