New-York tribune., 1922-08-06

/
clsely was the way things turned out
The market not only took the 200. 900
KIN offering, but it took it at a rising
price. There can be no more eloquent
comment on the strength of the silk
market.
FIXES Business Trend
And as silk goes so goes also the
general tendency Of the financial and
business cycle in Japan.
For, as has been pointed out more
than once, silk is the most important
export of Japan. And export trade is
precisely where economic Japan gets
her life blood. 1t is no Oriental myth
that Japan has been living on her for
eign trade for some years past, and.
what is more important, she is becom-
ing more and more dependent on her
oversea trade for prosperity.
In l9l9-in that year of after-the-
war madness, when silk (along with
the rest of fancy commodities) sold up
100 kin at Yokohama and $3.50
pound in New York-the total amount
of silk Japan exported to all the coun-
tries of the world was valued at 623,-
61S,000 yen. OF that total the United
States took 600,843,000 yen That is
putting as plainly and as eloquently
as possible the position of America in
the silk trade of Japan.
For generations past now America
/ has held the position of our Glover
customer in silk. And the year 1919
was not an exception; the ratio of
American purchase of Japanese silk to
the total Japanese export has held at
about the same figure year in and year
out. In the first six-month period of
the present year Japan exported 143.375
piculs of silk valued at 263,544,0o0 ven
And America took more than SO per
cent of the total.
What makes these figures more sig
nifcant still is the fact that silk makes
up more than one-fourth of the total
value of all the exports of Japan. 1t
Is no miracle, therefore, that our silk
market plays the prophet TO the general
business tendency of the country.
When Yokohama traders began talk
of buying boom" in silk-that is to
say, in the closing days of April
Shinshiu No. l was selling in the
neighborho ood of 1,750 yen a 100 kin
| 032 pounds In spite of the unload
ing of the silk pool the buying-es-
pecially the export buying to cover
American orders-kept on getting
more aggressive all through the month
of May. And on May "a Shinshiu
No. l reached the 1900 yen mark and
before the close of the month it went
above 1000 yen. Now looking down
from the dizzy height of $500 yen of
1919, this price of 1000 yen for Shin
shiu No. looks like a tragedy in fig
ures. But no one is feeling that way
in Japan about it at present--least Of
all the silk people. For they have
passed through the days of fiery trials
in the black period, which began with
the summer of 1920 when the price
Of silk dropped below the 1900 yen
mark (and it reached this depth from
| the height of $500 yen within little
sisted we'll into the summer of 1921
Those were the days when the silk
pool had the hardest time in the world
to peg the price at 1900 yen 100 kin.
And even with government support
and the more or less efficient co-op-
Grafton of the silk manufacturers the
pool was not always successful in
maintaining the price at tho fixed
point And 20 these silk people of
Japan, WHO have lived through the
shadow of financial and economic
death. the present climb of the price
of silk comes as a miracle of rose
dawn
Cotton yarn ranks only second to
silk among our export commodities.
The latter half of last year, and for
year, looked pretty black for she cot
ton spinners of Japan. On February
Of this gear, when the price of cotton
yarn fell to 207 yen per kori $3.50
pounds) the spinners declared that
there was no profit in the business.
With American raw cotton at 20 cents
pound, the cost of production ran
somewhere between 220 to 230 yen per
kori. But the price did not stop at
207 yen. 1t did not stop at the 200
yen mark. In April it went down to
100 yen. Naturally enough, most of
the mills shut down. But that was
the bottom, and the turn set in almost
over night. Export orders for cotton
clothes came in. That did much to
save the situation. 1t is continuing in
an aggressive manner; the way the or
ders are now pilng in on the Japanese
spinners at present speaks we'll for
porous days all through the latter half
Of the present year.
Still Had a Profit
Even in the dark days of the first
half of this year, however, the Nisshin
Boseki Kaisha, a leading spinning
company of the empire, reported tie
half years profit at 1,705,000 yen. This
was 22o,928 yen less than the profit Of
the second half Of 1921. Nevertheless
this means slightly more than Al per
cent ON the paid-up capital of the con-
Germ. 1t goes without saying, of
course, that the company is an excep-
tional one SO far as its low capitaliza-
tion is concerned. Still, it is one of
the facts which seem TO show that the
picture is not as black as it is popu-
larry painted. This company paid divi-
dends at the rate of % per cent year,
and as far as this company is con-.
cerned there is little to force it into
q panicky hysteria. Essen through the