Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-08-14
THE Remarkable GROWTH
OF the Commerce Of the United States
With Japan
THE APPROPRIATIONS OF THE ISL
AND KINGDOM GROWING ENOR-
MOUSLY, AND WE ARE GETTING
THE BEST OF HER TRADE.
SOME INTERESTING FACTS.

WASHINGTON, d. c., August b.
Japan and her new tariff treaties, and
relations to foreigners is the subject
of monograph just prepared by the
Treasury Bureau of Statistics. With
new currency, new tariff, new treat
les and new relations with the large
foreign element which has played so
large a part in the development OF ia
pan. conditions in that empire are a
subject of especial interest, present and
prospective, while the rapid develop
ment of American commerce within
japan and the market there opening
for American goods adds greatly to the
interest Of this study.
No other nation has experienced such
a remarkable growth in its commerce
with Japan as has the United States.
japanese official figures give the impor-
tations from the United Stats in 1893
at 5000 40S yen, and in 1898 at 4o.001,-
097 yen. Meantime her importauons
from England increased from 27,929.b2S
yen to 62,7O7,572 yen; those from Ger
many from 7,31S,134 yen to 25,610,96l
yen; those from France from 1905, 277
yen to 6,979,9S2 yen; those from emma
from 1905. 975 yen to 30,52S,S60 yen,
while the only part of the world which
has experienced an increase at all TO be
compared with that of the United States
is British East Indies, in which the
increase has been from S,679,029 yen IN
1893 to 40,764,244 yen in 1898.
japan s,importationsIhave grown enor-
mously in the past five years. In 1873
they amounted to S8,257,172 yen and in
1898 to 277,502, 166 yen, being thus IN
1898 more than three times as much as
in 1898. Meantime her exports have
grown from S9.712,S64 yen in 1898 to
1G5.753,752 yen in 1898. Thus the ex-
ports have doubled and the imports
have trebled during the period under
Observation-Disclosures
With a yearly consuming power OF
PIT million yen or 1873 million dollars,
the commercial wants of Japan are
worthy Of careful study. This is es-
pecially the case when, as shown by
the above statements, the disposition
is to look to the United States for
a constantly increasing proportion OF
its supplies. In 1898, as already lndl-
Gated, the United States furnished less
than per cent. of the imports into
Japan, and in 1898, 14.4 per cent, while
England, our principal competitor in
the markets of the east, which in 1893
furnished 80 per cent. Of Japan's i'm
portations, in 1898 furnished 226 per
cent. Not only have the producers and
exporters of the United States develop
ed in the past few years disposition
to push their sales in that particular
country, but Japan herself is showing
a disposition to make her purchases
from the nearest markets, those of the
United States, and has recently eStab-
lished steamship lines connecting with
United States ports.
Japan is, by reason of recent events,
the nearest neighbor to the United
States, aside from those whose territory
is actually contiguous Canada and Mex
leo. Her comparatively recent ex-
change of mainland territory to Russia
for the line of islands stretching north
wardly from the central group brings
her territory within about 500 miles OF
that Of the United States in the Aleu-
ton chain of islands, while at the south
her newly acquired island of Formosa
lies within less than 200 miles of our
own newly acquired territory, the Phil
ippines. Thus not only are the United
States and Japan "neighbors,' territor-
tally, but their insular possessions COM
bined stretch along the entire Pacific
coast of Asia from Arctic to Equatorial
waters.