TRADE COMMERCE AND INDUSTRIES
Nothing is perhaps so strongly indicative
of the progress that Japan has made as the record
of her trade and commerce. I have no intention
of inflicting on my readers a mass of figures, but
I shall have to give a few in order to convey some
idea as to the country’s material development
of recent years. Japan, it must be recollected,
is in her youth in respect of everything connected
with commerce and industry. When the country
was isolated it exported and imported practically
nothing, and its productions were simply such as were
necessary for the inhabitants, then far less numerous
than at present. When the Revolution took place
trade and commerce were still at a very low ebb, and
the Japanese connected with trade was looked upon with
more or less of contempt, the soldier’s and
the politician’s being the only careers held
much in esteem. For innumerable centuries the
chief industry of Japan was agriculture, and even
to-day more than half of the population is engaged
thereon. Partly owing to religious influences,
and partly from other causes, the mass of the people
have been, and still are in effect, vegetarians.
The present trade of Japan is in startling
contrast with that of her near neighbour China, which,
with an area about twenty-three times greater, and
a population nearly nine times as large, has actually
a smaller volume of exports. All the statistics
available in reference to Japan’s trade, commerce,
and industries point to the enormous and annually
increasing development of the country. Indeed,
the trade has marvellously increased of recent years.
Since 1890 the annual value of Japan’s exports
has risen from L5,000,000 to L35,000,000, the imports
from L8,000,000 to L44,000,000. That the imports
will continue in similar progression, or indeed to
anything like the same amount, I do not believe.
Japan of recent years has imported machinery, largely
from Europe and America, and used it as patterns to
be copied or improved upon by her own workmen.
Out of 25 cotton-mills, for example, in Osaka, the
machinery for one had been imported from the United
States. The rest the Japanese have made themselves
from the imported pattern. There were also in
Osaka recently 30 flour-mills ready for shipment to
the wheat regions of Manchuria. One of these mills
had been imported from America, while the remaining
29 have been constructed in Osaka at a cost for each
of not more than one-fifth that paid for the imported
mill.
Shortly after peace had been declared
between Russia and Japan, the Marquis Ito is reported
to have said to Mr. McKinley: “You need
not be afraid that we will allow Japanese labourers
to come to the United States. We need them at
home. In a couple of months we will bring home
a million men from Manchuria. We are going to
teach them all how to manufacture everything in the
world with the best labour-saving machinery to be
found. Instead of sending you cheap labour we
will sell you American goods cheaper than you can
manufacture them yourselves.” The Japanese
Government seems to some extent to be going in for
a policy of State Socialism. The tobacco trade
in the Empire is now entirely controlled by the Government.
The Tobacco Law extinguished private tobacco dealers
and makers, the Government took over whatever factories
it deemed suitable for the purpose, built others,
and now makes a profit of about L3,000,000 sterling
annually, while the tobacco is said to be of a superior
quality and the workmen better paid than was the case
under private enterprise. How far Japan intends
to go in the direction of State Socialism I am not
in a position to say. Many modern Japanese statesmen
are quite convinced of the fact that the private exploitation
of industry is a great evil and one that ought to
be put a stop to. On the other hand, there are
Japanese statesmen who are firmly convinced that the
State control of industries can only result in the
destruction of individual initiative and genius, with
the inevitable result of reducing everybody to a dead
level of incompetence. In this matter Japan will
have, as other nations have had, to work out her own
salvation. In the process of experiment many
mistakes will no doubt be made, but Japan starts with
this advantage in respect of State Socialism, precisely
as in regard to her Army and Navy that
her statesmen, her leading public men, her great thinkers,
have no prejudices or preconceived ideas. All
they desire is that the nation as a whole shall boldly
advance on that path of progress by the lines which
shall best serve to place the country in a commanding
position among the Great Powers of the world, and at
the same time to promote the happiness, comfort, and
prosperity of the people.
The Japanese are great in imitation,
but they are greater perhaps in their powers of adaptation.
They have so far shown a peculiar faculty for fitting
to Japanese requirements and conditions the machinery,
science, industry, &c., necessary to their proper development.
Japan is without doubt now keenly alive, marshalling
all her industrial forces in the direction of seeking
to become supreme in the trade and commerce of the
Far East. The aim of Japanese statesmen is to
make their country self-productive and self-sustaining.
We may, I think, accordingly look forward to the time,
not very far distant, when Japan will cease to import
machinery and other foreign products for which there
has hitherto been a brisk demand, when she will build
her own warships and merchant steamers, as she now
partially does, and generally be largely independent
of those Western Powers of which she has heretofore
been such a good customer.
At the present time the chief manufactures
of the country are silk, cotton, cotton yarn, paper,
glass, porcelain, and Japan ware, matches and bronzes,
while shipbuilding has greatly developed of recent
years. The principal imports are raw cotton,
metals, wool, drugs, rails and machinery generally,
as well as sugar and, strange to say, rice. Japan
exports silk, cotton, tea, coal, camphor and, let me
add, matches and curios. The trade in the latter
has assumed considerable proportions, and I fear I
must add that much of what is exported is made exclusively
for the European market. According to the latest
figures, the country’s annual exports amounted
to about L35,000,000, and its imports to about L44,000,000.
I venture to prophesy that these figures will ere
long be largely inverted.
Silk is the most important item of
Japan’s foreign trade. The rearing of silkworms
has been assiduously undertaken from time immemorial,
or “the ages eternal” according to some
Japanese historians. Like so many other arts
and industries of the country, silkworms are believed
to have been introduced from China. For some
time prior to the opening of Japan to European trade
and influences the silk industry had rather languished
owing to the enforcement of certain sumptuary laws
confining the wearing of silk garments to a select
class of the community, but so soon as Japan discarded
her policy of isolation from the rest of the world
the production of and demand for silk rapidly increased,
and the trade in it has now assumed considerable dimensions.
Strange to say, silk is still in Japan what linen was
at one time in the North of Ireland a by-industry
of the farmer, a room in his house being kept as a
rearing chamber for the silkworms, which are carefully
looked after by his family. According to official
returns, there are rather more than two and a half
million families so engaged, and nearly half a million
silk manufacturers. The largest part of the silk
exported goes to the United States of America.
Closely allied with the production of silk is the mulberry-tree,
the leaves of which form the staple food of the silkworm.
This plant is cultivated with great care throughout
the country, and indeed there are many mulberry farms
entirely devoted to the culture of the tree and the
conservation of its leaves.
Rice, as I have elsewhere stated,
forms the principal article of food of the Japanese
people. Japan at present does not produce quite
sufficient rice for the consumption of her population,
and a large quantity has, accordingly, to be imported.
The danger of this for an island country has been
quite as often emphasised by Japanese statesmen as
the similar danger in respect of the wheat supply of
Great Britain has been by English economists.
Many practical steps have been taken on the initiative
of the Japanese Government in the direction of improving
the cultivation of rice, the irrigation of the fields,
&c. As time goes on no doubt the food of the people
will become more varied. Indeed, there has been
a movement in that direction, especially in the large
towns. A nation which largely lives on one article
of diet, the production of which is subject to the
vicissitudes of good and bad harvests, is, it must
be admitted, not in a satisfactory position in reference
to the food of its people.
If rice is the national food, tea
is emphatically the national beverage, despite the
large consumption of sake and the increasing consumption
of the really excellent beer now brewed in Japan.
Like most other things, the tea-shrub is said to have
been imported into Japan from China. Almost since
the opening of the country, the United States has
been Japan’s best customer in respect of tea,
and she has from time to time fallen into line with
the requirements of the United States Government in
regard to the quality of tea permitted to be imported
into that country. For instance, when, in 1897,
the United States Legislature passed a law forbidding
the importation of tea of inferior quality and providing
for the inspection of all imported tea by a fixed
standard sample, the Tea Traders Association of Japan
established tea inspection offices in Yokohama and
other ports, and all the tea exported from the country
was and still is passed through these offices.
The tea is rigidly tested, and if it comes up to the
required standard is shipped in bond to the United
States. The quality of the tea is thus amply
guaranteed, and it, accordingly, commands a high price
in the American Continent. The value of the tea
exported to the United States amounts to something
like L1,200,000, and there are no signs of any falling
off in the demand for it. Canada is also a good
customer of Japan for the same article, but Great Britain
and the other European countries at present take no
Japanese tea. I do not know why this is the case
as the tea is really excellent, and it has, as regards
what is exported, the decided advantage of being inspected
by experts and the quality guaranteed. The tea
industry is undoubtedly one of great national importance,
the total annual production amounting to about 65,000,000
pounds, the greater portion of which is, of course,
consumed in the country.
I have already referred to the importance
of Japanese arboriculture, and to the steps taken
by the Japanese Government in reference to the administration
of forests and the planting with trees of various parts
of the country not suitable for agriculture. The
State at the present time owns about 54,000,000 acres
of forests, which are palpably a very great national
asset. I may mention that the petroleum industry
is growing in Japan. The quantity of petroleum
in the country is believed to be very great, and every
year new fields are being developed. The consumption
of oil by the people is considerable, and it is hoped
that ere long Japan will be able to produce all that
she requires. The petroleum is somewhat crude,
providing about 50 per cent. of burning oil.
Tobacco, as I have elsewhere remarked,
is now a State monopoly, and forms a considerable
item in the State revenue. The quality has much
improved since the manufacture of it has ceased to
be a private industry. The Japanese are inveterate
smokers, and the intervention of the State in this
matter, although it has been criticised by political
economists in the country and out of it, and is undoubtedly
open to criticism from some points of view, has, I
think, been justified by results. The making
of sugar from beetroot has been attempted in Japan,
but the results have not been over-successful.
The efforts in this direction are, however, being
persisted in, and it is hoped that, especially in
Formosa, the beet sugar industry may develop
in importance.
The manufacture of paper in Japan
has long been an important national industry.
Paper has been and still is used there for many purposes
for which it has never been utilised in European countries.
Originally it was largely made from rice, and the
mulberry shrub has also been used for paper manufacture.
The rise and development of a newspaper press in Japan
and the impetus given to printing has, of course, largely
increased the demand for paper. This is being
met by the adaptation of other vegetable products
for the purpose of making paper, and it seems quite
certain that Japan will be totally independent of any
importation of foreign paper to meet the great and
greatly increasing demand for that article in the
country.
Salt is, I may remark, a Government
monopoly in Japan. No one except the Government,
or some person licensed by the Government, is allowed
to import salt from abroad, while no one can manufacture
salt without Government permission. Salt made
by salt manufacturers is purchased by the Government,
which sells it at a fixed price. This particular
monopoly has only recently been established, and the
reason put forward for it is a desire to improve and
develop the salt industry and at the same time to
add to the national revenue. Whether a monopoly
in what is a necessary of life is economically defensible
is a question, to my mind, hardly open to argument.
That the revenue of the country will benefit by the
salt monopoly is unquestionable.
As might have been expected, the opening
up of Japan to Western influences has induced or produced,
inter alia, some Western forms of political
and social and, indeed, socialistic associations.
The antagonism between capital and labour and the
many vexed and intricate questions involved in the
quarrel are already beginning to make themselves felt
in Japan. It was, I suppose, inevitable.
Labour is an important factor in an industrial nation
like Japan, and there is already heard the cry call
it fact or fallacy as you choose with which
we are now so familiar in this country and on the Continent,
that labour is the source of all wealth. Japan
will no doubt, like other countries, sooner or later
have to face a solution of the problems involved in
these recurring disputes and this apparently deep-rooted
antagonism between the possessors of wealth and the
possessors of muscle. Already many associations
have been established whose aim and object is to voice
the sentiments of labour and assert its rights.
Indeed, there is a newspaper, the Labour World,
the champion of the rights of the Japanese workmen.
So far the law in Japan does not regard with as tolerant
an eye as is the case in this country labour demonstrations
and the occasionally reckless oratory of labour champions.
The police regulations forbid the working classes
embarking in collective movements and demonstrating
against their employers in the matter of wages and
working hours. A suggestion of a strike of workmen
is officially regarded with an unfriendly eye, and
strikes themselves, picketing, and various other Western
methods of coercing employers to come round to the
views of the employed, would not at present be tolerated
in Japan. No doubt these Western devices will
assert themselves in time. The attempt to keep
down the effective outcome of labour organisation
in a country with an enormous labour population is
not likely to be successful for long. Socialism
is making great progress in Japan, and the State has,
whether consciously or not, given it a certain amount
of countenance by the steps it has taken in reference
to the tobacco and salt industries, &c. The extent
to which newspapers are now read in Japan a
matter I refer to more fully in another chapter will
undoubtedly tend to mould public opinion to such a
degree that no Government could afford to resist it.
The trade, commerce, and industries
of Japan appear to me to be, on the whole, in a healthy
and flourishing condition. In them, and of course
in her industrious population, Japan possesses a magnificent
asset. The country is rich in undeveloped resources
of various kinds, the people are patriotic to a degree,
and I feel sure that the additional burdens which
the recent war with Russia has for the time entailed
will be cheerfully borne. I am confident, moreover,
that under the wise guidance of the Emperor and her
present statesmen Japan will make successful efforts
to liquidate her public debt, to relieve herself of
her foreign liabilities, and generally to proceed
untrammelled and unshackled on that path of progress
and material development that, I believe, lies before
her, and which will, I am sure, at no far-distant
date place her securely and permanently in the position
of one of the Great World Powers.