Tue Foreign Office has recently issued a Summary of the foreign trade of Japan for 1887 which was prepared, with great care, by the Acting Assistant Japanese Secretary to the Legation in "Tokio. The total foreign trade for that year amounted, in value, to £17,085,642, the imports being £8,905,320 and the exports £8,180,22. These figures shew an increase,.as com, with those of the preceding year of £2,327,504 in the imports and £180,633 in the exports, and in 1886 the value of the import trade had only been exceeded in the three years 1878 to 1880, while the value of the export trade was largely in excess of any previous year. Thus tne whole foreign trade of Japan reached in 1887 a higher value than had been attained by it in any one preceding year. The Report further explains that "the increase in the value of exports does not fairly represent the expansion that has taken place in the export trade of the country, for the constant decline of silver during 1887 has nevessitated the adoption, for the purpose of the returns, of the rate of exchange of Bs. 2d. per yen, which is under the rate of 186." Of imports it is explained that the increase in 1887 would have appeared much greater if the figures for 1886 and 1887 had been given in local currency, taking the latter at its annually varying rate of exchange as compared with gold; but the question of exchange does not affect the figures given in the present returns, because the effect of the disproportionately high rate for the silver dollar or yen hitherto adopted by the Customs is' counterbalanced by the fact that the same rate is used for the re-conversion of the local currency values into sterling. It may be well, however, to observe in passing, that owing to the adoption by the Customs of this high rate of exchange for the silver dollar or yen, and to the further fact that the invoiced prices of goods imported into Japan are exclusive of the cost of freight, insurance, and commission, which may be taken on the whole to represent an addition of 10 per cent. on original values, the Customs returns do not show the actual cost to the country of the goods received from abroad." The Japanese Customs intend to convert the gold values of imports in future into silver values, at a rate more nearly approximating to the exchange of the day.
The trade of last year was-divided thus—
Yokchama—Imports
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.