milar undertakings. Although certain
Chinese accepted this onerous condition, foreigners resented it as an
undue interference with their treaty rights, and it was only when
Japan, in 1895, after her war with China, inserted in the treaty of
Shimonoseki an article providing for the freedom of Japanese subjects
to engage in all kinds of manufacturing industries in the open ports
of China, and permitting them to import machinery for such purposes,
that outsiders were afforded an opportunity of exploiting the rich
field for commercial development thereby thrown open. Accordingly, so
soon as the Japanese treaty came into force no time was lost in
turning this particular clause to account, and the erection of no less
than 11 mills--Chinese and foreign--was taken in hand. At that time
the pioneer mill, which was burnt to the ground in October 1893, but
subsequently rebuilt, and other Chinese-owned mills were together
working some 120,000 spindles and 850 looms."

By 1905 the mills increased to 17, the spindles to 620,000 and the
looms to 2250, but there is little inclination to expansion. Yarns for
the hand-looms are obtained primarily from India and secondarily from
Japan. The following are the recent figures relating to imported
yarns:--

_In million_ lb

+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. | 1901. | 1902. | 1903. |
+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. | lb. |
| British | 9.1 | 7.8 | 4.1 | 7.0 | 4.3 | 2.2 |
| Indian | 186.7 | 254.2 | 131.5 | 228.9 | 251.6 | 250.8 |
| Japanese | 64.7 | 104.0 | 62.9 | 66.4 | 69.7 | 110.9 |
| Hong-Kong | | | | .7 | .8 | 1.2 |
| Tongkinese | | | | | | .01|
| +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| Total | 260.5 | 366.0 | 198.5 | 303.0 | 326.4 | 365.1 |
+--------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

_Japan._--If in China the factory cotton industry reveals no prospects
as yet of a great future, the same cannot be said of Japan.

The chief centres of spinning with their outputs in value of yarn for
a year at the beginning of the 20th century are stated beneath:

+------------+------------++-------