Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/244

RV 216 money to be sent to Tōkyō. If these twenty-three millions—or two hundred and thirty million yen—be taken into account, the excess of apparently unpaid for imports is reduced to thirty-one millions of yen, the greater part of which, if not the whole, is accounted for by the expenditures of foreigners resident in the country and of tourists visiting it. There can be no question, however, that Japan's foreign trade is at present causing an outflow of her specie. Only within the past five years (1896 to 1900), however, has the balance been seriously against her, the excess of imports for that period totalling no less than three hundred and ten million yen. Doubtless the explanation is to be sought in the fact that since 1896 the Government has been spending great sums on works connected with the post-bellum programme of armaments' expansion, and that the millions thus scattered among the people have increased their purchasing power to an abnormal extent.

It can scarcely be doubted that the future development of Japan's trade will be in the direction of manufactures. She will always be able to send abroad considerable quantities of raw silk and tea and comparatively inconsiderable quantities of marine products, copper, coal, camphor, sulphur, rice and minor staples, but, with regard to these, either her producing capacity is inelastic or her market is limited. It is