Omaha daily bee., 1900-01-07

1HI' ~ ~ w iS'O''
Referring to the assurances obtained
by our government from European pow
ers that the open dOOr principle will be
observed in China, Secretary of Agri-
culture Wilson said that some idea Of
the vastness of the interests involved
may be gained from the fact that while
ten years ago our exports from the Pa
cific coast to all countries aggregated
$~26,0OO,00O and five years ago $4,000
600, the steady Increase in Pacific
coast exports has raised the aggregate
to SI3,0OO.OOO n year ago. What pro-
portion of this was sent to the Orient
we are unable to say. but it is a fact
that the trade of the Pacific coast with
that quarter of the world is steadily in
creasing, so that the maintenance of the
open door in China means Il great lea
for the states on Il western border.
1t is said that ships are needed on the
Pacific coast faster than the shipyards
there can supply them and that all the
~ship-building plants, from San Fran
cisco to Puget sound, have enough bust
'f' III i''ii w hN'p S'liS IOl a.
year to come.
1t is not to a single section, how
ever, that the open door to trade in
China will be valuable. Every portion
of the country will be benefited. We
have heretofore given figures showing
the rapid increase of our trade in cot
ton textiles with north China. In the
last five years this was nearly seven
fold and it is still growing. The head
of Il large English commercial house in
Shanghai recently said that within five
years American cotton cloth will have
taken the place that Lancashire used
to occupy in the Chinese market and
will have, on the score of price, sound
and honest quality, Il supremacy that
the goods of no other nation will be
able to challenge. From fair business
competition, he declared, American
cotton textiles have nothing to fear in
China.
The promise thus held out, which can
he realized only through the mainten-
ance Of the open door, means Il vast
i'li lpl lllt ENllNll'hH Ilo'lNNlIN anu
manufacturers of cotton. In the last
fiscal year our exports of cotton cloths
to China amounted to 221 ,OOO, 900 yards.
There Is a possible market there for five
or six times this amount. In the
opinion of those who have given care
full study to the subject, the poten-
tialities of the demand for our cotton
textiles in the Chinese market are viz
tually bOundless. But ii is not In this
direction alone that a most valuable de.
yClopment in our ASiatic trade is to be
expected. We are already exporting IA
large quantity of -four TO China, Japan
and other portions of the far east, The
total in the last fiscal year being
1,725,OOO barrels, an increase of 80 per
cent over the preceding year. If the
people of China could be educated into
the use of cornmeal, as 1t is thought
they may, the opening for the consun p
ton of the one cereal in whose produc-
ton VT have m unchallenged suprem-
acy Is of bewildering proportions.
Then there is the demand, gradually
developing, for those appliances which
are the essential %adjunctS of civllizl-
ton. There is seen IN Il progressive
japan what may reas nably be eX-
peCted and on "A much larger scale from
Il progressive China. In ten years
Japan quintupled its imports and in
1895 bought of the United States mgr-
chandiSe to eight times the value If
what she imported from this country in
ISIS, Were China To Gevoloo in the
next ten years as rapidly as Japan has
in the last ten she would make an