Page:The empire and the century.djvu/786

 the whole world for 3,000 years; yet, according to Mr. Brenan, late British Consul-General in Shanghai, China is still importing coal from other countries to the extent of 1,400,000 tons per annum, and at a cost of £1,000,000. Nor does coal represent by any means the only form of mineral wealth hidden below the surface of Chinese soil. Last, but not least, we must bear in mind the large amount of British capital—over £22,000,000—invested in Chinese Government loans over and above the share of the war indemnity owing to this country under the terms of the peace protocol, signed at Peking in 1901 after the repression of the Boxer Movement.

Enormous as are these material interests already represented by British capital invested in China and the actual volume of British trade with China, they must, however, pale into insignificance compared with the value of our potential share in the development of that vast Empire. To form an estimate of its capacities, we have only to compare the growth of foreign trade in Japan under an enlightened system of government and liberal institutions with the growth of foreign trade in China under the obstructive misrule of Peking and the obsolete methods of the Chinese authorities all over the country. Japan has barely one-eighth of the population of China, and her people, though more alert, are not more industrious; her natural resources are incomparably smaller. Yet during the last two decades, whilst the foreign trade of China has only increased from, roughly, £48,600,000 (in 1888) to about £70,000,000 (in 1908), the foreign trade of Japan has increased during the same period from a little over £9,000,000 to over £60,500,000, or eight and a half fold. Even ten years ago the foreign trade of Japan was barely half that of China; to-day it