MONGOLIA includes parts of two of the great physical regions of Asia. The north-west of the country consists of the Altai and other mountains which belong to the Central Asian Highlands, while the remainder forms the Mongolian plateau which has an average elevation of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, and is part of the region of relative depression north of the folded Kwen-lun mountains. The whole country has an extreme climate, the summers being hot and the winters cold. In the desert of Gobi, in the south, the annual rain fall is less than 10 inches, but in the remainder of the country it is generally sufficient for the growth of grass on the plateau, and of coniferous trees on many of the mountain slopes. Hence the people are almost exclusively confined to pastoral pursuits and possess great numbers of horses, cattle, sheep, and camels, with which they wander over the country, ever on the search for fresh pasture land. Towns are accordingly few, and Urga alone is of any importance. Formerly, the tea sent from China to Russia was carried by Mongol caravans from Kalgan to Kiakhta, but since the opening of the trans-Siberian line most of it has gone by rail. The exports of Mongolia consist of pastoral products and are sent to China, tea, cotton, and miscellaneous articles being received in exchange.
COMMERCE.—The annual value of the exports of China for the three years 1908-9-10 averaged £44,000,000, while the average value of the imports for the same period was £56,000,000. Between 45 and 50 per cent. of the value of the exports is made up of raw and manufactured silk, soya beans, bean-cake and bean-oil, and tea. China ranks next to Japan as a silk-producing country, and her output might be greatly increased both in value and amount were improved methods of rearing the silkworm and manufacturing the silk more generally adopted. With the introduction of soya beans and their products into Europe during the last few years, the trade in them has rapidly developed, and they now hold the second place among the exports of the country. Tea is exported mainly to Russia and also to the United States, but the British market has been almost entirely lost, chiefly owing to the failure of the Chinese to provide a tea at once good and cheap. Among
other articles exported are raw cotton, sesamum, hides, straw braid, and tin which together make up nearly one-seventh of the total exports. Chinese cotton is sent to Japan, where it is preferred to Indian, as it is whiter. On the other hand, Indian cotton is imported to China for the mills at Shanghai, where it is in demand, as it gives a better staple than Chinese. The exportation of cotton from China shows signs of increasing as it is beginning to be cultivated in place of opium. The principal imports of China consist of cotton goods, opium, rice, oil, sugar, metals, minerals and railway plant, fish, and coal. During the three years, 1908-9-10, these accounted for just two-thirds of the total value of all the goods brought into the country from abroad. Almost 30 per cent. of the total imports consisted of cotton goods imported from the United Kingdom, Japan, India, and the United States The United Kingdom supplies the bulk of the manufactured goods, though Japan and the United States share the trade in plain grey sheetings, and Japan is gaining control of the market in drills. Yarn is obtained mainly from India, though within recent years the position of that country has been seriously threatened by the activity of the Japanese mills. In China hand labour is still in many respects cheaper than machine labour, and the imported yarn is used along with Chinese cotton in the domestic manufacture of a rough but durable cotton fabric. Opium still held second place in the list of imports in 1907-10, but this was in part accounted for by the rapid rise in price consequent upon the reduction both of the area cultivated at home and of the amount supplied from abroad. Rice is imported from Indo-China mainly to supply the dense population of the province of Kwangtung. Kerosene oil, which comes chiefly from the United States, Sumatra, and Borneo, has grown greatly in favour with the Chinese during the last quarter of a century and has largely displaced vegetable oils as an illuminant. Sugar is im ported from Java and the Philippines, coal from Japan and Hong Kong (probably from Great Britain), and iron and steel goods and railway plant from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and the United States. 1