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Page 29
One finds this belief expressed in many standard works. "The helpless
apathy of Asiatics" is a favorite phrase of Macaulay. "Man is but a weed
in those vast regions," says DeQuincey. "In Asia there are no questions,
only affirmations," says another philosopher. And no amount of experience
seems to shake the popular faith in this notion that what Asia was she is
always to be. And yet enough has occurred within the memory of men still
middle-aged to dissipate it. Only a few years ago Americans looked upon
Russia as an inert mass, semi-barbarous in large part; and when Kennan
pictured the horrors of Siberia most readers thought the condition only
such as might be expected from such a government and such people as they
believed the Russians to be. But Russia is to-day one of the world's
greatest powers, with 120,000,000 of people, building the two longest
railways in the world, developing the Siberian and Transcaspian region
with a rapidity only exceeded in our own far West, and drawing gold from
this country and western Europe at a rate that threatens the stability of
our financial system.
It is only forty-one years since our Commodore Perry astonished the world
by securing admission to Japan and proving to the western people that it
was at least worthy of their notice, yet that empire has undergone a most
beneficent revolution in which the Daimios or local lords consented to a
self-sacrifice without a parallel in history, has been the victor in a
great war, has adopted the best features of the western civilization while
sacrificing none of its own, and is advancing in material development with
a rapidity rarely equalled and perhaps never excelled. Five years ago the
first complete census showed thirty-six cotton factories with 377,970
spindles; three years later the number of factories had doubled and that
of the spindles had much more than quadrupled, and there is every
indication that next year's tabulation will show a still more rapid
increase. In 1894 there were 17,000 people employed in that industry.
Hon. Robert P. Porter, who has recently returned from Japan, after making
a thorough study of her progress and resources, tells us that while her
export of textiles of all kinds in 1885 was worth but $511,990, they were
in 1895 worth $22,177,626, the estimate of both years in silver dollars.
Similarly in the same years the exports of raw silks increased from
$14,473,396 to $50,928,440, of grain and provisions from $4,514,843 to
$12,723,771, of matches from $60,565 to $4,672,861, of porcelain, curios,
and sundries from $2,786,876 to $11,624,701, and several other articles in
the like proportion, while the commerce for 1895 showed an increase of
$30,000,000 over 1894, reaching a total of exports and imports of
$296,000,000, or about $7.50 per capita.
The government granted 2,250,000 yen as a bounty to the first iron works,
begun in 1892, and already the products of those iron works in hand-made
articles are underselling American products on our Pacific coast. In five
years, prior to those covered by Mr. Porter's figures above, Japan's
exports rose from 34,800,000 to 68,400,000 yen, and her imports from
27,000,000 yen to 64,000,000 yen. Nor does there appear any reason to
doubt the confident statement of British experts that development for the
coming years will go on much more rapidly. Politics in the empire already
turns upon fiscal and economic questions; of two bills urged in the
Imperial Parliament by the progressists, one decrees the nationalization
of all railways not yet owned by the state, and the other asks for an
appropriation of 50,000,000 yen for the building of a new railroad. While
this is going through the press it is announced that Japan has established
two new steamship lines, one running from Yokohama to our own Pacific
coast, and the other from Yokohama to Marseilles, stopping at Shanghai,
Hong Kong, Singapore, and Columbo.
The western mind has long looked upon China as given over to hopeless
inertia and stagnation, but China has awakened at last. In one year the
importation of illuminating oil rose 50 per cent., of window glass 58 per
cent., of matches 23 per cent., and needles 20 per cent. In six years the
tonnage of vessels discharging in Chinese ports rose by one-third. While
these lines are going through the press Li Hung Chang is in Europe
negotiating for a loan of 400,000,000 francs to be expended in internal
improvements, and he gives the weight of his very high authority to the
statement that China is no longer opposed to the introduction of railways.
Consul-General Jernigan reports to the Department of State that the
prospectus of a new industry is now before the public at his station,
Shanghai. It is called the Shanghai Oil Mill Company, and purposes to
manufacture oil from cotton seed. It is the logical result of the cotton
mills at Shanghai, and the consequent stimulus given to the cultivation of
cotton in China. Since 1890 there have been forty-five new manufacturing
plants established in Shanghai. They are all in successful operation,
especially the cotton factories, in which large capital is invested. He
adds:
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