JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXII, Issue 12395, 20 February 1908, Page 4

JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY.

The Western mind, says the British Trade Review, is greatly exercised, at the present time about many things, but it is no exaggeration to say that none occupies so much attention as what is described, as the industrial outlook. In other words, it is the beginning of the race for commercial supremacy between the Western and eastern worlds. While many excellent but narrow-minded critics at Home are never tired of talking and writing about what they term "foreign competition" they have nothing tb say about the wider and more important issues involved in the competition which is asserting itself between Oriental and Occidental traders. We refer now more particularly to the increasing activity which is shown by Japan in establishing herself in tKe markets of the East. We have been accustomed far too long to regard this activity as\ merely local. The fact is, Japan is much too enterprising and industrious to be content very long with a comparatively local trade, everything points to the expansion of her commerce in the Eastern markets, and it is only a question of time when her'influence must be felt in a wider field. The lament has gone forth that the latest role assumed by Japan is as a rivar to our great carrying trade in Eastern waters. To judge from the sensational headlines and the alarmist statements which, have appeared in the daily Press, one might have supposed that this was quite a novelty, unexpected and altogether a bombshell thrown out during the Christmas season for the purpose of proviii't;? a little sensational reading. As a matter ot fact, the announcement can cause no eiirprise to studints of .-astern affairs. For many years before the J apanese-Ruaso war Japan was quietly but sedulously preparing herself for the greatest of all conflicts in which she has been engaged— duo *t nflict for a wider, ampler sphere in which to operate commercially. That she is destinedxto win has never been questioned those who have studied the progress of Japan for many years past. In natural alertness and readiness to absorb Western methods and ideas, Japan has manifested an adaptability which is without parallel in the history of nations. In addition, she has the greatest of all reasons for desiring 1 expansion — namely, her ever-in-creasing population and the comparatively limited area of her own country. These reasons in themselves should provide sufficient motive power to any nation of ordinary intelligence to seize every opportunity for extending" her commercial relations and in the case of a Power like Japan, which has given proof not only of intelligence of a higher order, but of skill in' organisation and administration second to none in the annals of nations, it is little wonder that we should find her .in the twentieth centry actively engaged in seeking* to bring to fruition the. lessons which she has so carefully learned at the ha#ds of Western civilisation.