The only Asiatic country about whose trade the possibilities of war may be entertained is China. Japan has shown her teeth and claws. The history of Poland, Port Arthur, or Kiao-tchow is not likely to find repetition on her territory. Only the defenseless tempt the avidity of the civilizing nations. The import trade of China, an empire with one fourth the population of the entire world, is but half as much again as that of Japan, with but one ninth of the population of the Celestial Empire. Japan's trade has trebled within the last dozen years. Her imports of merchandise are over two dollars _per capita_. Those of China are thirty-four cents. It will be said that China parceled out to modern nations will vastly extend in trading opportunities. So it may. We have, however, national disposition to take into consideration. England has devoted her best efforts to India. After a century spent in bringing the various races to submission, the process of "benevolent assimilation" is helped along by a never-ending flow of capital from England. She has become the teacher and administrator of the people of Hither and Farther India. It is doubtful whether under existing conditions any better government for their three hundred millions could be devised by any outer force. Though England does her utmost, as she understands it, to make the people under her dominion happy and prosperous, although the rule of law and a degree of local independence are established, yet she finds small thanks from her wards. They have their own notions of happiness, and seem to prefer misery of their selection to the advantages of the white man's ordering. The fact is, the brown man and the yellow man have different notions and desires from the white man. No amount of jostling, pushing, and urging will make them take up our views, our tastes, our working methods, except in the due development of time. Our ideas as to necessaries of life and theirs are widely different. Their simple needs are easily supplied from native hands, who understand far better than our potters do the clay they have to deal with. The progress in trade will not be rapid, and will certainly be disappointing to those who expect to see it extend into general lines of merchandise. The import trade of India and its dependencies (1897) is $284,000,000, inclusive of Ceylon and the net trade of the Straits Settlements. This amount, directly catering to the wants of fully three hundred millions of people, is but about one third more than the net import trade of Australasia, with a population of less than five millions of people. The _per-capita_ consumption of imported merchandise of the Asiatic possessions of England is ninety-seven cents; of Australasia, $41.66. I must say here in explanation that the values of importations of merchandise, as published in the English returns and lately reproduced by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, Colonial Systems of the World, is $305,000,000,