every commodity in which the competition of America, Japan, and Germany was possible. Since 1895, when Japan began to assert herself in the markets of China, those articles which, pre-eminently among the commercial Powers, she can herself supply, have carried everything before them. Ten years ago the British trade in cloths, drills, shirtings, cottons, yarns, and matches had attained magnificent dimensions. In certain particulars, only, our trade was rivalled by the United States of America, whose propinquity gave to them some little advantage in the markets of the Far East. Now, however, the trade has passed altogether into the hands of the Japanese, or is so equally divided between Japan and America, Japan and Germany, that our pristine supremacy has disappeared.
