Part 36 (1/2)

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

How has the policy of seclusion affected the commercial development of China?

What has been its effect on the social life of the people?

How did the cultivation of opium in India become a factor in the opening of China to foreign trade?

What is meant by ”treaty ports”? Make a list of those shown on the map of eastern China.

Name two Chinese statesmen who have been factors in the relations between China and the United States.

Compare the position of j.a.pan with that of the British Isles with reference to commerce.

What advantages has j.a.pan with reference to lat.i.tude?--what disadvantages with reference to cultivable lands?

From the Statesman's Year-Book find the leading exports and imports and the volume of trade of these states.

From the Abstract of Statistics find the leading articles of trade between these states and the United States.

FOR COLLATERAL READING AND REFERENCE

From a cyclopaedia read the following topics: The opium war, Commodore Perry's expedition.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

AFRICA

Africa is in a state of commercial transition. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the part.i.tion of its area among European nations left but few of the names that formerly were familiar. At the beginning of the twentieth century the British, French, and Germans controlled the greater part of the continent, although the Portuguese, Belgians, Italians, and Spanish have various possessions.

The part.i.tion of Africa was designed for the expansion of European markets. The population of Africa is about one hundred and seventy million, and the continent is practically without manufacturing enterprises. The people, therefore, must be supplied with clothing and other commodities. In 1900 the total trade of Africa with the rest of the world was about one and one-third billion dollars, of which the United States had a little more than two per cent., mainly cotton cloth and coal-oil.

=Egypt.=--The Egypt of the maps is a region of indefinite extent so far as its western and southern boundaries are concerned; the Egypt of history is the flood plain of the Nile. From the Mediterranean Sea to Cairo the cultivable area is not far from one hundred miles in width; from Cairo to Khartum it varies from three to seven or eight miles wide.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFRICA]

The food-producing power of Egypt depends on the Nile. In lower Egypt a considerable area is made productive at the ordinary stage of water by means of irrigating ca.n.a.ls, but in upper Egypt the crops must depend upon the annual flood of the river, which occurs from June until September. During this period the river varies from twenty-five to forty feet above the low-water mark. In the irrigated regions three crops a year may be produced; in the flooded lands only one is grown.

In order to add to the cultivable area two great engineering works have been constructed. A barrage and lock control the flow of water at a.s.siut; a huge dam at a.s.suan impounds the surplus of the flood season.

These structures, it is thought, will increase the productive power of the country about one-fourth. Rice, maize (an Egyptian variety), sugar, wheat, and beans are the staple crops.

Rice is the food of the native people, but the crop is insufficient, and the deficit must be imported. The wheat, maize, and beans are grown for export to Europe, the last named being extensively used for horse-fodder. The sugar-growing industry is protected by the heavy yield and the cheap fellahin labor. The raw sugar is sent to the refineries along the Mediterranean. Onions are exported to the United States.

The cotton-crop is an important factor, and in spite of its own crop the United States is a heavy purchaser of the long-staple Egyptian cotton, which is used in the manufacture of thread and hosiery. The cultivation of tobacco is forbidden by law, but Egyptian cigarettes are an item of considerable importance. They are made of imported Turkish tobacco by foreign workmen. There is a heavy export duty on native tobacco exported, and the ban on the inferior native-grown article is intended to prevent its admixture with the high-grade product from Turkey, and thereby to keep up the standard of the cigarettes.

Egypt is nominally a va.s.sal of Turkey, paying to the Sultan a yearly tribute of $3,600,000. Great Britain's is the real controlling hand, because the Suez Ca.n.a.l is Great Britain's gateway to India. By a purchase of the stock held by a former Khedive, Great Britain secured financial control of the ca.n.a.l, a necessary step from the fact that more than half the trade carried through the ca.n.a.l is British commerce.

The country is deficient in the resources that make most nations powerful. There is neither coal, iron, nor timber available, and these must be imported. Great Britain supplies the first, and Norway the last.

Some traffic is carried on the Nile, but railways have been built through the crop-lands. One of these threads the Nile Valley and will become a part of the ”Cape to Cairo” route.

_Alexandria_ is the port at which most of the Egyptian commerce lands.