hina, Manchuria, Korea and
Japan--the "Great Japan," 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 Japan, however, have grown rapidly--chiefly in raw
cotton and other unmanufactured materials. With Japanese selling agents
canvassing 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 Japan's industrial promotion program is to become
manufacturer of a goodly portion of the textiles worn in her vast
"sphere of commerce." The Japanese 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 Japan, in which American-grown fiber is transformed by the
cheapest competent labor in the world into fabrics sold to China's and
Japan's millions. It is certain that the controlling manufacture of
Japan will be cotton, and the production of woolen cloths may come next.
It is interesting to know that Japan 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 Japan can hope to
compete with Lancashire in the spinning of cotton. The answer is
simple--it is because America is the principal 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 Japanese business may be considered a
"menace" to any nation enjoying Eastern trade, for the yearly value of
Japan'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 Japan 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 al