Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/372

 cowhides, ginseng, raw cotton, fish, whale flesh and blubber, paper, sea-weed and barley. Other things which figure prominently are beche-de-mer, bones, cattle, feathers, mats, medicines, millet, oysters, sesamum, raw silk, tallow, tobacco, wheat, copper, curios and grass-cloth.

The value of foreign imports in 1901 and 1902 was about the same, namely, about $3,750,000; for 1903 it was $5,750,000, and for 1904 it was $8,800,000. The great increase in 1904 was due to the import of $2,000,000 worth of railway material for use in the construction of the new lines. Then, in order of value, come English and American gray shirtings, Japanese sheetings, Japanese miscellaneous cotton goods, Japanese thread and yarn, silk piece goods, tobacco, English and American sheetings, American petroleum, English and American white shirtings, rice, clothing, provisions, timber and sake. After these come figured shirtings, cotton reps, bar and other iron, galvanised iron sheeting, bags and ropes, building materials, coal, raw cotton, cotton wadding, dyes, fish, flour, fruit, grain, grass-cloth, wines and spirits, matches, medicines, mining supplies, Russian petroleum, paper, porcelain, salt, soy, sugar and telegraph and telephone supplies.

Up to the present time both the import and export trade have suffered for lack of facilities for transportation in the interior; but the railroads that are being rapidly constructed will help to overcome this difficulty, and foreign commerce ought to receive a decided impetus.

Of late years, Japanese textile fabrics have been competing successfully with the English and American, and bid fair in time to displace them even as Japanese matches have displaced the Austrian product. This readjustment of the sources of Korea's foreign supplies is the most prominent feature of the commercial situation to-day. There seems to be a natural fitness in the mutual interchange of raw material and finished product between the two countries, and there is every sign that Japan will foster and conserve this growing reciprocity by every means in her power. If American cotton goods are to compete with Japanese