CHINESE AND JAPANESE PROGRESS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1612, 21 April 1879, Page 4

CHINESE AND JAPANESE PROGRESS.

Alta California.”] Tho results of the policy which has at last brought tho Mongolian nations, China and Japan, into commercial communication with the European and American world, by means of treaties actually forced from them, are beginning to be seen in directions not contemplated, probably, at the time those treaties wore negotiated. Japan had been like a prisoner in a ceil for a century or two, holding communion wi'h the world only through the medium i f a Dutch ship, allowed, once a year, to enter Japanese waters, and dispose of her cargo and take on board another. Offence at the course of the Catholic missionaries had led to their expulsion and to a policy of nonintercourse with the outside world. It would seem to a person disposed to discuss matters disp issionately, and on the basis of fair play, that the Japanese had a perfect and unassailable right to adnpt a course of non-inter-course, being an independent nation, if their wise men considered that course the wisest and best for the people and Government. But civilisation thought otherwise, and forced treaties of comity. China stood in a somewhat similar position toward the “outside barbarians,” as they called the un-Chinese world, although she had not so thoroughly isolated herself. But we demanded treaties of commerce and national intercourse, and secured them. Then our merchants and shipping men enlarged their plans for controlling the trade of those countries. Old steamers were taken over to China, now steamers wore built for that trade, steam lines were organised to traverse the Pacific for the control of the Chinese and Japanese business, and the waters of the great continental nation of tho MongolTartar people began to be traversed by American and other foreign steamers with foreign crews. Meanwhile John’s keen almond eyes were not shut. He saw, he waited, ho learned the mysteries of steam navigation as well as other things, and by and by he too saw that there was nothing in the business of steaming which the Chinese could not understand and perform as well as “Melican man.” And he knew that there was virtue and strength in combination, and acting upon such knowledge, he started his own lines of steamers, bought out the foreign, and is now master of the situation in hat respect. Tho Japanese are not behind their congeners, the Chinese, in the clearness of their commercial vision and the adoption of what they conceive will add to their prosperity. Tho changes which have occurred in their national customs, political policy and other directions, shows them a people much more ready to come into the great family of tho nations, as an improving and probably successful one, than the Chinese. They adopt tho costumes and customs of civilised nations readily, and they show a capacity to follow in tho wake of other nations, in many respects almost to the degree of startling us. Unlike the Chinese, they are not an emigrating race, but, like them, they are apt to learn, and they have learned rapidly. The latest indication from tho Chinese comes in a telegraphic despatch from tho East, stating that the Government are purchasing there the most improved machinery to bo found. They propose the establishment of factories for the manufacture of cotton cloth for supplying the Chinese market.

Meanwhile, the Japanese are procuring a supply for their own purposes. The opening of their mines, which has been in the charge of foreigners, and the running of their Custom Houses, will soon be exclusively in the hands and under the direction of their Q-overnment and people. Already the British merchants and manufacturers begin to see that the command of various branches of trade will soon pass from their hands into that of the rivals which they have started in China and Japan, who will compete with them in the markets of those nations, and, it is not impossible, in those of England and the United States also ; for the cheapness of labour in China and Japan will permit the Mongols to manufacture at a cost so much below what the British and American manufacturers can perform similar work for, that the latter may bo entirely unable to run a successful competition with thorn. “ Well, it is well.” Civilisation forced the measures which seem culminating to its disadvantage.