| Show written f for wo pap paper MONEY MAKING IN ASIA copyrighted by frank G carpenter am ex HE representatives senta tives ot of a number of big american syndi dicatos are now 0 n their w ay across the paci fie fic to investigate the possibilities of investment and speculation in china corea and japan one of these is the hon geofge B williams who was for years connected with the japanese government as one of its foreign advisers and who later on was the legal adviser of the equitable life insurance company in london another is chester A A halcomb who was long associated with our legation in peking and who is well posted on china and the chinese in addition to these I 1 hear of scores of individuals who propose to go to china and corea in order to be able to take advantage of the changed conditions consequent upon the carrying out of the new treaty and a number of old schemes will probably be revived it was only seven years ago that wharten barker raised a fund of to build faier and to do banking for the Chri chinese iise he has I 1 understand been in correspondence with li hung chang since then and he may now again come to the fron fronts I 1 have met a dozen young men lately who have told me that they were about to start to asia agia in n order to get employment as mechanics or engineers on the new railroads and I 1 receive letters every day as to the chances for americans and american investments in these countries the situation is undoubtedly big with possibilities ties it is however tar dif different terent from what people believe and in this letter I 1 will attempt to give something concerning it A BOOM IN JAPAN the indemnity from china will probably create a boom in japan and especially ally in tokyo toky the capital when the franco prussian war was concluded ever every german e r m an thought the money paid by the french en c h would all be spent in berlin and the people rushed by the thousands from all parts of the empire to take advantage of it berlin in 1860 1860 had less than people and before she went to war with france she had only three years alter the settlement of the war her population numbered and in 1880 she had already more than she has now with her suburbs nearly and aad she stands next to london among the great cities of the world the war was succeeded by an era of speculation in berlin stocks and real estate jumped upward and it was so until the panic of 1873 when there was a collapse the city soon recovered however and it is now one of the most prosperous of the world the same thing will be repeated in tokyo prices will advance and real estate is bound to go up an era ail of speculation will probably follow and the man who goes in now and sells out quick will probably do well the japanese have their stock exchanges and their water works stock their railroad stocks and their other stocks are regularly quoted in the newspapers many of the companies are paying big dividends and this is especially so of the banks ELECTRIC possibilities the seaports have been steadily grow ng and real estat es etin these ought to be good take for instance yokohama it was a fishing village when commodore perry first came to the country it has now a population of more than and it is a town of water works gas and newspapers ELECTRIC RAILROADS tokyo has now more than ioco people and the probability is that it contains more than a million and a halt it is only fourteen miles from yokohama through a thickly settled country and an electric railroad built between the two points would undoubtedly pay at present there are no electric rail mil roads in tokyo and there are no street car lines in yokohama the field for electric railroads is practically uncultivated and by the new treaty it would be possible tor for americans to engage in in such work outside of the treaty ports take the town of osaka in the central part oi of the empire it has with its suburbs people and there is not an electric railroad in it it lies six teen miles back from the seacoast sea coast and it is connected by railroad wil with the town of kobe kobe was very small at the time that japan was opened but by the census cenatis oi of 1890 it contained people an electric railroad between kobe and osaka ought to pay this part of japan is one succession of vil biages and only a few miles west of osaka is the great city of kioto which was tor for years the capital of japan and which is now as big as washington or cleveland li it an electric line were si st reached from kobe to osaka and thence onto on to kioto it would strike villages at almost every mile of travel and it would accommodate a population ot of fully of people the japanese are great travelers they malte make long excursions aver the country to visit the most sacred temples and shrines and I 1 met hundreds ot of families walking along the roads from one sacred point to another the railroad cars were well filled and these electric roads would pick up many parties out of these trips of religion and pleasure combined As to the electric light field that is also great the people of the ja japanese empire live to a large extent in villages and cities there are few gas plants and the chief lighting is done with coal oil electric lights could be put in without much expense and in the large cities at very low rates the telephone is rapidly coming into use there are a large number in osaka and tokyo and the rates for service in the japanese capital are 35 in silver or 1750 in gold per year JAPAN AS AMERICAS FACTORY there will probably now be an increased demand from japan for american goods the country already takes worth of american raw cot ton eve every year it has been buying and alfy will continue to buy american machinery but the he great trade between america and japan in the future is to be in shipping american raw materials to japan and bringing back japanese products to Ame the money to be made by americans will be largely through their better knowledge of the american markets and american needs the japanese can make anything that we can they can produce what we need at a less cost than we can make it ourselves our and unless a high protective tariff is is raised against asia that country will become the factory for america the actual necessities of a japanese laborer are not more than 25 cents a day our laborers cannot live on less than a dollar a day and 25 cents in ten hours will beat from i to 3 and eight hours every time A japanese laborers laborer house shouse can be furnished for io 10 he sleeps on the floor and uses neither tables nor chairs his cooking stove is is a clay oven worth about 50 50 cents and his carpets and bedding cost practically nothing in comparison with ours there are people in the united states at five to the family this would make families hardly one of these families has a cooking stove which cost less than xo io or 9 50 more than the japanese has to pay lor for his multiplying this by the number of families we have an expenditure of more than the japanese on the item of cooking stoves alone take the matter of carpets and other furniture and you will see the enormous amount ot capital that we have to invest to live in comparison with the japanese it would be a very low average indeed to spy say that the household f furniture urn iture of families of the united states costs more than per family it would be high to say that the average japanese spends more than 25 for his furniture turn fum iture take the thirteen millions of families again we have of dead weight in the way ol of furniture to carry in op position ol of them and everything else is on a proportionate ratio then there is the matter of shoes the ordinary coolies pays a cent a pair for his straw sandals and he can get a pair of stilts for wet weather for a quarter his waterproof which is made of straw probably costs him twenty five cente more and for two or three dollars he has a whole wardrobe his eating is of the simplest simple st and he can be happy on one tenth of what our laborers nave have the results is the japanese will always be able to manufacture more cheaply than we do and one of the biggest speculations of the east will be utilizing this labor for use MONEY IN IM JAPANESE KNICK KNACKS I 1 have already written of the japanese candy they have one kind made of rice and wheat which is is good for dyspepsia an and d which any child can eat without the stomach ache this could be imported and sold like the digestive chewing gum it is furnished sometimes in the form of syrup and with it on the table we could keep our livers in order ind and still have the luxury of buckwheat cakes in midsummer the japanese make a very cheap black varnish which might be imported at a profit and they have the softest and most beautiful papers known to the world I 1 know of one bright american who made a for tune out of the little japanese boxes he bought these by the hundreds of thousands shipped them to the united states and wiled filled them with tacks the tacks we were resold sold at the regular price and the women bought them in preference to other brands in order to get the boxes there are numerous other things of this same nature that might be done one thing is the making of clock cases such cases as we have from germany and france made in porcelain are very high priced the japanese could produce these very much cheaper cheap erand and they could make carved clock cases which would sell at high prices I 1 mention these things merely as of the vast field which is now open to america in japan remember the japanese can do everything that we can do and if you show him a picture ot of anything under the sun he can copy it he is packed full of ideas himself and he is an inventor as well as an imitator from now on he will want more foreign clothes and more foreign machinery and america ought to supply a great portion ol of the needs THE CHINESE MARKET the settlement of the war will bring about a great change in china and from now on the empire will probably be slowly slowly but steadily opened the making 0 of a treaty port will give a new hundred fore foreign n settlement at that point two hundred miles up the yingtse kiang the government will be obliged to cede a certain amount of land here to foreigners and a little foreign city will spring up at this point such as have already sprung up at every open port in tanton there is an island which is give up to the foreigners at bankow the foreign concession covers I 1 judge at least a square mile and at shanghai many foreigners have made fortunes out of the rise of the real estate in the foreign concession there are foreign settlements at at Kiu kiang and at Chin kiang and in these property is worth much more than in the chinese cities themselves these concessions are governed by the foreign consuls and the chinese like to obtain property within them if they can as this trees them from exactions of the chinese officials and puts them under foreign law these concessions are much like foreign cities they have modern modem houses their streets are maca dami zed and they are kept in order by being smoothed with heavy rollers which are drawn by hundred of chin ese they have their own policemen and are by all odds the most desirable places in china in which to live the city ot is about five miles back from the river and is one of the richest cities in china it was for years the capital of china and it is in the heart of one of the richest of the chinese provinces the foreign maybe may be on the river or it may be on the edge of the city wherever it is the land is almost certain to to in crease in value and an investment in it ought to be good CHINA AND MILITARY SUPPLIES those best posted on the chinese character say that war will be followed by a great military activity through tout the chinese empire new gun will beat be bat once started A new navy will be constructed and there will be a great demand for all kinds of machinery for making of arms and the muni lions of war there are now more than 2000 men at work in the shops at shanghai an equal number are probably empl employed byed in the gun works at and the shipyards will be pushed to their utmost capacity the chinese have seen their necessity for railroads their lack of ability to move their troops without them the first road to be built will probably I 1 e one from to bankow and thence to canton this has been planned for years and it will tap a territory containing hundreds of millions ot olf people the work of getting such concessions will be slow and it is very doubtful whether foreigners will be allowed to build railroads iahey could be permitted to do so the field for electricity and steam is practically unlimited and such a revolution in railroad building and manufacturing will take place as will turn the remainder of the industrial world lup side down I 1 dont believe the chinese will do this at present they move slowly but it will come eventually they will however have a great trouble in raising the money to pay japan and there is no telling what may be squeezed out of the government at this time think of cities of a hundred thousand five hundred thousand and a million within a few miles of each other think of a country as big as the united states and containing about eight times as many people with no railroads whatever and no decent wagon roads a country in most places as flat as a fl floor and well fitted for railroads with out grading and you have something of the condition of china today it is a country which has four thousand wall ed cities and countless villages A country where locomotion is expensive and where the people squeeze money harder than they do anywhere ea ele on the globe where cheap transportation would pay better the harvest is ripe for the speculator and investor it il the fence of chinese conservatism and exclusion can be torn away take peking with its million and a halt half of people it has not a line of street cars eighty miles away has a million of people and is one of the great trading centers of the empire those who ride go about in chairs carried on the shoulders shoulder of men and all goods are carted around on wheelbarrows supplies peking with goods and there is no railroad between them it is the same all over china CHINESE COTTONS the chinese are beginning to make their own cotton they have a number of large factories and li hung chang proposes to build others in these they nave modern machinery A great part of the cotton used is made by hand not more than one fifteenth being imported our cotton cloths claths are more popular than the english or the native cottons but they cost too much and hence we send but little manufactured cotton to china the market however is enormous one of the con made an estimate of it not long ago he said that the chinese are clothed principally in cotton there are at leat four hundred millions of them and they use about twenty yards apiece every year thio would make a consumption of eight billion yards a year take your pencil now and see what that means eight billion yards is twenty tour four billion teet feet long at five thousand feet to the mile this would be more than four million miles long or enough to reach one hundred and sixty times around the world one hundred and sixty feet makes a very wide city street it if you had three such streets running clear around the world and could patch the cotton used by the chinese into one vast crazy quilt it would be more than enough to carpet them of this enormous amount of more than seven and one half billion yards are made by the chinese being woven by the women i n on hand looms if we could get low freight rates we ought to be able to supply a large part ot of these cottons the chinese want a booi gooi cotton and they need heavy strong and closely woven goods for winter in the future they will probably make the greater part of their own goods but the enormous market which might be created |
