COLONIAL EXPANSION AND FOREIGN TRADE. 67 



to 40,500,000, or about $200,000,000 $41.66 per capita. The 

 inhabitants of the Anglo-Saxon colonies of the world number but 

 seventeen million. Their net imports of merchandise are $460,000,- 

 000. The seven hundred and thirty millions of Hindu and Mon- 

 golian populations import $530,000,000. These are the lands of 

 fabled wealth. Antiquity and the middle ages dreamed of riches in- 

 exhaustible in connection with their names. To-day still the popular 

 belief is that the wealth of nations is dependent on the conduct of 

 direct trade with the far East. The country can not be rich whose 

 millions find happiness in a sufficient supply of millet or rice, what- 

 ever the wealth of a small favored class may be. But these nations 

 were the teachers of the barbarians whose descendants now populate 

 America and Europe. The disciples have improved on the masters. 

 We have improved the tools which they invented and applied new 

 forces of production. We have cheapened the processes of production. 

 We have quintupled, we have decupled time. But whatever our im- 

 provements in the tools, they are still our masters in the work. Any 

 one who would endeavor to substitute the product of our mills in 

 cotton, in silk, in wool, in wood, iron, clay, in lacquer, cloisonne, or 

 enamel, for theirs, and not see at a glance the hopelessness, would in- 

 deed prove his incapacity for grasping the situation. Our best pro- 

 ducers study with profit the work of China and, chiefly, of Japan, and 

 are grateful for the inspiration they derive from it. But they do not 

 attempt to copy. Neither in color effect nor design could they stand 

 the test of comparison. Five thousand years have been recovered 

 from the sepulcher under which they had been sleeping. But the 

 oldest traces unearthed in the valley of the Euphrates still take us 

 back to the farthest East as the originator of what we cover by the 

 term " civilization." The Mongolian shares the lot of all who have 

 benefited the race. 



If we can not expect great openings for our mill products in 

 Asia, Africa is a new field for the civilizing efforts of Europe, and 

 will repay cultivating, perhaps. The negro has neither factories nor 

 workshops. There at least is an unlimited field for trade expansion. 

 Germany, the latest comer, with the zeal of all fresh missionaries, is 

 eagerly taking up her colonizing mission. The result is not very 

 encouraging. There is a fine set of buildings with garden spots and 

 harbor improvements in the settlement at Cameroon, and a well- 

 stocked graveyard of what were once good German boys, victims of 

 the deadly climate and of the expansion fever. So far this is the 

 only net showing to the credit side of the ledger. The territory in 

 Africa covers nearly one million square miles. The possession of 

 such an empire is worth a sacrifice, apparently, and Germany is not 

 parsimonious in this direction. The contribution of the German 



