Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899Various
History
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, May 1899: Volume LV, No. 1, May 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
which would make a showing of $63.33 _per capita_. But in the English
returns the intercolonial trade figures are included. The Treasury
Bureau did not mention this in its publication, and gave thereby a
basis for erroneous deductions. I have deducted all the intercolonial
trade figures of imports and exports from the returns of each of the
Australian colonies, so as to bring the figures to a basis of parity
with the accounts of Canada, and other colonies and dependencies where
no duplications of this kind are possible. The figures of importations
remaining over are reduced by this process to £40,500,000, or about
$200,000,000--$41.66 _per capita_. The inhabitants of the Anglo-Saxon
colonies of the world number but seventeen million. Their net imports
of merchandise are $460,000,000. The seven hundred and thirty millions
of Hindu and Mongolian populations import $530,000,000. These are the
lands of fabled wealth. Antiquity and the middle ages dreamed of
riches inexhaustible in connection with their names. To-day still the
popular belief is that the wealth of nations is dependent on the
conduct of direct trade with the far East. The country can not be rich
whose millions find happiness in a sufficient supply of millet or
rice, whatever the wealth of a small favored class may be. But these
nations were the teachers of the barbarians whose descendants now
populate America and Europe. The disciples have improved on the
masters. We have improved the tools which they invented and applied
new forces of production. We have cheapened the processes of
production. We have quintupled, we have decupled time. But whatever
our improvements in the tools, they are still our masters in the work.
Any one who would endeavor to substitute the product of our mills in
cotton, in silk, in wool, in wood, iron, clay, in lacquer, cloisonné,
or enamel, for theirs, and not see at a glance the hopelessness, would
indeed prove his incapacity for grasping the situation. Our best
producers study with profit the work of China and, chiefly, of Japan,
and are grateful for the inspiration they derive from it. But they do
not attempt to copy. Neither in color effect nor design could they
stand the test of comparison. Five thousand years have been recovered
from the sepulcher under which they had been sleeping. But the oldest
traces unearthed in the valley of the Euphrates still take us back to
the farthest East as the originator of what we cover by the term
"civilization." The Mongolian shares the lot of all who have benefited
the race.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account