We conclude this section by briefly pointing out what appear to be the most significant tendencies of Japan's trade and of her national growth in general. The growth of imports, which have risen from 23-1/5 million yen in 1874 to 37-3/5 millions in 1904, is mainly due to causes which may be classified as follows: First, the progress of industries, resulting in an increasing demand, on the one hand, for machinery, and, on the other, for raw materials, particularly cotton and iron; second, a great advance in the standard of living among the people at large, which caused a remarkable growth of the general consumption of imported articles, including textiles, woolens, petroleum, and numerous other items; third, the rapid increase of population, coupled with the transition of the new nation from an agricultural to a manufacturing state of industry, which, besides aiding the growth of general consumption, necessitated a marked development of the importation of foodstuffs, such as rice, beans, flour, and sugar. These three classes of causes have all stimulated import trade to grow with rapidity, and are apt to continue to do so in the future, but, as the figures plainly show, in varying degrees from one another. And it is in this difference that one of the striking indications of Japan's call in the East is to be discovered. The increase of the imports due to the growth of the general consumption of foreign goods has not been nearly so fast as other classes of imports, as Japan is able to supply her people more and more with the fruits of her own manufacture, which itself is progressing rapidly. While the future increase of this class of imports must be steady, it at the same time may not be rapid save in a few exceptional articles. Nor may the importation of machinery, excepting the most advanced, such as locomotives, be expected to grow more rapidly, the reason for this supposition being again the increasing activity of Japan's manufacturing life. The other two classes of imports, however, that is, raw material for manufacture and foodstuff for the growing population, have shown a wonderful advance, and may be said to command the most assured promise for the future. A glance at the following table will make an elaborate demonstration of our statement superfluous:
| IMPORTATION OF RAW MATERIAL AND FOODSTUFF | |||||
| (Unit of million yen) | |||||
| 1882 | 1892 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | |
| Cotton | 0.46 | 12.32 | 79.78 | 69.52 | 73.42 |
| Pig iron | 0.09 | 0.24 | 0.98 | 1.25 | 2.24 |
| Wool | .... | 0.30 | 3.40 | 4.81 | 9.97 |
| Sugar | 3.84 | 9.53 | 14.36 | 20.96 | 23.04 |
| Rice | 0.21[1] | 1.86[1] | 13.56[1] | 51.96 | 59.70 |
| Flour | .... | 0.27 | 3.28 | 10.32 | 9.62 |
| Beans | .... | .... | 4.95 | 6.37 | 8.12 |
| Oil cakes | 0.03 | 0.82 | 10.12 | 10.73 | 4.66 |
This remarkable showing of figures becomes highly significant when we consider further that most of the articles the importation of which increases the fastest come mainly from the East Asiatic countries. India furnishes the bulk of cotton, China supplies some iron, sugar, and rice, as well as some cotton, while North China and Manchuria send their beans and oil cakes, and Korea is beginning to be a great supply region of several cereals. Most flour and some iron, however, come from the United States, which, as we shall see presently, occupies a unique relation to Japan's trade. We have thus arrived at an important conclusion that Japan is obliged to depend in an increasing degree for her most important articles of importation on East Asia, to which she is intimately connected both geographically and historically.
An analysis of the export figures of Japan leads us to a similar conclusion from another direction. It has already been shown that, as contrary to the tendency of her import trade, Japan's exportation consists yearly more of manufactured articles and less of raw goods than before. Here again a deeper significance is disclosed by an examination of the destination of the exports. The time, if ever, seems very remote when Japan will invade Europe and America with her manufactures and compete with the fruits of their superior machinery and mechanical experience. Her exportation to Western countries already has a clear indication of settling down to two main classes of articles; such unfinished goods as raw silk, copper, sulphur, and others, which might rather be finished abroad than in Japan; and certain goods peculiar to the soil of Japan, as, for instance, tea, habutai, and other light silk fabrics, porcelain, matting, camphor, and the like. The exportation of these articles must increase in varying degrees, according to the state of the several determining factors that rule the domestic and foreign markets, but its future on the whole may be said to be much more limited and inelastic than that of Japan's exports to the East Asiatic countries. Her close economic relation to them has become all the more manifest since she began to be a manufacturing nation, while they remained agricultural; she buys from them raw products and foodstuff, and supplies them with her manufactured articles. The demand for these last-named articles, also, by a fortunate combination of circumstances, is at present what the still inferior skill of the Japanese manufacturer can supply. The taste of the Eastern buyer is still low and his wants still comparatively few, while their advance will largely coincide with Japan's improvement in industries. Her neighbors in Korea, Siberia, Manchuria, North and South China, India and Further India, and the Philippines absorb her coal, matches, marine products, cotton yarns and coarse cotton fabrics, and other similar goods, to the amount of 134.5 million yen (in 1901) while eleven years before they consumed 23 millions and in 1882 only 6 millions. From these data, the conclusion seems tenable that her geographical and economical conditions render it natural for Japan to interpret the new Occidental civilization for the old Orient, and create new wants in the latter for the fruits of the former, herself reaping an important share of the profits that accrue from the world-wide exchange. This share consists in an even closer economic connection of East Asia, particularly Korea and China, with Japan as her grand supply region of raw goods and market for made articles. In comparison with this, Japan's trade with countries of Western civilization may become more and more a mere complement to her Eastern trade.
The solitary and striking exception to this general statement is found in the Japanese trade with the United States, which is still to-day, as she was twenty years ago, the largest single buyer of Japanese goods, notably tea, raw silk, matting, porcelain, and camphor. In the import trade, while the United States is second to Great Britain, the former advanced in twenty years between 1882 to 1902 from 3 to 48.6 million yen, and the latter only from 14 to 50.3 millions. The peculiar features of Japan's trade with the American nation which are not found in her European commerce may be said to lie in the fact that the latter buys a considerable amount of the crude or unfinished Japanese manufacture, and sells increasing quantities of raw cotton and flour and other foodstuffs, thus participating in a large measure in the peculiarities of the Japanese trade with the East. The United States also furnishes Japan more cheaply certain products of modern industries which the latter formerly bought from Europe.
We conclude our survey of Japan's foreign trade by appending a table showing its distribution by the continents, which will speak for itself without our comment:
| (Unit of million yen.) | |||||
| Europe, | America, | Asia, | Australia, | ||
| and Others. | |||||
| 1881 | Exports, | 12.5 | 11.0 | 0.6 | 0.9 |
| Imports, | 21.0 | 1.8 | 7.6 | 0.5 | |
| 1891 | Exports, | 23.9 | 31.1 | 20.9 | 1.8 |
| Imports, | 30.3 | 6.8 | 23.7 | 1.9 | |
| 1901 | Exports, | 59.9 | 75.6 | 111.4 | 5.2 |
| Imports, | 96.7 | 42.9 | 109.0 | 7.0 | |
| 1903 | Exports, | 70.3 | 85.7 | 126.7 | 6.7 |
| Imports, | 96.1 | 46.7 | 169.1 | 5.0 | |
| 1904 | Exports, | 72.3 | 104.6 | 134.5 | 7.7 |
| Imports, | 120.5 | 58.9 | 182.5 | 9.3 | |
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The average for the past ten years inclusive.