THE 



National Geographic Magazine 



Vol. X SEPTEMBER, 1899 No. 9 



THE COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF JAPAN 



By 0. P. Austin, 

 Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department 



With new currency, a new tariff, new relations to her foreign 

 population, and new treaty relations with the commercial world, 

 Japan's commercial future is a subject which naturally arrests 

 attention and also arouses much conjecture; and when it is con- 

 sidered that the trade relations of that country with the United 

 States are growing more rapidly than those with any other 

 nation, the subject becomes one of especial interest to the people 

 of the United States. Our exports of merchandise to Japan, 

 which 20 years ago were but a couple of millions of dollars an- 

 nually, had reached five millions by 1890, nearly eight millions 

 in 1896, over 13 millions in 1897, 20 millions in 1898, and between 

 1 7 and 18 millions in 1899. Our purchases from Japan of articles 

 which we must have, such as raw silk and fibers for our manu- 

 facturers, tea, rice, and other articles which we cannot produce 

 at home, have constantly grown, even while our purchases from 

 other parts of the world were being reduced, and are now from 

 25 to 2G millions a year, against one-half that sum fifteen years 

 ago. Over a thousand citizens of the United States are now re- 

 siding in Japan, many of them actively participating in her 

 foreign commerce, two-thirds of which is still conducted by for- 

 eigners, while over seven thousand citizens of Japan are residing 

 in the United States, many of them as students, and over twenty- 

 seven thousand of her people are residents of the Hawaiian 

 islands, which are now under the United States flag. No Euro- 

 pean nation except Great Britain has so many citizens residing 



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