FOOTNOTE:
[2]The total exports of the United States for the years 1898 and 1899 have exceeded $1,200,000,000, each year. In the year 1897 they were about $1,050,000,000.
INDIA'S CITIES AND TOWNS
Calcutta (862,000) is the capital of the empire of India and the second city in the British Empire. Although situated on an arm of the delta of the Ganges, eighty miles inland, Calcutta is an immense seaport, but its sea-going privileges can be maintained only by great engineering works, because of the silt which the Ganges is constantly bringing down and depositing in its seaward channels. Calcutta enjoys almost a monopoly of the whole trade of the Ganges and Brahmapootra valleys, and until the building of the Suez Canal it had almost a monopoly of the outward trade of the whole Hindustan peninsula. Its total trade is even yet very large, aggregating for outward and inward business together about $700,000,000 per annum, a sum which can be appreciated from the fact that it is about equal to the total import trade of the whole of the United States. Bombay (822,000), the second city of the Indian Empire, owes its eminence to three things: (1) the opening of the Suez Canal, which has made it the port of India nearest England; (2) the starting of the cotton-growing industry in India, owing to the American civil war (the cotton-growing district of India is adjacent to Bombay); and (3) the development of the railway system of India, which is making Bombay rather than Calcutta the natural ocean outlet for the trade of the country. Madras (453,000), the third city of India, is also the third seaport. But it has no natural harbour, and its shore is surf-beaten and for months together exposed to the full fury of the northeast monsoons. An artificial harbour, however, has recently been built. Besides the cities above mentioned there is one (Hyderabad) with a population of over 400,000; there are two (Lucknow and Benares) with a population of over 150,000 each, and eleven more with a population of over 100,000 each. There are besides forty-seven towns with a population more than 50,000 each, and over a thousand towns with a population of about 10,000 each.
VII. THE TRADE FEATURES OF CHINA
THE VASTNESS OF CHINA'S AREA AND POPULATION
China, to the student of commerce, is the most interesting country on the globe. The reason for this is that its area is so large, its population so vast, and its chances for development so magnificent. The total area of the empire, according to late estimates, is 4,218,401 square miles. Other estimates make it 4,468,470 square miles. The greatness of this area may be understood from a few comparisons. It is about one twelfth of the total land surface of the globe. It is two and one fourth times the size of European Russia. It is almost one and one half times the total area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska. But all of this territory is not of equal commercial interest. The Chinese Empire consists of six parts: China Proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Jungaria, and Eastern Turkestan. Because of recent treaties, which give to Russia the right to build and "control" railways in Manchuria—ostensibly for the purpose of securing for the great Russian Trans-Siberian Railway a shorter route to Vladivostok, its Pacific terminus—Manchuria becomes practically a Russian possession. Turkestan, Jungaria, Tibet, and Mongolia are thinly inhabited countries, scarcely semi-civilised. But the part which remains when these "dependencies" are left out of consideration—China Proper—is at once one of the largest, most thickly populated, and most fertile countries on the face of the globe, and one also of the most richly endowed in mineral products. Its area is 1,336,841 square miles. Its population is 386,000,000. Its population per square mile is not far short of 300. That is to say, its area is more than eleven times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and almost one half that of the United States, exclusive of Alaska; its population is ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and more than six times that of the United States; while its population per square mile is greater than that of any European or American country except Great Britain (which, however, it nearly equals), Holland, and Belgium. In fact, more than one fourth of the total population of the globe is concentrated within the boundaries of China Proper.
CHINA A COUNTRY OF GREAT TRADE POSSIBILITIES
The great commercial nations of the world are now all trying to get shares of the trade of this vast and populous country. For not only is China (Proper) large and populous, but it is also wealthy, for its inhabitants are both industrious and frugal, and, besides, as compared with the people of European countries they have been greatly spared the disastrous commerce-destroying effects of war, both foreign and internecine. Centuries ago the Chinese had made great progress toward civilisation. Their skill in the manufacturing arts, and in agriculture and horticulture, was for ages superior to that of Western nations. But, unfortunately for their advancement, they are conservative, self-conceited, and averse to improvement, especially if they have to learn improvement of others. As yet they have almost wholly ignored the ideas and methods of modern Western civilisation. They have scarcely any railways, but few steamships, almost no steam-power manufactories, and no telephones. The only modern improvement which they have made much use of is the telegraph. Some years ago (in 1876) a European company secured the privilege of building a short railway from Shanghai, but it was scarcely built before the government got fearful of its influence and bought it up and stopped its running. But the Chinese people are not averse to foreign trade; on the contrary, they are rather fond of it. If only the thing could happen in China that happened in Japan—that is to say, if only the government could fall into the hands of rulers who were open-minded to improvement and inclined to be progressive—the rush that China would make toward civilisation and the adoption of modern trade methods and modern processes of manufacture would be startling.