East of Suez Part 13

arable area. Silk is j.a.pan's important salable crop, two thirds of which is exported in its raw state. In the past few years the silk exports have averaged $55,000,000. j.a.pan grows the tea consumed in the country, and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.

If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that j.a.pan is capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The j.a.panese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the seas washing the sh.o.r.es of the Island Empire. When it is realized that j.a.pan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, j.a.pan's crowding millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBa.s.sY, TOKYO]

"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not j.a.pan be developed into the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the j.a.panese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is the mineral present to an extent making it a national a.s.set of importance. Bituminous coal of good quality is mined at several points which is used by j.a.panese commercial and naval vessels; but elsewhere in the East it has to compete with Chinese and Indian coals. It is said in Nagasaki that her coal will last another two centuries, but were it mined on the scale of American and British coal it would be exhausted in a generation. The greatest efforts have been made to produce iron ore in paying quant.i.ties. In several instances public a.s.sistance has been lent to the industry, but seldom has a ton of ore been raised that has not cost twice its market value. j.a.pan is determined to become a producer of iron, and to this end a long lease had been secured on an important mineral tract in China, whose ore blends advantageously with Mexican and Californian hemat.i.te, while it is a.s.serted that the government has secured in Manchuria a seam of coal fifty feet in thickness, covered by a few feet of soil, that is contiguous to transportation, and which cannot be exhausted in hundreds of years. A valuable acquisition in conquered Saghalien--not noted by the newspapers--is beds of coal and iron of vast area. These may enable j.a.pan, in her determination to become a manufacturing nation, to be eventually independent of other countries for basic supplies. But success in this direction is problematical, to say the least.

For two thousand years j.a.pan has mined copper in a limited way, but the production of the metal is carried on at present without much profit.

When the Chinese government requires a vast quant.i.ty of copper the order is sent to the United States. j.a.pan cannot be considered as a producer of minerals of sufficient importance to aspire to a profitable career through them, for the yearly aggregate value of all minerals, including gold from the Formosa mines, is not more than $20,000,000.

The inevitable query in the reader's mind is, How is the j.a.p, knowing it is now or never with him--and cognizant that he is poor in all save ambition and enterprise--going to create for his beloved Nippon a position of prominence and security in the fast-rushing, selfish world?

Every intelligent j.a.panese is aware of the slenderness of his country's resources, and yet every son of the Chrysanthemum Realm throbs with desire to see j.a.pan a first-cla.s.s and self-supporting power, honored and respected throughout the universe.

The j.a.panese possess some quality of golden value, otherwise cautious capitalists in America and Europe would never have lent them $360,000,000. What is it?

j.a.pan's a.s.set of importance is the awakened energy of her people--this was the soundest security back of the bond issues. It won the war over Russia, and persons familiar with the j.a.panese character believe it is now going to win commercially and industrially. Better proof of this is not wanted than the fact that j.a.panese bonds stood as firm as the rock of Gibraltar on the world's exchanges when it became known that Russia was to pay no indemnity. The information provoked street riots in Tokyo, but j.a.panese securities moved only fractionally in New York and London.

Two countries have long been keenly observed by enlightened j.a.panese.

They study America as a model industrial land, and get manufacturing ideas from us; but they look to Great Britain for everything having to do with empire, with aggrandizement, and with diplomacy. To them England is a glittering object lesson of a nation existing in overcrowded islands extending its rule to other lands and other continents, producing endless articles needed by mankind, and carrying these to the ends of the earth in their own ships. These j.a.panese have perceived that the interchange of commodities between most countries of the globe is preponderatingly in the hands of the British--in fact, that the enterprise of British merchant or British ship-owner has placed practically the universe under tribute.

May not insular j.a.pan become in time the Asiatic equivalent of Great Britain? j.a.pan is advantageously located, and by common consent is now dominant in the Far East. Years ago England ceased to be an agricultural country, and the products of British workshops now buy food from other nations and allow for the keeping of a money balance at home. Nature has decreed that j.a.pan can never be an agricultural land. Why, then, may she not do what England has done? England has her India, pregnant with the earth's bounty, and her Australia, yet awaiting completer development Kingdom become the handmaiden of j.a.pan, without disturbing dynastic affairs, and primitive Korea be a fair equivalent of the Antipodean continent? It is known to be j.a.pan's plan to permanently colonize Korea and Manchuria, teeming in agricultural and mineral riches, with her surplus population.

"Prestige and opportunity make this attainable," insist the ambitious sons of j.a.pan; "and while it is probably too late to expand the political boundaries of our empire, we surely may make Nippon the seat of a mighty commercial control, including in its sphere all of China proper, Manchuria and Korea--welding them into 'commercial colonies' of j.a.pan." This is precisely what the modern j.a.panese wants his country to do, and this j.a.panization of the Far East is an alluring project, certainly.

"But are not these 'open-door' countries, stipulated and guaranteed by the powers--meaning that your people can enjoy no special trade advantage in them?" the American asks the man of j.a.pan.

"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers: but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of the j.a.panese at this time--geographical position, necessity for recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New j.a.pan.

It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty j.a.panese tonnage on the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the controlling article of faith of the awakened j.a.pan is the creation of an ocean commerce great enough to make the j.a.panese the carriers of the Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's markets. Indeed, were present-day j.a.pan eliminated from consideration, it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation facilities.

The merchant steamship is intended to play an important role in j.a.pan's elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden, and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. j.a.pan is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when it was apparent that j.a.pan would not longer be dependent upon the outer world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906 there was completed and launched in j.a.pan the biggest battleship in the world, the _Satsuma_, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of about the dimensions of the _Dreadnaught_, of the British navy, but claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the _Satsuma_, witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national event.

In the war with China, twelve or thirteen years ago, j.a.pan had insufficient vessels to transport her troops. The astute statesmen at Tokyo, recognizing the error of basing the transportation requirements of an insular nation upon ships controlled by foreigners, speedily drafted laws looking to the creation of a native marine which might be claimed in war time for governmental purposes. The bestowal of liberal bounties transformed j.a.pan in a few short years from owning craft of the junk cla.s.s to a proprietorship of modern iron-built vessels of both home construction and foreign purchase. In the late campaign there was no comparison in the seamanship of the agile son of Nippon and that of the hulking peasant of interior Russia. The j.a.p was proven time and again to be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to conform to strict discipline, unite in making the j.a.panese a seaman whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.

Of late years hundreds of clever young j.a.panese have served apprenticeships in important shipyards in America, England, Germany and France, with the result that there are to-day scores of naval architects and constructors in j.a.pan the equals of any in the world. Whether as designers, yard managers or directors of construction, the j.a.ps, with their special schooling, have nothing to learn now from foreign countries. The genius of some of these men played a part in Togo's great victory.

j.a.panese men of affairs pretend to see little difficulty in the way of their nation controlling the building of ships for use throughout the East. Local yards are already constructing river gunboats and torpedo craft for the Chinese government, and it is reasonable to believe that a year or two hence their hold upon the business will amount practically to a monopoly. British firms with yards at Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai are not rejoiced at the prospect of j.a.panese rivalry. It is possible that, the j.a.panese may become shipbuilders for our own Philippine archipelago.

Already the shipyards of Nippon are ringing with the sound of j.a.pan's upbuilding; and the plant of the Mitsubishi company, at Nagasaki--among the largest in the world,--has been enlarged to accommodate increasing demands. The enormous _Minnesota_, of the Great Northern Steamship Company, was not so long ago repaired at Nagasaki in a dry-dock having eighty feet in length to spare.

j.a.panese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay, Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service between Panama, the Philippines and j.a.panese ports, in antic.i.p.ation of the completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l: and, further perceiving the opportunity rapping at her door, j.a.pan is preparing to place a line on the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate region to j.a.panese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from Argentina. Rice eating in j.a.pan is giving way to bread made from wheat, or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further known that j.a.pan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports.

In 1894 j.a.pan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels.

Almost half the steamers entering j.a.panese ports fly the flag of the Rising Sun, and j.a.pan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of oversea tonnage, j.a.pan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of j.a.panese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei Kondo, is one of j.a.pan's most progressive men, is numerically and in tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships.

[Ill.u.s.tration: j.a.pANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT]

These facts should be considered by every American complacently believing that the traffic of the countries and islands washed by the Pacific is open to American enterprise whenever we bid for it. When Eastern trade develops in magnitude, it may be found that the j.a.panese have laid permanent hold upon its carriage and interchange.

John Bull, be it remembered, drove the American merchantman from the Atlantic; and likewise j.a.pan may capture the carrying business of the Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic j.a.pan than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home trade--when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be found difficult to supplant another people in the occupation of conveying American commodities to Eastern markets. There are persons in the Orient, none too friendly to America, who expect to see the commercial flag of j.a.pan paramount on the Pacific eight or ten years hence.

If it be conceded that j.a.pan will absorb the bulk of the shipping of the Pacific as it develops, valid reasons for fearing j.a.pan as the trade compet.i.tor of the United States do not exist. Unquestionably j.a.pan is to exploit the industry of her people; but the same poverty of resources making this imperative insures for Uncle Sam a valuable partnership in the program. j.a.pan is bristling with workshops and mills in which a hundred forms of handiwork will be developed--and in a majority of these the adaptive labor of the empire will fabricate, from materials drawn from America, scores of forms of merchandise, which the j.a.panese propaganda will distribute throughout China, Manchuria, Korea and j.a.pan--the "Great j.a.pan," British publicists are calling it. Methods, materials, machinery, tools--all will be American.

Having made no systematic appeal for the trade of the Far East in its broadest sense, America enjoys but small share of it. In the past few years our exports to j.a.pan, however, have grown rapidly--chiefly in raw cotton and other unmanufactured materials. With j.a.panese selling agents canva.s.sing lands inhabited by a half billion people, the products of America are to have enhanced consumption. This trade in Mongol countries, although vicarious, may run to large dimensions.

The leading item of j.a.pan's industrial promotion program is to become manufacturer of a goodly portion of the textiles worn in her vast "sphere of commerce." The j.a.panese have seen that the British Isles, growing not a pound of cotton, spin and weave the staple for half the people of the earth, and wish to profit by the example of their prosperous ally. To this end, cotton mills have sprung into being throughout j.a.pan, in which American-grown fiber is transformed by the cheapest competent labor in the world into fabrics sold to China's and j.a.pan's millions. It is certain that the controlling manufacture of j.a.pan will be cotton, and the production of woolen cloths may come next.

It is interesting to know that j.a.pan increased the value of her exports of cotton manufactures to China from $251,363 in 1894 to $16,126,054 in 1904.

"Why not fabricate her own raw silk, and send it to market ready for wear?" asks the foreigner reluctant to believe that j.a.pan can hope to compete with Lancashire in the spinning of cotton. The answer is simple--it is because America is the princ.i.p.al purchaser of the raw article. Were it brought across the Pacific in manufactured form, the duty on it would be almost prohibitive; in its unwrought state it enters the country free.

Great progress must be made before j.a.panese business may be considered a "menace" to any nation enjoying Eastern trade, for the yearly value of j.a.pan's manufactures is now only about $150,000,000, an average of about $3 per capita of the population. America has single cities that produce more. The combined capital of all organized industrial, mining, shipping, banking and agricultural undertakings in j.a.pan is $475,000,000, or less than half the capital of the United States Steel Corporation. The Mikado's empire is bound to Great Britain by a political alliance of unusual force, but industrial j.a.pan must of necessity be linked to the United States by commercial ties even stronger. Distance between Europe and j.a.pan, and excessive Suez Ca.n.a.l tolls, give una.s.sailable advantage to the United States as purveyor of unwrought materials to the budding New England of the Far East.

The custom of speaking of our friends of the Island Empire as "the little j.a.panese," is a fault that should be promptly mended. j.a.pan is small, it is true, but the people are numerous to the point of wonderment. Consequently, it can do no harm to memorize these facts: That j.a.pan has an area actually 27,000 square miles greater than the British Isles, and 5,000,000 more inhabitants; in other words, the population of j.a.pan is 47,000,000, while that of Great Britain and Ireland is but 42,000,000. That j.a.pan's population exceeds that of France by 8,000,000, of Italy by 14,000,000, and of Austro-Hungary by nearly 2,000,000. That outside of Asia there are but three countries in all the world with greater populations than j.a.pan--Russia, the United States, and Germany. There was reason for calling the j.a.p the "Yankee of the East," or the "Englishman of the Orient," for otherwise the phrases could not have been forced into popular use.

It is the judgment of many who have studied the j.a.panese at close range that they are endowed with attributes of mind and body which make them equal, man for man, with the people of America and Great Britain.

Asiatic though they are, it will be unwise to permit the brain to become clogged with the idea that they are "Asiatics" in the popular acceptance of the word. The j.a.pan of the present is the ant.i.thesis of "Asiatic,"

and the j.a.pan of the near future promises to be a country best measured by Western standards.

The j.a.panese are athirst for knowledge, and impatient for the time to arrive when the world will estimate them at their intellectual value, and forget to speak of them as the little "yellow" men of the East. This is manifested to a visitor many times every day. Their greatest craving is to know English, not merely well enough to carry on trade advantageously, but to read understandingly books that deal with the moderate sciences, and other works generally benefiting. Yokohama and Tokyo possess a score of establishments where practically every important volume of instruction, whether it be English or American, is reproduced in inexpensive form, and widely sold. For many years English has been taught in j.a.pan's schools, but thousands of boys and men in cities and towns are each year acquiring the language by study in odd hours.

Examine the dog-eared pamphlet in the hands of the lad a.s.sisting in the shop where you are purchasing something, and you are almost certain to find it an elementary English book. Merchants know English well, as a rule; but with many of them the desire for knowledge is not satisfied with the acquisition of English--they desire to know other languages. In Yokohama I know a merchant of importance whose English is so good that one is drawn to inquire where he learned it. The answer will be that he studied odd hours at home and when not serving customers. And the visitor may further be informed by this man that he is also studying German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs him in the graceful language of France. And this merchant is but a type of thousands of j.a.panese who are daily garnering knowledge.

It is a pleasing incident for the visitor from America to read of a meeting in the j.a.panese capital of the local Yale Alumni a.s.sociation--quite as pleasing as to see base-ball played in every vacant field convenient to a large town. Returning schoolboys have carried the game home to their companions, and in the voyage across the Pacific it has lost none of its fine points. For thirty years and longer the j.a.ps have been learning English with the industry of beavers. And ambition has been responsible for this, the dogged determination to be somebody, and the patriotic wish to see j.a.pan stand with the progressive nations of the earth. The power to keep such a people down does not exist. Preparation is a subject never absent from the thoughts of the j.a.panese. It was preparation that gave them victory after victory over the creatures of the Czar. Now they are fairly launched upon a brilliant career in trade and commerce. But j.a.pan can merely fabricate our raw materials, thereby occupying a field in Asia that up to now Uncle Sam has made no determined effort to secure.