Mar. 18.
Japan, although a belligerent nation, has been almost entirely free since the fall of Tsingtao to devote herself to trade, and there is no need to tell business men in the Far Kast that she is making the most of her opportunities. Orders for supplies have been showered upon Japan by her Allies with such rapidity that it has been frequently recorded that her industrial enterprises have been unable to undertake more than a portion of the business offered. But a rapid change is coming over the country, and if the war should be prolonged beyond this year Japan will be turned into one huge factory working under the highest pressure to meet the needs of the Entente Powers and secure a footing in the depleted neutral markets. In Japan the balance of trade has been most carefully watched, and the fact that the imports have repeatedly exceeded the exports in recent years has created considerable uneasiness on the part of Japanese economists, Trade was depressed when the war broke out and the last five months of 1914 produced a worse result than ever. But, gradually, orders began to be received for munitions, and these were followed by inquiries for other goods. Japanese tonnage became much in demand; then the Pacific Mail steamers vanished from the Pacific; and while orders from allied and friendly Powers were being executed, other markets opened for Japan, and her people could not cope with the demand. The result is that apprehensions as to the stability of the note conversion system have vanished, and th: country has specie accumulating to its credit to the extent of Y. 600,900,000, an amount unprecedented in its financial history.
Baron Den, speaking in the House of Peers on January 17, laid emphasis upon the improvement in the econdmie conditions of the country, but Count Okuma was not to be drawn into any expression that would encourage hope of liberal expenditure: he briefly remarked that this was only transient phenomenon. There is, however, no question as to the revival of Japanese trade, or of the undoubted fact that business men in that country
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.