New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-02-19
TO DEVELOP TRADE IN THE EAST.
WORK OF COMMISSIONS IN CHINA AND
JAPAN

Washington. Feb. Is (SpeeaD.-The proposition
Tor the appointment of a commission to study the
commercial conditions in China and Japan. en-
bodied in sundry bills now before Congress, is along
lines similar to those already adopted by several of
the active commercial nations of Europe The
document recently issued by the Treasury Bureau
OF Statistics, Commercial China in 1895" shows
that experiments made by other nations in sending
commissions to the Orient have been satisfactory
The British Commission, or Commercial Mis-
sion as 1t was called spent part of the wears
1886 ana 1897 in China alone, devoting eight months
TO trip from Shanghai up the Yang-tze River to
the mead of navigation, thence southwark to the
head OF the West River, by which they returned
TO the seaboard. giving to the British public an
elaborate and valuable report on the wants con-
Stunning power and general conditions Of the people
Of Central and Southern China their trip having
carried them through the most densely populated
part of that country.
The French mission was absent from Franco
nearly two years. returning in October 1897 after
thorough investigation Of agricultural industrial
ana commercial conditions, which is to be
made public, but recorded for the use of the sew
eral chambers OF Commerce which shared in the
expedition. The French are somewhat wary of
the publication Of the report of this commission
since commission sent to China in 1913 for the
purpose OF discovering means of extending French
trade published elaborate report which is said
TO nave become more profitable to England than
to France. The Germans profting bv this ex
ample nave also omitted TO give to the general
puphc the result Of the work of their commercial
mission which returned to Germany in 1892 after
h hn months study of China and other Eastern
e as1aeie nc, countries This German commission was
numbers of samples Of the goods required and used
by the people of the countries which they visited
ana making from them exhibit which is only
open 10 those persons actually interested in the
trades concerned and to members of Chambers Of
~ rnheree ana certain ofhcals -opies of the
port ha are only published for private circulation
states that the exhibit includes ffty Thousand
result ~ Ten snow tnat the collection is the
9Hghly understand their work, and that the ex-
hibits show, first, what European and American
goods are exported TO Eastern Asia and second
what goods can be purchased there
The pending measures introduced only pro-
Xide that the commission shall visit China and
Japan whose imports form only about one-third of
those or the Orient whose trade the United States
with a Nicaragua Canal, may be expected to com
Inand American products finding a rapidly en-
Iargng market in all OF the countries of the East
and especially in Asiatic Russia Manchuria Corea
Siam and Australia while the enormous market
offered by the British and Dutch East Indies is
also worthy of attention. -
The following table prepared by the Treasury
Bureau OF Statistics from the latest available data
shows the value Of the imports and exports of the
territory in question and the share of the United
States therein: