The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-02-13
JAPAN IS OUT
FOR MORE TRADE
Goes At It In Practical Bust
nesslike Manner.
COMMERCIAL AGENTS.
Many Indications Point TO Increased
Cooperation i'm Handling of Pro-
visions to Reduce Great
Cost of Living.
COMMERCIAL AGENTS.
BY PRESTON o. ADAMS.

New York, February 12.-(Special.)-
Japan is out after trade and is going
about getting 1t in business-like way.
Realizing that the man who pays is the
man to be satisfied, she Is now about to
reorganize or rather enlarge her diplomat
ic service, so that her merchants and man.
ufacturers may know just what the trade
of the world wants that Japan can fur
nish and how it wants the goods de-
livered. The new branch of the Japan
csc diplomatic service will be purely COM
mercial and its agents in each country
will be under the immediate direction of
commercial attache of the Japanese
embassy or legation. These attaches are
to be wide-awake successful business
men. whose duties shall be to look after
commercial conditions, hunt up and de-
velop new resources of trade and do
everything possible to develop Japanese
trade They will have agents at the
principal commercial centers of the coun-
try. ! understand that it already has
been decided to have such agents at
Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago,
New Orleans and New York. while other
cities will be added to the list as the
service develops.
The same course will be followed in
other countries.
This action, it is stated is the result
of the observations of the Japanese Com
mercial Commission which visited this
country last fall. The commissioners WIS.,
tied, in their trip eastward from the Pa
oi6 10 foy- Of
ufacturing centers. exhibiting a desire to
get more than a superficial impression
that satisfies most parties of this kind.
Several instances reported from differ
ent sections of the country within the
last few days of the formation of CO.
opera tive societies for the production
of food and manufactures and particu-
larry for their distribution, manifest an
impulse to turn to cooperation as one
means of reducing the cost of living. Aiiis
phase Of the situation, arising from COM
bined protests against high prices, offers
a prospect of more enduring results than
are to be expected from temporary
self-denying ordinance to abstain from
special articles of food.
The cooperative movement has made
Only slight progress in the United States
compared with its advance in the United
Kingdom and some otner countries of
Europe, but hard times and the pressure
of high prices of food have accounted
for the practical success of cooperation
abroad and present conditions In America
are not unlikely to give a strong stimulus
to its methods and produce similar re-
suits
glance at the present status of CO.
operation in the United Kingdom i'm
presses one with the substantial position
it occupies in the industrial life of that
country. The Rockdale Equitable Pion-
GERS society began in 1874 at a time
when the Industrial population of ENGLAND
was increasing at a faster ratio than the
food production of the country and for
eign sources had not yet been tapped to
any great extent The initial capital sub
scribed by its members was s12o. In 16
years its business grew to S760,315, the
profits being $79,530. According to the
statement of President Rae at the forty
first annual cooperative congress, held
at Newcastle-on-Tyne last June. the bus
mess done by the cooperative societies
in 1908 had risen to 1881, 1920, and the
membership to 2,516,194
The units of the whole cooperative
system In Britain are individual socie-
ties, the great majority of which con-
fine their operations to distribution. In
1903 there were 1928 of these, with 2,4O4,o95
members holding 30,037.35- SHARES. The
trade OF these retail societies amounted
to $s4s, s16, 800, on which the profit real
lied was $50, .025. There is scarcely
town, mining or factory village in the
northern and northeastern counties of
England that does not have It's co-opera-
tive store, which provides the members
and other purchasers with provisions and
clothing at prices which reflect the eff
fort to reduce to the lowest terms the
cost of production, carriage, agency and
distribution and allowance for fair
profit to cover working expenses and pro-
vide additional capital. The extra profit,
IL any. is returned to the members of the
societies in proportion to the purchases.
The formation of the wholesale CO.
operative societies, to provide these re-
tail societies with their supplies at the
least possible cost, was the natural Sc
ouence of the firm establishment Of the
retail distributive system There are
two of these in the United Kingdom.
with headquarters in Manchester and
Glasgow. respectively. The English Co.
operatiye wholesale society Is a fedora
tion of retail cooperative societies, who
holds all the share capital and loans, no
individuals being allowed to do SO, and
the Scottish cooperative wholesale So
ciety Is similarly composed of Scottish
societies. The profits In each society are
divided the same as those of the retail
societies, the gross profit being subject
to the following charges: First, interest
of per cent or less on share capital and
loans; second, allowance for depreciation
of land, buildings and fixtures; third, adj
ditions ito insurance and reserve funds.
The balance is termed met profit" and
is allotted as dividend to the retail
societies pro rata on their purchases.
Though the retail societies sell goods to
other than their own members, the sales
of the wholesale societies are restricted
to the retail societies subscribing to their
capital as members
New York is now the greatest shipping
port In the world, with net registered
tornav 90 Of 12.154 $50. with Antwerp second
with II, 211 1903, London third with 11160.367y
and Harrisburg fourth with 100SS, 553
Hongkong comes next with 9,941 ,261.
| The most rapid rate of progress made
| in the last ten years had been achieved
| by the Japanese port of Kobe, whose
vessel tonnage has increased nearly 649
per cent from 740s51 tons to 5,497,ST tons
and by the South American port of
| Monteviedo, which has increased 28S per
| cent from 1881, 554 tons to 7,725, 534 tons.
| Advices from the companies doing bus
| mess throughout the south indicate that
| 1910 so far has been unusually active in
the amount and extent of fire losses. The
companies doing a general business COM
plain and say that conditions are such
as to give little hope that there will be
much Improvement until later in the
! year.
1.-THE rice mills are having very hard
| shedding" said member of the local
| trade, land unless conditions change
more of them must go out of business
For several years they have been making
! little or no money and now the farmers