Taking the full list, there were, according to the United States Government classification, exports in 1893 under fifty-seven heads, but in 1898, according to the same classification, exports under seventy-six heads. The greater part of the increase in the five years (amounting to a total of $6,091,613) was due to manufactures of cotton, which increased $3,558,791; to raw cotton, which increased from nothing to $370,670; to manufactures of iron and steel, including machinery, $116,018; and to oils, chiefly kerosene, $1,055,797. The manufactures of cotton, which in 1898 amounted to $5,193,127, reached, during the next United States fiscal year (1899), $9,811,565. That is to say, the value of cotton cloths alone was, in the year 1899, almost as large as the value of the total American imports into China during the preceding year of all articles of whatsoever nature. This class of goods, the products of our New England and Southern mills, is the greatest single item of American commerce, and has already reached a point where, in certain grades, it dominates absolutely the Chinese market.
Taking drills, jeans and sheetings, the three great items of cotton goods consumed by the Chinese, and examining the trade of the three northern ports of Niu-chwang, Tien-tsin and Chefoo, American goods comprise of total receipts at the first: ninety-eight per cent., and at the second and third ninety-five per cent., the small remaining balance being divided between the English, Indian, Dutch, Japanese and other manufacturing nations. But quite as extraordinary as this there must be kept in mind the fact that of the total exports to all countries of American manufactures in cotton cloths, the Chinese market consumes just one-half.
Another article of American commerce that figured very small in the early returns, but now shows a great and increasing importance, is flour. It is shipped almost wholly to Hongkong, and thence forwarded to Canton, Amoy or other southern Chinese ports. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, no less than $3,835,727 worth was exported from here, and during the corresponding period of 1900, a value of $1,502,081. Wheat is not grown in southern China, and American flour has captured the demand, just as American cottons have done in the north. Next to Great Britain and Germany our best customer for American flour is China.
Such is the state of our Chinese trade to-day, and no one can find fault with its present condition and its recent development. But what of the future?
The success of the American commercial invasion depends absolutely on the maintenance of the existing status. China, in the liberality of the regulations affecting foreign commerce, is second to no other nation. In levying a tax, amounting to less than four per cent., she gives preferential duties to none, special privileges only as com-
