brocades. Some yarns, a great amount of cotton crepe, and lisle gloves are being sent to the United States, and hosiery and gloves are being exported to Great Britain and other European countries.

Large profits reaped during the war have placed the Japanese cotton industry on a more secure financial foundation. The Government has interested itself in the industry and assistance has been rendered by banks, by the subsidized steamship lines, and by official commercial agents in foreign countries. Since the chief source of Japanese raw material is the coarse cotton of India, Japanese competition will for some time be confined in the main to coarse goods. Finer grades of raw cotton, however, are being obtained from the United States, and attempts are being made to produce them in Korea.

Japan, as a result of the war, has taken long strides toward becoming a more highly industrialized nation. As compared with the United States and Europe her industries are small and unstable. Her chief competitive advantage is her low labor cost. The expansion of her textile, steel, and chemical industries, in which the competition is and will remain generally confined to the Far Eastern markets, has been considered. In many other lines, however, her industries have developed, and their competition is felt severely in the United States. These include ocean and fresh-water pearl buttons, brushes, matches, lead pencils, knitting-machine needles, surgical instruments, glassware, and earthen- and chinaware. Japanese industries have not been seriously dislocated by the war as have the European industries. They have been developed with the purpose of supplying the markets catered to before the war by Europeans.

As a result, Japan's need of readjustment to peace times is slight.

Since Japan's industries are so largely organized for export, her export statistics are a good measure of the industrial changes brought about by the war. Her exports for 1913, a pre-war year, as compared with 1917 are given in the following table:

An examination of this table will show that Japan was more of an industrial nation in 1917 than in 1913. Of the total value of her exports in 1913, 29.2 per cent. were wholly manufactured goods. In 1917 this class had increased to 36.7 per cent. Relatively a less amount of raw materials and partly manufactured products were exported. Even more striking is the absolute increase of Japan's exports. The exports of wholly

manufactured goods in 1917 increased 217.95 per cent. over 1913. Equally striking increases occurred in other kinds of goods.

A substantial part of this export trade has gone to the United States. Of all American imports during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1918, 9.67 per cent. were from Japan. This exceeds all previous records. In the fiscal year 1914 only 5.66 per cent. of the total American imports came from Japan.

The Japanese official figures show decided gains in the export to the United States of a number of articles, several of which have been sent in sufficient quantities to be separately listed only since 1917. Some of the more significant increases are shown in the following table:

EXPORTS FROM JAPAN TO THE UNITED STATES, IN YEN

*Not listed separately until 1917.

Even more striking is the growth of Japanese trade with the Asiatic countries. The increase is especially

marked in textile manufactures. The following statisties from Japanese official reports indicate the growth of Japanese trade in China and India:

EXPORTS FROM JAPAN TO CHINA, INCLUDING HONG KONG, IN YEN

* Not listed separately until 1917.

But such figures as the foregoing, considered out of relation to the total trade in the commodities, are likely to be somewhat misleading. When compared with the figures of total trade in these markets, they do not, in

most cases, show that Japan is dominating the markets in question, but they do indicate very substantial gains. In fact, the emergence of Japan as an industrial nation and as a serious competitor for the markets of the world is one of the most striking and significant commercial facts of the war period.

Before the war the only serious competition that American industries met with in the home and the foreign markets came from Europe. European industries, long established and organized for export business, were in many lines formidable competitors. In spite of the altered conditions resulting from the war, they will continue to be the most important competitors of American industries. Competition in some lines will return slowly to its maximum strength. It may be years before the Belgian glass industry becomes the factor in world trade that it was before the war. France will not immediately return with her former vigor to the production of fine woolen dress goods, silks, embroideries, laces, and ribbons. Her pottery industry, being outside the invaded area, will more quickly return to its pre-war position.

Conditions in Germany will not permit her for some years to regain her former position in world trade. Many of her industries are completely disorganized. Others have so long been occupied with war orders that they will need reorganization before they can supply the peace-time demands. Germany has little raw material and at best it will be difficult for her to get the quantity which will permit her industries to run on a pre-war basis. Many of her most highly skilled laborers have been killed or maimed. Her population has been weakened by the war strain. Her vast selling organiza