East of Suez / Ceylon, India, China and Japan

by Frederic Courtland Penfield

"But are not these 'open-door' countries, stipulated and guaranteed by the powers—meaning that your people can enjoy no special trade advantage in them?" the American asks the man of Japan.

"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers: but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of the Japanese at this time—geographical position, necessity for recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New Japan.

It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty Japanese tonnage on the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the controlling article of faith of the awakened Japan is the creation of an ocean commerce great enough to make the Japanese the carriers of the Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's markets. Indeed, were present-day Japan eliminated from consideration, it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation facilities.

The merchant steamship is intended to play an important rôle in Japan's elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden, and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. Japan is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when it was apparent that Japan would not longer be dependent upon the outer world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906 there was completed and launched in Japan the biggest battleship in the world, the Satsuma, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of about the dimensions of the Dreadnaught, of the British navy, but claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the Satsuma, witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national event.

In the war with China, twelve or thirteen years ago, Japan had insufficient vessels to transport her troops. The astute statesmen at Tokyo, recognizing the error of basing the transportation requirements of an insular nation upon ships controlled by foreigners, speedily drafted laws looking to the creation of a native marine which might be claimed in war time for governmental purposes. The bestowal of liberal bounties transformed Japan in a few short years from owning craft of the junk class to a proprietorship of modern iron-built vessels of both home construction and foreign purchase. In the late campaign there was no comparison in the seamanship of the agile son of Nippon and that of the hulking peasant of interior Russia. The Jap was proven time and again to be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to conform to strict discipline, unite in making the Japanese a seaman whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.

Of late years hundreds of clever young Japanese have served apprenticeships in important shipyards in America, England, Germany and France, with the result that there are to-day scores of naval architects and constructors in Japan the equals of any in the world. Whether as designers, yard managers or directors of construction, the Japs, with their special schooling, have nothing to learn now from foreign countries. The genius of some of these men played a part in Togo's great victory.

Japanese men of affairs pretend to see little difficulty in the way of their nation controlling the building of ships for use throughout the East. Local yards are already constructing river gunboats and torpedo craft for the Chinese government, and it is reasonable to believe that a year or two hence their hold upon the business will amount practically to a monopoly. British firms with yards at Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai are not rejoiced at the prospect of Japanese rivalry. It is possible that, the Japanese may become shipbuilders for our own Philippine archipelago.

Already the shipyards of Nippon are ringing with the sound of Japan's upbuilding; and the plant of the Mitsubishi company, at Nagasaki—among the largest in the world,—has been enlarged to accommodate increasing demands. The enormous Minnesota, of the Great Northern Steamship Company, was not so long ago repaired at Nagasaki in a dry-dock having eighty feet in length to spare.

Japanese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay, Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service between Panama, the Philippines and Japanese ports, in anticipation of the completion of the Panama Canal: and, further perceiving the opportunity rapping at her door, Japan is preparing to place a line on the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate region to Japanese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from Argentina. Rice eating in Japan is giving way to bread made from wheat, or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further known that Japan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports.

In 1894 Japan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels. Almost half the steamers entering Japanese ports fly the flag of the Rising Sun, and Japan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of oversea tonnage, Japan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of Japanese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei Kondo, is one of Japan's most progressive men, is numerically and in tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships.