There is even yet little conception of the thorough and systematic boldness of Japan's preparations for commercial conquest. We are about to see what the world has never seen before—economic competition organized by the State with the same weapons of national revenue and universal training which the Western nations, less logically, have hitherto wielded in full efficiency for the sole purposes of war. Japan is about to create industries just as she creates battleships. She is about to purchase and construct the economic apparatus of a great Power, just as she acquired the fighting apparatus of a great Power. She did the latter part of the work in a single generation; she will do the former part within another generation; and she has not the slightest intention of leaving her economic future to chance and circumstance, and to what are called, in the language of Horatio's philosophy, 'the slow processes of natural growth.' The war has lifted Japan into the saddle, and she means to ride.' She proposes to train bankers, engineers, mechanicians, factory managers and mining experts, exactly as she has trained soldiers and seamen. And while she must not obstruct the foreign trade passing through the 'open door,' she can and will secure the same comparative advantage by subsidizing her own.
What we have at stake in the Far East in respect of the cotton trade we know; Japan's activity as a competitor in that field we are beginning to know. Woollen goods are an important part of our total trade to the Far East. The Japanese are convinced that they have all the climatic and other conditions requisite for that manufacture; they believe that no country is better fitted than their own to excel in the woollen manufacture. 'We import the raw material of this manufacture,' says Count Okuma, 'to the value of 10,000,000 yen. For the future we should be able to procure our raw wool from Manchuria, and to create there in return a rich market for the finished article.' It is said—upon good authority—that the Japanese Government proposes
