PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2202, 14 May 1896, Page 51

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

America In Asia. Two or three months ago I gave an American trade journal's comparison between British and American productions — much in favour of the latter of course. The States have forestalled us in everything. We oan't build railways or build warships, our liners are not in it with those of Amsiican construction, and so on. I briefly allude to what I wrote then to introduce an article in one of our reviews, which goes to prove that the Americans axe not so far ahead of us as they imagine, or else the teeming millions of Eastern Asia are bliod_to their own interests. From Vladivostok to Singapore are 400,000,000 of restless beings provided with capacious harbours and thriving entrepots of trade, intersected by mighty rivers and canals, and busy with a great and growing trade. They present the extremes of progress and retrogression, of energy and sloth, of advanced civilisation and lowest barbarism. They have histories and philosophies that date before the Christian era, and possibly at this hour they are on the verge of momentous events which may necessitate the remaking of the maps of the world. And this vast number, now being exploited by the Western nation?, won't buy American goods in preference to European, and British in particular ; — so we are told by an American Consul, who in sorrow writes the article. And he gives figures to prove his statements. The foreign trade of Japan, Oorea, China, and Siam' tote up £145,000,000; o£ China and Japan, £133,000,000; of all these and the European colonies, £200,000,000. The Japanese in 10 years have increased thoir foreign trade from £13,000,000 to £46,000,000; China, from £46,000,000 to £87,000,000; and Siam in two years from under £4,000,000 to over £8,000,000. Japan got from the United States £2,200,000 worth last year, but sent to the States £8,600,000 while she sent Britain £1,200,000, ' and got £8,400,000 from her. From Europe Japan got five times as much as from America. In the other instances — I won't give .figures — the balance of trade in Britain's favour is just as much as, if nob more than, in the last figures given. And as a parenthesis let me here draw i attention to this ,fact : Britain's balance of trade with nearly all countries is in her favour, the balance being accrued wealth made up largely of interest on investments pouring into the coffers of the lender. And at is this largely that enables Britain to vote a navy expenditure of £50,000,000 without a J squirm or the movement of a muscle. But put in ships, and the commercial strength of the British is even more apparent. The steamers calling at Japanese j ports in 1895 numbered 1788 ; of these 850 were British, 370 German, and 32 United States. Eight Chinese ports were visited by nearly 10,000 steamers, and only one came from the land of the Stars and Stripes I As Britain controls over half' the carrying trade of the world, it will be seen from the figures above Jbhat comparing their shipping with British shipping the Americans have no reason to be gratified by the comparison, i It is to be borne in mind, however, that a great deal of America's maritime trade is done in British bottoms. Perhaps tho shipping connected with Chinese waters rather surprised you"; and this leads me to another review article headed " A Japanned China." Someone has eaid that a vast tidal wave of Occdental civilisation rolling round the world has lifted Japan, and hurling it on China has left the Chi nose Empire a total «wck at the motoy o£ the oouquorore. But

in " A Japanned China " we are told that the Chinese, silently enduring suffering and cruelty, patient, persistent, dogged, persevering, reakloss of life -these, ruled by the' Japanese, wbo know Eastern character and have proved themselves capable leaders, could in 15 years provide 5,000,000 of trained soldiers, and in 25 years fully 10,000,000, which with a resistless surge could inundate the We3t. But Russia perhaps ia equally able to control the pressed millions of the Chinese Empire, and' it would seem that she is determined to supplant Japan. And what then? Will Britain's interests in the East be then in jeopardy ? Will the immediate future see a propped-up China — the sick man of the Far East as Turkey is the siok man of the Near East ? The writer, however, thinks the danger is not more to Britain than to the whole of the West, and it won't be a military danger so much as an industrial one. And first in considering this question we are told not to ran away with the idea that a superior civilisation means a supremacy, especially industrially, nob even with Christianity thrown in. Our ever-increasing greed for pleasure resulting in decay of oharacter ; the small rate of inorease of population ; our inability to compete on equal industrial conditions, or to keep paca with the increase of population in the' countries that threaten us industrially ; the inahility of whites to expand in the tropics — these show that the Occident has something to fear from the Orient and from the populations the West .control. The natives of India, the Kaffirs of South Africa, the negroes of the West Indie?, are examples of increases in population in a ratio greater than the increase of the nations dominating them. Then remembering that the Japanese and perhaps the Chinese increasa more than three times as fast as the Bdtish — in Europe, not in Greater Britain— and that they already compete successfully with us in the East: in all branches of commerce, manufactures, speculations, and in the capacity of the distributing middleman— remembering these, we need not go to bimetallism or monometallism for a reason to account for the rise of Eastern commerce and industry. The German Digestive Club! You will have noticed by tho shipping referred to above that the Germans figure largely in the Japanese, trade, and you may recollfiot that after the Chiea-Japanese war Germany got substantial trading concessions in China. A telegram — last week, I think — told us she is striving to get somo territorial concession in the Bast, and we know that both commercially and militarily she is antagonistic to Britain in Afrioa; «o she needs watching, and more so because she is so unscrupulous in diplomacy — at least so writes a gentleman ia an articlo called "A Lesson in Gorman." I cannot of course give in anything like a complete form the reasons he enumerates in the article to show her dishonesty. "Statesmen who would falsify a telegram and cause .a war costing tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of money are capable of anything. However, he traces German scheming from the thieving of tho provinces from Denmark, the war with Austria,, the Franco- German war, and- so on down to the present Triple Alliance — a benevolent association to enable Germany to digest in peace the heavy unwholesome slices of territory carved from Denmark and Fraece. Austria" through joining the Alliance has incurred Russia's hatred a hundredfold, and Italy has ground her children to the dust to provide armaments to qualify her for membership, bat all the advantages have flowed into the pockets of the Fatherland. But Germany is still uneasy. The empire was conceived in sin, born to trouble, and bred in danger. She is mistrusted by Austria, hated by Denmark, feared by Holland, loathed by France, envied by Russia, and to keep her position she has had to live by her wits for the past 40 years* If crooked diplomacy be the sign of success, the Teutons are God's chosen people and Kaiser Wilhelm His prime ' minister and prophet, but all of this diplomacy has left her without a sincere friend. Her conscience is troubled, and she doesn't feel safe because Great Britain isn't in the Triple Alliance, and her scramble in Afrioa is aimed as ranch at forcing Britain into it as it is aimed at oommerce or territory. She is afraid Britain may make an ally of Russia, in which case Russia and Britain can make things very unpleasant lor her — the one on land the other on the sea. And so the diplomatic shuttlecock is kept going. At present the state of affairs seems generally very lively. I was going to touch on the French diplomatic triumph in Siam, but that can stand ovor.