FOREIGN TRADE.—The foreign trade of Japan has made rapid progress within the last quarter of a century. In 1884 the combined value of exports and imports amounted to about £6,000,000, while for the five years 1906-10 the average value of the exports was £43,500,000, and of the imports £46,400,000. The chief imports consist of food-stuffs, especially rice, soya beans, and sugar, cotton and woollen goods, as well as raw cotton and wool for her own facto ries, iron and steel, and machinery of various kinds. Rice is obtained from Indo-China, Korea, Siam, and Burma ; beans from Manchuria and Korea ; and sugar from the Dutch East Indies. Textiles come chiefly from Great Britain, raw cotton from India, China, and the United States, and raw wool from Australia and the Argentine. Iron and steel goods and machinery are imported from Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, and the United States.
The exports include raw and manufactured silk, cotton yarn and clothing, copper and coal, straw-plait and matting, tea, sugar, and rice. The United States and France are the chief purchasers of raw silk, and, along with Great Britain, of manufactured silk. China buys the bulk of the cotton yarn and cotton clothing exported.
Copper goes to the United States, Great Britain, and France, coal to China, Hong-Kong, and the Straits Settlements. North America is the chief consumer of Japanese teas, China and Korea of refined sugar, and Great Britain and Germany of the better qualities of rice.
PORTS.—The chief ports of Japan Proper are Yokohama, Kobe, Osaka, Moji, and Nagasaki. Yokohama, the principal port of the country, is situated near the entrance to Tokio Bay, and serves the capital and the populous region surrounding it. As it is the great market for raw silk, it is also the port through which this commodity is sent abroad, and its export trade is accordingly large. As an importing centre it is surpassed by Kobe, the port through which is received much of the raw cotton and other material required for the manufacturing district of which Osaka is the centre. Through these two ports is conducted over 75 per cent. of the trade of Japan. Osaka is handicapped by the want of a good harbour for large ships, but carries on considerable trade with China and Korea. Moji is the chief port of Kiushiu, while Nagasaki owes its importance to the coal found in its neighbourhood.