Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/378

Rh own resources, to assist in the regeneration of Korea, to improve the condition of Formosa, to profit by the commercial growth of Manchuria. The Philippines are outside of the sphere of our interest and form no part in our industrial and commercial expansion. Instead of Japan coveting the possessions of the United States in the Pacific, Japan welcomes the United States as a neighbor as tending still further to increase the bonds of friendship that exist between the two countries.

For the same reason that Japan does not menace the United States politically Japan does not threaten the United States commercially. I have seen it stated that Japan will control the markets of China to the injury of American trade; but that is an imaginary fear. There never has been, is not now, or ever will be a strong commercial rivalry between Japan and the United States. Japan sells to China principally seaweeds, salt fish, beche-de-mer and other marine products, mushrooms, ginseng, copper, coal, matches, cotton yarns and fabrics. The United States sells to China flour, kerosene oil, timber, machinery, railway materials, and cotton goods. Where do Japan and the United States come into conflict? Each is supplying China with articles which admit of no competition. Japan is buying a large quantity of flour from the United States. She does not produce kerosene, timber, machinery, and railway materials. The only article in which there can be a possible competition is in cotton goods. In this, however, the competition is in theory rather than in fact. In the first place, Japan does not produce cotton, and therefore all raw material used in the cotton industry is imported from the United States, India, and China. Now, there are five competitors in this line of goods in the Chinese market — Great Britain, the United States, India, Japan, and China. The British and American interests lie principally in cotton fabrics and yarns of the finer quality, and between these two countries there exists competition. The interests of Japan and India lie principally in cotton yarns and fabrics of a coarser kind, while the Chinese interests are similar to those of Japan and India, and there exists competition between these three countries. But between the former two and the latter three there is almost no competition.

Further, a careful study of the result of competition in China shows that instead of one article driving its competitor out of the market, both competitors simultaneously increased their respective sales. The reason for this is that in a vast country like China, where there exists practically an unknown and an inexhaustible market and as yet such a small portion is open to the influence of foreign commerce, the result of competition is always to widen the extent of the market.

Nay, instead of ugly commercial rivalry between Japan and the United States, we shall, I hope, have a peaceful and harmonious trade relation between the two countries. We shall sell to America in increasing quantities products that America needs and does not produce — such as tea and silk — and take from her such articles as are more profitable to buy than to raise or produce in our own country. Instead of being rivals we shall be in the broadest sense partners — the one country will be a complement of the other. The United States will not be swamped by the products of the loom and the forge of Japan; Japan will not be stifled under an avalanche of factory-made goods of New England and the Pacific coast; but those great ships that move so majestically across the broad bosom of the Pacific will be freighted deep with the wares of the Orient and the Occident, adding to the wealth of the world and making both countries richer because of the enlightened policy that leads nations to buy and sell to each other and profit by both operations.