PROGRESS OF JAPAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2121, 29 April 1920, Page 4

PROGRESS OF JAPAN.

AN OFFICIAL SURVEY. REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENTS A remarkably complete and careful survey of the financial, agricultural, industrial, and commercial position of Japan and her dependencies is given in the nineteenth number of the‘‘Financial and Economic Annual of Japan,’' issued by the Department of Finance. It is printed .entirely in English, and from the purely technical point of view is an excellent piece of work. The buoyant slate of the public finances is shown by the fact that the revenue for the financial year 1918-1919 was £151,2(53,751, or £58,835,931 more than the Budget estimate. The revenue for 1917-1918 was £11,129,751. The State steel foundry showed u revenue greater by £2.795.075

than the estimate, the forests returned £1,322,954 more than the estimate, the post office £1,933,(53-1 more, and the arsenals £845,74-1 more. The estimate for the revenue for 1919-1920 is £109,022,391. The coming of peace does not seem to have been an nninixed blessing to Japan. It is pointed out that after the armistice the foreign trade and exports began to fall off. Fresh orders were withheld, and goods already ordered were countermanded. Japan’s foreign trade for 1918 was a record. The total turnover was roughly £375,000,000, or .38 per cent, more than in .1917, and 1(57 per cent, more than in 1913. The exports increased by 210 per cent, between 1913 and 1918, and the imports by 129 per cent. Referring to' trade with Australia in 1918, as compared with 1917, the annua! says: “Australian trade was. much improved, the imparts gaining by 48 per cent., and the exports by 139 per cent.” it is pointed out that increased values were responsible for a great part of the increase. Since 1905, Japanese exports to Australia have increased more, than fifteenfold, and since .1913, nearly eightfold, rising from £900,000 in 3913 to roughly £7,000,000 in 1918. The imports from Australia increased less than four-fold between 1913 and 1918, going from £1,500,000 to £5,50ff,0()0. It is curious that while the figures show no exports to Germany after 1914, with the exception of goods to the value of 10s (3d, which are carefully recorded "in 1935, goods ranging in value from £200,000 in 1917 and £370,000 in 3 918 to £050,000 in 19.15, are shown a> imported from Germany into Japan. In a general review of the economic position of Japan, it is pointed out that the war gave a tremendous impetus to Japan’s industries, trade and shipping. While the armistice ■plunged the war-time industries into depression, the economic world did not: experience any great set-back even then. Japan lias also been affected by the high cost.of living. As ■the review puls it : “The advance of prices at last provoked loud out-cry of a section of the people, complaining of hard living, this developing to riotous agitation in not a few towns.” Emphasis is laid on the remarkable development of manufacturing and mining industries, and on the sudden rise of new industries, chemical, fibre, metal refining, and shipbuilding. The total output of Japanese industries in 3.918 was valued at £358,49(5,3(i4, as against £174,12(5,805 in 1913. The miner:!l output in .1918 was j£52,238,042, as compared with £1(5,388,405 in 1913. During (he war new capital to the enormous amount, of £532,(523,109 was invested in industrial enterprises. A, great deal of information is given about Korea, Formosa, Southern .Saghalien, and other dependencies of Japan, It is stated that manufactures are vapidly developing in Korea, including beet sugar mills, paper pulp mills, and iron foundries. In Saghalien the output of paper pulp is approaching .1,000,000 tons a year.