"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers: but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of the Japanese at this time--geographical position, necessity for recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New Japan. It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty Japanese tonnage on the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the controlling article of faith of the awakened Japan is the creation of an ocean commerce great enough to make the Japanese the carriers of the Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's markets. Indeed, were present-day Japan eliminated from consideration, it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation facilities. The merchant steamship is intended to play an important role in Japan's elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden, and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. Japan is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when it was apparent that Japan would not longer be dependent upon the outer world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906 there was completed and launched in Japan the biggest battleship in the world, the _Satsuma_, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of about the dimensions of the _Dreadnaught_, of the British navy, but claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the _Satsuma_, witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national event.