CHINESE COMMERCE. 199 



Taking the full list, there were, according to the United States 

 Government classification, exports in 1893 under fifty-seven heads, but 

 in 1898, according to the same classification, exports under seventy-six 

 heads. The greater part of the increase in the five years (amounting to 

 a total of $6,091,613) was due to manufactures of cotton, which in- 

 creased $3,558,791; to raw cotton, which increased from nothing to 

 $370,670; to manufactures of iron and steel, including machinery, 

 $116,018; and to oils, chiefly kerosene, $1,055,797. The manufactures 

 of cotton, which in 1898 amounted to $5,193,127, reached, during the 

 next United States fiscal year (1899), $9,811,565. That is to say, the 

 value of cotton cloths alone was, in the year 1899, almost as large as the 

 value of the total American imports into China during the preceding 

 year of all articles of whatsoever nature. This class of goods, the prod- 

 ucts of our New England and Southern mills, is the greatest single item 

 of American commerce, and has already reached a point where, in cer- 

 tain grades, it dominates absolutely the Chinese market. 



Taking drills, jeans and sheetings, the three great items of cotton 

 goods consumed by the Chinese, and examining the trade of the three 

 northern ports of Niu-chwang, Tien-tsin and Chefoo, American goods 

 comprise of total receipts at the first: ninety-eight per cent., and at the 

 second and third ninety-five per cent., the small remaining balance be- 

 ing divided between the English, Indian, Dutch, Japanese and other 

 manufacturing nations. But quite as extraordinary as this there must 

 be kept in mind the fact that of the total exports to all countries of 

 American manufactures in cotton cloths, the Chinese market consumes 

 just one-half. 



Another article of American commerce that figured very small in the 

 early returns, but now shows a great and increasing importance, is flour. 

 It is shipped almost wholly to Hongkong, and thence forwarded to 

 Canton, Amoy or other southern Chinese ports. In the fiscal year 

 ending June 30, 1898, no less than $3,835,727 worth was exported from 

 here, and during the corresponding period of 1900, a value of $1,502,- 

 081. Wheat is not grown in southern China, and American flour has 

 captured the demand, just as American cottons have done in the north. 

 Next to Great Britain and Germany our best customer for American 

 flour is China. 



Such is the state of our Chinese trade to-day, and no one can find 

 fault with its present condition and its recent development. But what 

 of the future ? 



The success of the American commercial invasion depends abso- 

 lutely on the maintenance of the existing status. China, in the liber- 

 ality of the regulations affecting foreign commerce, is second to no 

 other nation. In levying a tax, amounting to less than four per cent., 

 she gives preferential duties to none, special privileges only as com- 



