Japanese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay, Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service between Panama, the Philippines and Japanese ports, in anticipation of the completion of the Panama Canal: and, further perceiving the opportunity rapping at her door, Japan is preparing to place a line on the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate region to Japanese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from Argentina. Rice eating in Japan is giving way to bread made from wheat, or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further known that Japan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports. In 1894 Japan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels. Almost half the steamers entering Japanese ports fly the flag of the Rising Sun, and Japan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of oversea tonnage, Japan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of Japanese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei Kondo, is one of Japan's most progressive men, is numerically and in tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships. [Illustration: JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT] These facts should be considered by every American complacently believing that the traffic of the countries and islands washed by the Pacific is open to American enterprise whenever we bid for it. When Eastern trade develops in magnitude, it may be found that the Japanese have laid permanent hold upon its carriage and interchange. John Bull, be it remembered, drove the American merchantman from the Atlantic; and likewise Japan may capture the carrying business of the Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic Japan than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home trade--when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be found difficult to supplant another people in the occupation of conveying American commodities to Eastern markets. There are persons in the Orient, none too friendly to America, who expect to see the commercial flag of Japan paramount on the Pacific eight or ten years hence.