66 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that China parceled out to modern nations will vastly extend in 

 trading opportunities. So it may. We have, however, national dis- 

 position to take into consideration. England has devoted her best 

 efforts to India. After a century spent in bringing the various races 

 to submission, the process of " benevolent assimilation " is helped 

 along by a never-ending flow of capital from England. She has be- 

 come the teacher and administrator of the people of Hither and Far- 

 ther India. It is doubtful whether under existing conditions any 

 better government for their three hundred millions could be devised 

 by any outer force. Though England does her utmost, as she un- 

 derstands it, to make the people under her dominion happy and pros- 

 perous, although the rule of law and a degree of local independence 

 are established, yet she finds small thanks from her wards. They 

 have their own notions of happiness, and seem to prefer misery of 

 their selection to the advantages of the white man's ordering. The 

 fact is, the brown man and the yellow man have different notions 

 and desires from the white man. No amount of jostling, pushing, 

 and urging will make them take up our views, our tastes, our work- 

 ing methods, except in the due development of time. Our ideas as 

 to necessaries of life and theirs are widely different. Their simple 

 needs are easily supplied from native hands, who understand far 

 better than our potters do the clay they have to deal with. The 

 progress in trade will not be rapid, and will certainly be disappointing 

 to those who expect to see it extend into general lines of merchandise. 

 The import trade of India and its dependencies (1897) is $284,000,- 

 000, inclusive of Ceylon and the net trade of the Straits Settle- 

 ments. This amount, directly catering to the wants of fully three 

 hundred millions of people, is but about one third more than the 

 net import trade of Australasia, with a population of less than five 

 millions of people. The per-capita consumption of imported mer- 

 chandise of the Asiatic possessions of England is ninety-seven cents; 

 of Australasia, $41.66. I must say here in explanation that the 

 values of importations of merchandise, as published in the English 

 returns and lately reproduced by the Bureau of Statistics of the 

 Treasury Department, Colonial Systems of the World, is $305,000,- 

 000, which would make a showing of $63.33 per capita. But in 

 the English returns the intercolonial trade figures are included. 

 The Treasury Bureau did not mention this in its publication, and 

 gave thereby a basis for erroneous deductions. I have deducted all 

 the intercolonial trade figures of imports and exports from the re- 

 turns of each of the Australian colonies, so as to bring the figures 

 to a basis of parity with the accounts of Canada, and other colonies 

 and dependencies where no duplications of this kind are possible. 

 The figures of importations remaining over are reduced by this process 



