It must be noted, in the first place, that when the country was thrown open to the world's trade, her industrial conditions were altogether inadequate to meet the marvelously rapid increase of the consumption of new goods. The original five per cent. import duty, which peculiar circumstances made almost equal to no duty, accelerated the impetuous advance of imports over exports. Thus the first decade and more of the new régime found the nation in a state of almost complete economic dependence upon foreign countries. Old industries were largely paralyzed, while capital and labor were not forthcoming for the new. It was at this juncture that the government began to extend a helping hand, by subsidies and by example, to the more important economic enterprises, and not until then could the people begin to take an active interest in railroads, industries, and export trade. The fact that the low import tariff had been forced by the powers upon the Japanese government, whose right of tariff autonomy they had thus ignored, was galling to the nation in its ardent desire to regain its economic independence, and tended powerfully to confirm its determination to effect a revision of the treaties. These were revised in 1894, and the new treaties which emancipated Japan from the consular jurisdiction of the foreign residents and gave her a partial tariff autonomy came into force in 1899. It is unnecessary to examine the process of this revision, but it suffices here to repeat that while consumption had advanced marvelously under a virtual free trade, production began to grow only after the government was compelled to aid it. From this point on trade and industry have helped each other's progress by mutual reaction. The tremendous expansion of economic resources thus rapidly opened in the two great fields, manufactures and commerce, was clearly measured by the enormous increase of population, which numbered less than thirty millions in 1830, thirty-four millions in 1875, forty-two and a quarter in 1895, and more than forty-seven to-day. At the same time, foreign trade itself has grown from 40 million _yen_ in 1871 to 690 million _yen_ in 1904, the _per capita_ share of the people in the growth rising more than twelvefold. During the first half of 1905 the total foreign trade in merchandise amounted to over 429 million _yen_, as compared with 320 millions during the corresponding period in 1904. In other words, Japan is changing from an agricultural to an increasingly industrial and commercial nation, and her commerce is expanding mainly abroad, as her domestic market has well-nigh reached its "saturation point." This fact is strikingly illustrated by the rapid growth of the exportation of manufactured goods, as well as the importation of raw material, as compared with the relatively slow increase in the importation of foreign manufactures. The exports of manufactured goods in 1890 amounted to 10 million _yen_ of the total export trade of 55.7