wanting and even exist at the present time. Undoubtedly the resumption of the practice of placing a considerable tax on newspaper advertisements would lead to their limitation, yet it is highly improbable for many reasons that the system will ever again be generally adopted, especially in countries where the freedom of the press has always been guarded with a jealous eye. The tax on public placards and the like is of less inportance, and an accurate opinion on this point can only be formed in connection with a thorough understanding of all the governmental and financial institutions of the country concerned. Yet even here we may presuppose that the very extension of the advertising system will develop a growing resistance against financial difficulties placed in the way of its application. At any rate, the economic importance of advertising is not based on its financial benefit to the state.

Having thus discussed the subject in some of its bearings, it now remains for me to draw some conclusions. We have seen that the institution of advertising undoubtedly accomplishes an important economic mission. It is an apparatus which promulgates information in the most manifold directions, leads to the establishment of various business connections, and is thus of value to the consumer as well as to the producer. At the present day it furnishes a living to a good many souls, and has besides an important cultural function to perform, namely, by inciting to a refinement of needs, by the propagation of novelties, and by the consequent support of the technical and economic advances. The system of advertising is intimately bound up with the intellectual life of nations, having won over to its service to a marked degree art and taste, and having made possible the modern newspaper and magazine.

However, all these favorable effects are not without certain drawbacks. The dissemination of news is incomplete, costly, unreliable, and from the standpoint of the public interest, loaded down with many useless expenditures. In so far as these defects rest upon definite excesses of the system, for example, in the case of "concurrence déloyale,” legal measures may be resorted to, as has been attempted in several countries. Experience only will enable us to determine their true measure of usefulness. Still, no matter how successful such laws may be, they affect only certain imperfections and not the organic shortcomings of advertising. These latter are themselves the product of and share the weaknesses and faults of the modern economic system, in which production in general becomes subservient to speculative individual interests. To be sure, a number of circumstances and conditions tend in the other direction, that is, wherever individual interests are rendered subservient to the public weal, as when production is begun where there is want and limited where there is

superfluity, nevertheless in the free play of economic forces public interests prevail only after serious obstacles have been met and overcome. The same is true of the news service effected by the system of advertising, inasmuch as its activity also depends upon individual, scattered interests, without any systematic guidance or consistent consideration of the public welfare. Its acts are limited by the interests, intentions, and means of individuals. The general interest in economic information is satisfied only in so far as it may serve some private interest.

There is another aspect in which advertising bears the characteristic marks of the modern system of economy, since it has undoubtedly assumed more or less the capitalistic stamp. The immense advantages of frequent and continual repetition are accessible only to enterprises possessed of large means. Advertising leads to the emancipation of the large producer from the small dealer, eventually to the suppression of the latter to the point where he is compelled to carry articles that do not benefit his personal interests, simply because his customers, incited by constant advertising, demand them. Advertising makes it possible to acquire customers at a distance; it procures wide publicity for the performances and prices of large establishments, and thereby forces the smaller to keep pace with them, no matter how difficult this may be. The development of the system particularly in the retail field, therefore, lends an impetus to the modern tendency to force back the small dealer and to form large establishments.

While we must accept these phenomena more or less as a matter of course, since they are so intimately connected with the modern system of economy itself, we cannot suppress some apprehension at the rapidly increasing cost of the advertising apparatus. This phase of the question must not be overlooked, for although certain forces, as we have seen, are at work in the direction of limitation, at the same time they have as yet not shown themselves powerful enough to withstand these steady advances, and there is scarcely any reason to suppose that they will be able to in the future. We can only hope that the general knowledge of commercial affairs will spread constantly, and that the power of resistance of the public against unjustifiable propaganda will in the course of time become sufficiently vigorous to impose a certain limitation of the advertising system. Whether there is any possibility of this hope being realized within the near future is another problem. Personally, I think there is none.

JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES: A PROPOSED

ECONOMIC ALLIANCE

KENTARO KANEKO

EX-MINISTER OF STATE FOR AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE

A

FTER the War of Independence, the American ambassador went to Madrid and bowed down at the feet of the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, entreating the approval and support of the Spanish king in regard to a certain diplomatic negotiation with European powers. The Spanish minister had then declared that today we might dictate to the American government, but a hundred years hence, this tiny republic will become one of the greatest nations, and all Europe will tremble at her magnitude and supremacy. These words escaped, at the time, the ears of all European diplomats and statesmen, but what a prophet was the Spanish minister! To Spain did America owe her discoverer in the fifteenth century, and to her again, in the eighteenth century, the prophet! When George Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States, he had clearly foreseen the future of America, therefore he had laid down, by his message to Congress, the corner stone to the encouragement of inventions, and thus established the foundation. of American economic greatness. As long as he is regarded as the Father of his Country for American independence, so will he be for the economic policy of the great republic. Beside the principle of American statecraft, there is a certain peculiarity in the atmosphere of the United States, which changes the nature of all the people who inhale it. As soon as a foreigner takes up a domicile in America, he becomes a different person both in body and mind, and his energy and activity far surpass that of his own countrymen; hence the cry of the "Americanization of the world" is heard in every quarter.

The Pan-Slavonic movement is no longer the watchword of European diplomacy, since the eastern question removed its seat to the Far East, and transferred its centre from the Dardanelles to the Pacific. Moreover, the magnitude of the African question was fully understood by the Europeans after the Transvaal War; Europe was again stirred up by the word of the Anglo-Saxon alliance. The late Cecil Rhodes disclosed to the public before his death, a far-seeing scheme for England's universal policy, and for this purpose, he endowed a large educational fund to Oxford University as the means of carrying out, after his death, the scheme long cherished by him during his lifetime. The fund was intended

Copyright, 1903, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reurwed.

to be given to young students for the pursuit of their study at Oxford University, provided that the student's nationality belongs to England or her colonies, to America or Germany, that is to say, the students must be of the Anglo-Saxon race. The aim of this endowment is to bring up a new force in the future, and thus enable England to accomplish her mission in the world's politics with the support of Germany and the United States. An immediate object of the scheme is, no doubt, to cement closer the relations of the mother country with her colonies, and coveting, at the same time, the good feeling of Germany and the United States, to thus gradually organize an alliance of the Anglo-Saxon race to attain an ambition of guiding the affairs of the world.

However powerfully such a scheme might impress the mind of English speaking people, before its consummation, there may possibly be an occurrence of a new event, far more important than the one dreamed of by the founder of the Afrikander's Empire. This event is the magnitude and supremacy of America. During the past twenty years, the history of the United States in her development of agriculture, industry, and commerce, as well as an increase of the national wealth has, indeed, been unparalleled in the history of nations. May it not be probable that the United States might occupy, in the future, an important position in the universal politics, and thus become the most powerful factor in the economic world, with an inexhaustible market in Europe on the East, and an unattained yet limitless one in Asia on the West. Considering the increase of American national wealth within the last few years, such a forecast might not be considered unjustifiable.

The United States has geographically the most advantageous position in the world's commerce, and, moreover, as it possesses superior shipping facilities both on the Atlantic and Pacific, it thereby holds the reins to rule the communication with Europe and Asia. The southern part of the United States is situated nearer to the tropical zone, while the northern region extends to the frigid, thus the climatic conditions of the country are most favorably varied, and all kinds of products of hot and cold climates are procurable. Of agricultural products such as cotton, wheat, barley, and tobacco, and of mineral products including gold, silver, iron, coal, and copper, the United States possesses inexhaustible resources. Moreover, most of the northern, western, and southern territories are still left uncultivated, notwithstanding the land is remarkably fertile. It is impossible now to foretell to what extent the American national wealth will be developed in the future, if those territories are properly peopled and cultivated. The total mileage of railways in the United States is over two hundred thousand miles, which is the longest

mileage ever owned by one nation, and nearly all of these railways are connected at their termini with deep and well sheltered harbors, thus rendering transportation from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the mercy and command of the American people.

The Americans are naturally an adventurous people, which is the characteristic of their forefathers, who emigrated from Europe in olden times, and as they are brave and persevering, they can endure all sorts of hardships till they succeed in their enterprises. Moreover, they are the most practical people, and as soon as the results of scientific researches in Germany are procured, the Americans apply them at once to practical purposes; thus the improvement of manufactured goods made a great stride within recent years. These facts greatly alarmed the people in Europe, hence the proposal made by the European countries to form an alliance to protect themselves against the American commercial invasion. Until recent times, the capital in American business had been borrowed from Europe, but it is now nearly all refunded,-not only refunded, but at present the American capital is being conversely nvested in Europe. According to the American foreign trade reports, the sum of six hundred million dollars is said to be in favor of the United States for the past years, and this amount is virtually invested in, or can be loaned to, various countries in Europe as well as in Asia and elsewhere. If the national resources of the United States are developed continually at the present rate, they will, in the near future, take over to themselves the control of the world's money market.

The policy of the government of the United States in the nineteenth century was aimed solely to develop the internal resources of the country, hence they had stood always aloof from, and seldom intermingled with, the questions in the world's diplomacy, but at the same time, they barred, by the Monroe Doctrine, all the European powers from interfering in any question pertaining to the American continent. This policy might be called "Negative Cosmopolitanism," because they adopted selfishly for themselves the most liberal policy of cosmopolitanism in order to develop the country; but in regard to the importation of foreign goods which compete with home industry, they levy the most exorbitant,— almost prohibitive,-duties to stop their import.

However, just before the beginning of the twentieth century, the people and government of the United States assumed the most bold and astounding attitude in the world's politics. How do they construe the principle of the Monroe Doctrine after the annexation of the Philippines? What explanation can they give for the status of the government in the Philippines? Is it a colony or a territory? What is the principal object