When Japan was opened to the commerce of the world, there were few business houses or trading establishments of any size. Now there are several department stores and large wholesale houses, besides manufacturing and trading companies of importance. One business man in Tokyo, Mr. K. Okura, has a private collection of curios valued at one million dollars, which he offered to sell in Europe or America, the proceeds to be given to the government for carrying on the war against Russia. Osaka has a successful business man who has earned the name of the "Japanese Carnegie" by giving a fine library building to that city.
Consul General Miller, at Yokohama, and Consul Sharp, at Kobe, furnished me with interesting statistics regarding the commerce of Japan. Exports have increased from about eighty millions in 1891 to about three hundred and twenty millions in 1904; during the same period imports increased from a little more than sixty-three millions to a little more than three hundred and seventy-one millions. While our country sells less to Japan than Great Britain and British India, she buys more than any other nation from Japan. Our chief exports to Japan last year were electric motors, locomotive engines, steam boilers and engines, iron pipes, nails, lead, oil, paraffine wax, cotton drills, cotton duck, raw cotton, tobacco, coal, cars, turning lathes, condensed milk, flour and wheat. Of these items, flour, raw cotton and oil were by far the most valuable, each amounting to more than four and a half million dollars.
In the ocean carrying trade, Japan is making rapid strides. In ten years her registered steamers have increased from four hundred and sixty-one to twelve hundred and twenty-four and her sailing vessels from one hundred and ninety-six to three thousand five hundred and twenty-three. There are now two hundred private ship yards in Japan, and in 1903 they built two hundred and seventy-nine vessels. The Japan Mail Steamship Company has a paid-up capital of eleven million dollars, runs steamers between Japan, America, Europe and Asia and pays a ten per cent dividend on its capital. The Osaka Mercantile Steamship Company (Osaka Shosen Kaisha) has a paid-up capital of nearly three and a half million dollars, owns about one hundred vessels and pays a dividend of ten per cent. These are the largest companies, but there are many smaller ones, some paying dividends of sixteen and twenty per cent.
I will close this article with the suggestion that the mercantile marine seems likely to show large growth in the future, offering, as it does, a legitimate field for national expansion.
Japan's fishing industries furnish a training for seamen and her people seem at home upon the water. She needs more territory for her expanding population and has about reached the limit in the cultivation of her tillable land. Every additional ship manned by her citizens is like a new island, rising from the waves, upon which her increasing population can be supported. If she seeks to acquire land in any direction, she finds her efforts contested by the inhabitants already there; no wonder she hails with delight these floating farms constructed by the genius of her own people—new land, as it were, won and held without the sacrifice of war.
CHAPTER VI.
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AND RELIGIONS.
Back of Japan's astonishing progress along material lines lies her amazing educational development. Fifty years ago but few of her people could read or write; now considerably less than ten per cent would be classed as illiterate. It is difficult to conceive of such a transformation taking place almost within a generation. The prompt adoption of western methods and the rapid assimilation of western ideas give indubitable proof of the pre-existence of a vital national germ. A pebble dropped into soil, however rich, and cultivated, no matter how carefully, gives back no response to the rays of the springtime sun. Only the seed which has life within can be awakened and developed by light and warmth and care. Japan had within her the vital spark, and when the winter of her isolation was passed, her latent energies burst forth into strong and sturdy growth.