Japan’s agriculture, then, can neither be much extended nor be greatly improved, can neither satisfy the old population nor support the new, and, above all, can only produce smaller and smaller portion of the necessary raw material for her growing industries. Under these circumstances, it is becoming more evident every year that the time is forever past when the nation could rely solely upon agriculture for subsistence. It is hardly necessary to repeat the well-known law of population—which is at the root of our subject—that every advance in the economic life of a nation creates a situation which is capable of supporting a larger population than in the preceding stage. What agriculture cannot support, industry and trade may. Japan’s growing population may only be supported, as it has already begun to be, by an increased importation of raw material and food-stuffs and an increased exportation of manufactures. Trade statistics unmistakably show that such markets for her manufactures and such supply regions of her raw and food articles are found primarily in East Asia, with which the commercial relations of Japan have grown 543 per cent. since 1890, as compared with the 161 per cent.[19] increase of the American and the 190 per cent. increase of the European trade,[20] until the East Asiatic trade amounted in 1903 to 295,940,000 _yen_ in value, or 48.7 per cent. of the entire foreign trade of Japan.[21] The following table gives a comparison of the importation in the years 1882, 1902, and 1903, of what may be considered as primarily East Asiatic products:[22]— 1882 1902 1903 Cotton 467,249 _yen_ 79,784,772 _yen_ 69,517,894 _yen_ Wool 3,397,564 4,811,811 Rice 134,838 17,750,817 51,960,033 Wheat 240,050 4,767,832 Flour 3,278,324 10,324,415 Beans 4,956,000 7,993,411 Oil-cakes 44,468 10,121,712 10,739,359 From these eloquent facts, the conclusion would seem tenable that, should the markets of East Asia be closed, Japan’s national life would be paralyzed, as her growing population would be largely deprived of its food and occupation. These markets, then, must be left as open as the circumstances permit, if Japan would exist as a growing nation. Observe here the tremendous significance for Japan of the principle of the “open door” as applied to East Asia—the principle, in a more accurate language, of the equal opportunity in East Asia for the economic enterprise of all foreign nations.[23]