JAPANESE FINANCE AND

TRADE.

ONLY when one ponders the carefully compiled facts and figures set out in the new issue of the Financial and Economic Annual of Japan does one realise the greatness of the success that has crowned the efforts of Japanese financiers and captains of industry. The balance of trade which, before the war, was almost invariably against Japan, has now swung in her favour. It was in her favour to the extent of yen 175,000,000 (£17,924,818) in 1915, and we learn from another source that it is expected to be double that amount in 1916. The reasons for this improvement are thus pithily

stated:

:

A large sale of munitions to Russia and the other allies and increase in exportation to India, the South Seas, and Australia, which were hitherto under the influence of the belligerent powers, together with a sudden fall in our import trade, brought about a heavy excess of exports in our overseas trade. The second reason is the flourishing condition of our shipping business; it is quite natural that when a great dearth of bottoms was caused everywhere by the requisitioning for war purposes of the vessels of the belligerent powers, our shipping business alone has become extremely brisk. This fact, together with the prosperity of our export trade, made our international trade balance very favourable to this country and led to a marked increase in our specie holdings in the foreign markets, those facts naturally tended to an abundance of capital in our home markets.

The Government resolved to utilise its specie abroad as far as circumstances permitted, to reduce the foreign debts which were approaching maturity, and also to regulate the domestic money market; and made a plan for redeeming foreign loans to the amount of yen 30,000,000 (£3,072,826) annually from the financial year 1915-16. The redemption for that year has already been carried out. Moreover, the foreign loans which were converted in the same year into domestic loans amounted to yen 40,000,000 (£4,097,101).

The deposits in banks and postal savings have greatly increased. All manufacturing industries, especially ship-building, iron and other metal industries, and chemical, glass, leather and match industries, are experiencing a prosperity that they have never before enjoyed.

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THE SELF-SUFFICING JAPANESE.

WRITING in The Wealth of India on the expansion of mining and fisheries of Japan, Mr. St. Nihal Singh very vividly brings out the fact that the Japanese are able to start and to carry on stupendous enterprises without needing foreign experts. He pays high tribute to the genius of a nation that has been able, in less than two generations, to dispense with the services of foreigners,' who were imported to organise administrative bureaus, to conduct scientific surveys, and to start workshops, factories and mills. The result has been achieved by using "the foreigners not only to help to organise affairs, but also to prepare the Japanese to conduct such affairs independently of alien help as soon as possible." Japan has, moreover, built up a highly successful system of technical schools, turning out a large number of experts every year. Speaking of fishery institutions, the writer says:

It took but a short time for me to discover that the Japanese authorities and patriots, working in co-operation, had created a system of technical education in aquatic biology that enables the Japanese to acquire a sound education in that science without incurring the expense of foreign education.

Higher education in fishery is given at two centres. Many institutions exist in various parts of Japan to impart elementary education in fishery, generally conducted by provincial authorities and municipalities, or by private associations, with subsidies from local governments. They are of great utility because they make it possible for lads to pursue such studies without going far from their homes.

Schools for providing instruction in mining were started early in the seventies of the last century, and at present exist in all parts of the country. Mr. Singh observes :

I had the opportunity of going through several of these institutions during my visit to Japan several years ago. I found them to be liberally equipped and efficiently staffed. The instruction imparted was highly practical. The pupils had to spend the best part of their vacation working in the mines, where they engaged in mining operations of all sorts-timbering in underground workings, drilling, blasting, etc.

The mineral department of the central laboratory at Tokyo interested me very much. The ores are analysed in this institution by experts, and their findings are conducing to Japanese prosperity.

A GREAT INDIAN
STATESMAN.

ONE of the greatest Indian administrators of our age was the late Nawab Sir Salar Jung. He was the Prime Minister of His Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad-the leading Muslim ruler during the troublous days of the Mutiny of 1857. An anonymous writer in The Indian Review (Madras) very ably deals with the part that he played at this critical time :

All Mussulmans in Southern India turned their eyes towards the Nizam's capital. Wildest rumours of the dire peril to which the British were exposed in Hindustan having reached Hyderabad from the north, the city Mohammedans were plunged in a state of intense excitement. The city people assembled in large numbers in the streets clamouring for war against the English.

At such a critical moment the Nizam Nasirud-Dowla died, and great fears were there. fore entertained in responsible quarters regarding the issue of events at Hyderabad.

A new Nizam was placed on the Masnad (throne) without any loss of time, and the (British) Resident on returning from the installation ceremony found a telegram from the Governor-General announcing the fall of Delhi. He sent for Salar Jung at once and communicated the news to him. The minister replied that the news had been known in the city three days ago. To many unacquainted with British resources, the fall of Delhi was synonymous with the destruction of the British Raj in India.

The situation was so critical that the Governor of Bombay telegraphed to the Resident at Hyderabad: "If the Nizam goes, all is lost." But wiser counsels prevailed at the Nizam's Durbar, and Salar Jung's statesmanship saved the situation.

A body of 500 Rohillas with 4,000 disaffected people marched and attacked the Residency, which was not then protected with any fortifications. The Minister knew of the projected attack and gave a timely warning to the Resident, who at once ordered some reinforcements from Secunderabad. On their arrival they were joined by a party of Arabs sent by Salar Jung and the attack was repulsed.

The Governor-General in Council informed him (Sir Salar Jung) that the ability, courage and firmness with which he had discharged his duty to the Nizam and to the British Govern

CREMATION OF INDIAN SOLDIERS.

AN impressive little sketch describing how the last sad rites are performed for Indian soldiers who succumb to wounds while in hospital is contributed to the Modern Review (Calcutta), from which we take the following :—

I looked, and in the distance was a little body of men, walking slowly with measured tread, singing, and in the midst of them they carried on a stretcher a something covered with the Union Jack. With bowed head and clasped hands the singers passed on-tall Sikhs broken in the war. Some could only limp along. Others had their arms in slings or, alas! an empty coat sleeve pinned to their side, but all passed along towards the little building in the distance, more like a tent than anything else. In the middle of it a stream had been made, which full of running water, and over this the funeral pyre had been built. Quietly the little procession drew near, and then from underneath the Union Jack-the flag he had served so nobly and so well-the body of the dead warrior was taken and reverently placed upon the pyre.

was

Around the pyre the little company gathered with clasped hands. I noticed the look of exultant pride which seemed to flash from their eyes as they gazed at the recumbent figure on the pyre. There was no selfish grief depicted on the faces of these splendid warriors; it was a look of pride that their friend should have died in such a cause and in such a way. Then from the group advanced a tall, handsome Sikhtaking a taper, he lighted the pyre. Quietly they stood like statues while the smoke curled up and flames ate away the wood.

THE CROSS OF GENEVA.

Go any evening to Charing Cross; take your stand there in the waiting lines through which pass on velvet wheels the Red Cross ambulances with their pitiful freights of poor broken men; reflect that not twentyfour hours ago most of those men were fighting for you in the trenches in Northern France; and marvel at the superb organisation which in another half-hour will dispose of them as comfortably as may be in bed in hospital or convalescent home. The growth and achievements of the British Red Cross Society in two years of war have been truly staggering. In 1914 it was housed in small offices in Victoria Street, unknown except to a few, and the Order of St. John, equally small, equally unknown, had quarters in Clerkenwell. Then the blow fell, and men and women, anxiously considering how to allay the pain and suffering which must follow in the wake of the armies, discovered the Red Cross, and poured in offers of help, in money, gifts and services. On August 12th, 1914, before the Expeditionary Force sailed, the British Red Cross Society sent out its first party of doctors and nurses to the help of Belgium, and from that moment it has never ceased its good work for a moment. Its record, which will no doubt be told in full some day, is jewelled with splendid stories, some of which, such as the creation, almost in a night, of the colossal hospital base at Boulogne, and the indescribable fight with typhus in Serbia, are well outlined by Mr. Wilson McNair in an article in the current Contemporary Review which should be widely read. But it is not so much on individual achievements as on the wider meaning and significance of the Red Cross work upon the war as a whole that the writer chiefly insists :

That wider meaning is summed up to-day in a single word, "Somme." In this greatest battle of our history we are able to find the full expression of all the voluntary efforts which earlier and lesser enterprises have called into being. This battle is desperate; it is without respite It is a battle of material and of guns, but over and above that it is a battle of men in which the human factor is of first importance Upon faith and courage and good comfort our men are fighting and winning this battle, and these supreme qualities are strengthened within them by the knowledge that in addition to the succour afforded by the State in the shape of

the splendid Army Medical Service, there is the provision which comes as a gift inspired by sympathy and admiration. It is the function of the Red Cross Organisation to give effect to this sympathy and this pride, and to act as the medium of its expression. The ambulance service, perfected during the days of Ypres, the hospital equipment bestowed so ungrudgingly the little extra comforts in the words, the books, and the papers, the attention bestowed by workers by the wayside-all these things speak with the voice of inspiration; they are the worthy message of Britain to her fighting men ; they infuse a great spirit of friendship through all ranks, and they endow every man with the potent weapon of a good courage, thereby increasing manyfold the fighting value of the whole Army.

"WHY NEED WE

In an article with the above arresting title which appears in the January Contemporary Mrs. Drew returns to her plea for a sane and healthy vegetarian diet. Man is the only animal that lives on cooked food, yet man seems to be the only animal that suffers from persistent disease; indeed, Professor Ray Lankester tells us that animals, unless interfered with by man, are practically free from disease. There must be some correlation between these facts, says the writer, and the fact that every standard work that has been written by dietetic experts has summed up against the use of dead animals as food proves that there is. Mrs. Drew cites the experience of Dr. Robert Bell, the great cancer specialist, in support of her case :

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The attention of Dr. Bell was first called to the vital importance of diet by an event that took place in his native town about thirty years ago— the smash of a Glasgow bank resulting in the imprisonment of the directors. Some among these men were known to Dr. Bell, and having "done themselves," as it is called, exceedingly well," he felt it likely that their health would be seriously damaged by the very frugal prison fare. They came out of prison like giants refreshed, in renewed health and vigour. This acted on Dr. Bell as a revelation. For seventeen years he had been operating for cancer. He had studied in the Royal Infirmary at Glasgow under the great Dr. Lister. Gradually the truth dawned upon him that his operations were useless; more and more did the large fees received for them by medical men seem like a premium on death. Except in the very earliest stages (when the malignant character of the disease could scarcely be proved) in no case did he find the operation bring recovery; it might postpone, it could not cure. Finally, he determined to give up both operations and fees for cancer, and the experience won from the imprisonment of the Bank directors set his feet on a new path.

Dr. Bell now prescribes a purely vegetarian diet in all cases of malignant disease, and although he has suffered from the persecution which the medical profession seems to reserve for those of its members who venture to leave the beaten track, he persists in his heresy and has achieved some wonderful results without recourse to the knife, a few of which are given by Mrs. Drew. She herself has been cured of chronic arthritis by vegetarianism, and although she is no fanatic she urges, very reasonably, that the subject

BE POISONED?"

should be investigated, if possible by a Public Department, with more careful thought and less prejudice than it has hitherto received.

CLOTHING THE LEADING LADY.

To clothe the leading lady of revue is a very expensive business. She has, perhaps, six changes-possibly seven or eight. Her gowns and frocks must be ultra-fashionableif not, indeed, anticipatory of fashion. They must come from one of the leading London houses, and they will cost anything from 25 to 50 guineas apiece. Suppose one says she has six dresses averaging 35 guineas each -that is two hundred and ten guineas on the cost of production on her account alone. And even then only her frocks have been accounted for, remember. There are eight or nine other "principals" to be dressed several times from top to toe. To put down the outlay on dresses in a "medium-priced " revue, which usually costs from five thousand to six thousand pounds to produce, at about two thousand five hundred pounds is, therefore, by no means an extravagant estimate.Pearson's Magazine.

RECONSTRUCTION IN
ART CIRCLES.

THE time has come for a reconstruction of the government of the National Gallery, says Mr. Francis Howard in the January number of the English Review. The recently abandoned Bill was an unwitting confession of this, a mere palliative for a hopeless malady. It is no use, says the writer in effect, tinkering with the branches of a decayed tree; the present scheme of government is bad at the roots, and must be wholly plucked out. The existing Board of Trustees of peer politicians and other magnates should be almost entirely reconstituted or at the very least effectively leavened with those whose chief and life-long occupation has been the technical study of art. Had such been its constitution in the past, ways and means would have been found long since to secure the works desired and augment our national collection in many minor ways. The writer gives a pathetic list of opportunities lost in the past few years to secure coveted bargains and to reduce the lengthy "unrepresented" catalogue, and in particular urges that the British School Section must be carefully reconsidered. There are, he says, only two British painters prior to Turner properly represented-Crome and Hogarth; there is only one Gainsborough in such condition as he would tolerate, and some of the most interesting phases of Reynolds are missing. After making various minor recommendations, Mr. Howard finally insists upon a Committee of Inquiry into methods of restoration and conservation, and adopts the suggestion recently put forward by Mr. Wilson Steer :

:

A restriction on the sale (except to the National Gallery) or export during the war and for two years after of pictures earmarked by the Board of the National Gallery, and, with a view to purchasing these and augmenting National Gallery funds, a permanent export duty of 25 per cent. to be levied on all pictures not produced within fifty years or brought into the country within ten years. Pending the passage of the Bill an Order in Council forbidding the sale or export of the earmarked works would protect them and meet the danger resulting from any necessary publication or discussion of the list. Such a measure will obviate the necessity of sales-" redundant" and unnecessary works can be disposed of on loan and exchange loan as effectively as if sold-and of breaking faith with donors and devisors.

IN System (Chicago edition) Mr. David Morantz explains how, some time ago, on the receipt of a letter from a business concern which sold encyclopædias, he was impressed with the manner in which the communication closed. Instead of " Yours truly," or " Very truly yours," the letter ended thus: "Perpetually yours for the Perfect Reference System." Since then he has taken particular pains to notice how other men closed their letters. He inventoried five hundred letters, and classified them, with the following results:

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135, or 27%, closed with "Yours very truly"; 60, or 12%, closed with Sincerely yours"; 54, or 11%, closed with " Yours truly "; 54, or 11%, closed with " Cordially yours"; 54, or 11%, closed with "Very truly yours 26, or 5%. closed with "Yours respectfully "; 21, or 4%, closed with " Respectfully yours 21, or 4%, closed with "Yours sincerely "; 5, or 1%, closed with "Your sincere friend"; 5, or 1%, closed with “ Very truly "; 5, or 1%, closed with "Very sincerely yours." This meant that of the 500 letters 440 (or 88 per cent.) used stock phrases. Only 12 per cent. utilised the opportunity of closing their communications with interesting phrases, of which the following are samples: "Yours for Tempting Typography": a printer; "Yours for Less Ledger Labour " : a manufacturer of an automobile ledger ;

;

"Advertisingly yours": an advertising man ; "Yours at the Receiver": a grocer soliciting telephone orders;

"Yours for Efficiency and Economy": an adding machine manufacturer;

“Yours on the Jump": a real estate man ; "Yours for Clean Cylinders and a Fast Engine": a manufacturer of a device for removing carbon ;

"Yours for Stickers that Stick : a manufacturer of gummed stickers.

The above are methods which, in the writer's opinion, show how it is possible to improve letters in a small but effective way.

THE frontispiece to the January Boys' Own Paper is a realistic picture of John Travers Cornwell, the boy hero of H.M.S. Chester at his post of duty at the Battle of Jutland.

D