At the present moment goods which were absolutely unknown in Japan in 1850 are exported from that country all over the East from Korea to Singapore; and Japanese cotton goods, the raw material for which has to be imported from India, compete with Chinese materials of the same class, the raw material for which is obtained from the same country. Needless to say, Japanese silks and mats can be procured in every part of the world, and their coal, though inferior to the Welsh, being greasy, emitting great quantities of smoke and burning away quickly, is very cheap, and is supplied to all the steamers touching at the ports of the Far East from Korea to the Straits of Malacca. In the meantime, those industries for which Japan has always been noted have not diminished in importance. It must, however, be confessed that this branch of industry has decreased both in quality and beauty, the result, doubtless, of hasty and purely commercial production. If, however, very fine work is not produced so much as it was formerly, cheap Japanese artistic goods, ceramic and otherwise, flood the markets of the civilized world. A curious fact connected with the actual condition of Japanese export trade is the remarkable extension and increase in value of what might be called the new industries, of which by far the most important are those connected with cotton. Meanwhile, the import trade has lately been considerably altered. Fifteen years ago Japan imported sugar and petroleum only. In 1897 raw cotton was introduced to the value of £4,300,000. If we add to this £100,000 worth of wool, £93,400 of pig-iron, £47,700 of steel, and one or two other minor items, we have a return of £5,900,000, or 23 per cent. of the entire imports; the food imports during the same year were also 23 per cent. The increase in the value of these latter in 1897, which stood at £5,900,000 as against £3,400,000 in the previous year, is due to the failure of the rice crop, which necessitated the importation of 3,800,000 cwt. of rice, valued at £2,180,000. A certain quantity of rice, between £400,000 and £800,000 worth, has to be imported annually from Korea and Indo-China, in order to counterbalance the amount of Japanese rice of the first quality exported to Europe and the United States. Besides rice, the import of sugar has reached the high figure of £1,980,000, and petroleum, of which 61,000,000 gallons were imported in 1897, £766,700. Imported manufactured goods may be divided into two distinct classes, the first including articles of domestic use or consumption, and the second those which tend to extend the various industries of the country, and which in a sense constitute a certain proportion of capital. In the first category may be placed spun goods, both cotton and woollen, and watches; in the second, machinery, wrought iron and steel, rolling-stock and other materials for the railways.