Arizona republican., 1907-07-08
PHOENIX, ARIZ.. JULY s. 1907.
OUR ORIENTAL TRADE.

We print elsewhere this morning a report by the bureau of statistics of the department of commerce and la bor some facts regarding our dwind- ling trade with China. These facts are gathered fin part from an official Chinese trade report to which are added certain comments and conclu- sions.
 The two great items which have been reduced are those of cotton and copper. It is explained with respect to the former that the Chinese the previous year overstocked themselves and were therefore not in need of so much of our cotton. The fall ing off in our exports of copper to China Is attributed to a change in the monetary system of that country by which there is a much less coinage of that metal However, we little more than held our own in exports of flour. wheat and cigarettes.
 The report contains a table which makes the attractive showing that within a ten-year period 1S96-O6. our per cent of gain of trade with China was PIP while Japan's per cent of gain of Chinese trade within the same pe- riod was 251. These were by far the two. leading gains.
 A more interesting though less at tractive showing would have been in a comparison of the American and the Japanese trade with China during last year and the year before It would no doubt have accounted for the de- crease of our cotton and copper bus mess in another way. for in recent years Japan has become an extensive cotton producer and within a comparatively brief pe- riod there has been a tremendous de- velopment of copper mining in Japan. Japan is not a flour and wheat pro- ducing country. nor yet has it figured extensively in the cigarette industry
 There seems to be an unriliingness in this country as well as in Great Britain to discuss officially Japanese commercial operations in China and more especially in Manchuria Now and then a complaint is made by commercial body that the Japanese are monopolizing the Manchurian trade by main strength and that by hitherto unpracticed commercial meth ods they are extending their trade into other parts of China.
 About a year ago the attention of the country was called to an under standing that the Japanese govern ment for the purposes of promoting trade in Manchuria had entered into combination with Japanese mer- chants manufacturers and bankers for the commercial control of Manchuria, which is now as firmly established as is the Japanese civil and military con- trol of that country. Similarly the at tention of the English government was called to this state of affairs by British merchants and manufacturers
 As there was apparently nothing ludl Cculu De uOIle dDoul II, nOltllS was said and on this side it was pop ularly supposed that the Chinese boy colt was responsible for the heavy falling off of American trade in China.
 Now and then came rumors, more or less well authenticated, of the Nigh handed conduct of the Japanese in Manchuria. Some three or four months ago the Century Magazine printed an exhaustive article contributed by a gentleman who had made an extensive study of commercial operations in China and Manchuria. He disclosed in detail the relations between the Japanese government and the Japa- nese merchants and manufacturers and between high Japanese officials, including even the emperor and the Imperial Bank. which was in control of the finances of Manchuria- The merchants and manufacturers of other nations had been practically driven out of the country by a variety of methods. While the Japanese main tained the semblance of the "open door they so ordered affairs that competitors could not survive after they had entered it. Japanese mer- chants in the first place had the ad- vantage of the backing of the gov ernment and the bank. There are two systems of taxation in Manchuria. one by the Chinese government and one by the Japanese. The Japanese taxes were remitted to Japanese merchants