commerce great enough to make the Japanese 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 Japan 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 Japan'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. Japan
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 Japan 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 Japan 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, Japan 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 Japan in a few short years from owning craft of the
junk class 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 Jap 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 Japanese a seaman
whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.

Of late years hundreds of clever young Japanese have served
appre