310 SIBERIA 



Advantage should be taken by British capitalists of 

 the cheap land suitable for cotton-growing in the 

 Russian Empire, which, with cheap Russian labour, 

 will produce cheaper cotton than we can buy at 

 present. It might be possible, also, to break the 

 German monopoly which exists at present for the 

 purchase of cotton in RussiaW Turkestan, in which 

 case we would be in a better position to compete 

 with Germany and Japan in the Eastern markets. 

 There is a further advantage in this arrangement 

 in the fact that, owing to the want of capital, Russian 

 merchants would not be able to gamble in cotton, 

 even if the Government would permit them to do so. 

 With these advantages and better-organised trade 

 to enable British manufactures to deal directly with 

 the Eastern markets, we may succeed in getting back 

 a portion of the trade that is done in the East, more 

 especially in the Chinese market. This would be a 

 very much better way than for British capital to be 

 taken to China to be invested in cotton-mills in that 

 country. 



The problem of whether China will become more 

 powerful than Japan in the future, and succeed in 

 shaking off the influence of the latter coimtry, is one 

 that I do not propose to enter into here ; but one 

 thing at least is certain, and that is that China's 

 military and commercial resources if properly 

 organised by Japan, would be a more formidable 

 combination thajg, any other that could be suggested, 

 and could only be met by a counter alliance of the 

 Western powers — a most improbable thing to look 

 forward to. And if a military invasion is, at least 

 iat present, not to be feared, and the spectre of 

 Chinese cheap labour is laid, that of a commercial 

 " yellow peril " of cheap products, as the result of 

 a Chino -Japanese commercial combination, is still to 

 be confronted. 



