THE WOOL TRADE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3579, 19 July 1912, Page 5

THE WOOL TRADE.

AUSTRALIA’S GROWING RELATIONS WITH JAPAN.

An interesting fact noticeable in the “Sydney Daily Telegraph’s’’ review of the wool trade of New South Wales is that Japan is a better customer than the United (States. During the last five years the number of bales of wool exported from Sydney to Japan has been 76,661, and to the United States 74,574. During the last three years the numbers have been, roundly, 60,000 and 38,000 bales respectively. Of course, some New South Wales wool may have found its way to America from the London sales, but four-fifths of the wool grown in the State finds purchasers afc the local (sales. Japan’s trade is evidently worth curo--vating. Mr Foxhall, the English secretary of the Japanese Consulate-General in Australia, who has just returned, to Sydney from a visit to Japan, suggests ‘that tl?e attitude adopted by some Europeans makes trade with Japan more difficult. But it is really rather difficult to believe that “among the Eure pea ns who have lived in Japan for a number of years there is a pathetic lament- for the- days gone by when a European could ill-treat with impunity a Japanese who had offended him.” Mr Foxhall tells of one man who complained that times were not what they were twenty years ago. “Then,” said he, “if a Japanese gave you cheek you could knock him down. Now, if you hit one of them, he will either hit you back, or give you in charge.” The number of persons who resent Japan’s development m this singular fashion must, |ioweyer, be wholly insignificant, and their influence, such as it may be, can hardly affect commercial relations between Australia and Japan.