Arizona republican., 1907-07-08
OUR TRADE
 WITH CHINA Its Somewhat DiIdpiddted
 Condition
Some of the Reasons Why 1t Fell Off Last Year.

are shown in part at least, Dy the or ficial publication of the Chinese gov ernment entitled Returns of Trade and Trade Reports, 1906" which has just reached the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and La bor. The statements and figures which it contains cover the foreign trade of 1 China in the calendar year 1906 and compare the same with conditions of earlier years. These official state ments, coming from the customs de- partment of the Chinese government, are especially interesting in view of the fact that the exports from the Unit ed States to China showed a marked falling off in 1906 compared with the immediately preceding year, 1905.
 The report begins with the state ment that calamity and a desperate struggle against adverse circumstances are the distinct features of the years I9O6) trade Imports have been poured in during the past few years in vast flood. much of them remaining upon the importers hands, unable to find a market"
 1 At Shanghai. the report adds, the i'm ports of the two years have exceeded the normal consumption by 80 million taels. and adding to this surplus those in warehouse and awaiting distribution at Hongkong, Tientsin and Newchwang we have sum of from l20 millions to possibly 15O millions of taels as the measure of tine burden carried for two years by the banks and merchants of China in accumulated and unsold stocks of imported merchandise.
 Part of the falling off in the general import trade of China during 1906 was due to overimportations of cotton goods in 1904 and 1905. Tt is on rec ord" says the report. that by Sep ltember 1904. the English and American cotton mills were filled with all the or lders they could take for China for 12 months ahead, and that further orders placed early in 1905 could not be filled for over a year" Commenting upon the effects of these large orders placed in 1904 and 1905 the report says that in 1906 "hoiders of stocks from earlier limportations were not only burdened by storage charges on millions of pieces, and insurance and interest on tens of millions of taels' value. but found themselves with their stocks laid down at higher silver equivalents than those of importers of later dates" As con- sequence the importation of cotton goods fell from 27.724.9sO pieces in 1905 to 20.247,123 in 1906.
 This decrease in cotton importations in 1906 was not confined to imports from the United States. The four classes of cotton cloths which China imports from the United States are sheetings shirtings. drills and jeans. The report shows the value of Ameri- ,can, English and Japanese shirtings, sheetings. drills and jeans respectively, imported in 1906 compared with 1905 and this offers an opportunity to de- termine whether the reduction in inn ports of these articles from the United States was greater proportionately than from other countries. careful analysis of these figures shows that in shirtings imported the falling off in quantity in those designated as ''American" shirtings was B per cent and English" shirtings 27 per cent; ir American sheetings the falling off was
 2S per cent and in English 24 pei
 cent: in American drills. the fall was T. 40 per cent and in English 24 per cent; in American drills, the fall was 40 pei cent. and in English 35 per cent; ir jeans the falling off in American good:
 was 37 per cent and in English. 43 pei cent. Combining these four groups -
 shirtings, sheetings, drills and jeans. fl appears from the official figures tha
 the reduction in value in the classes O
 goods designated as American" wa.
 B per cent and in those designated a.
 rEnglish" was 35 per cent While tn,
 other classes of cotton goods imported
 are not so designated as to indicat' their origin, the figures relating |, these four principal classes who's, origin, the figures relating to these fou . principal classes whose origin is showI
 seems to indicate that American cot : tons suffered no greater decline propor
 tionately than did those from the othe
 chief source of supply-the Unite,
 Kingdom-and this conclusion seems t
 be strengthened by the statement in tn
 report itself that but little has beel
 heard during the year of any activ
 movement in connection with the boy
 colt in connection with American good . except at Canton. and there it has talk
 en the form of public meetings and i'm
 passionate speeches rather than of re
 duced purchases"
 Another article in which a large re
 duction in imports from the Unite'
 States has occurred is copper. The of
 ficial report from which the abov | quotations are made shows that the ne
 imports of copper ingots fell from 21. 392,970 taels value in 1905 to 211.516 il i 1906. and as most of this large impor
 tation of copper in 1905 was draw 8 from the United States. the reduction O
 more than 2l million taels in this sin gle item explains to a considerable de n gree the fact that the total imports O
 merchandise into Chin7 from the Unit ed States fell off 32 million taels in 190
 as compared with the high record yea s 1905.
 Even this large reduction however Of 32 million taels in China's import
 from the United States in 1906 whel
 compared with 1905 still leaves tn
 value of imports from the United state . in 1906 greater than in any other year ] tQ0S i,, ba bfStnrxy Of ho q