Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Síða 24

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LE NORD
presentation the decline is revealed. The table gives the value
of Europe’s share in world trade as expressed in gold as ioo in
1913, whilst in 1936 it was only 57; but in the other continents
the total decline was only down to 80. Expressed in volume the
trade of Europe had only dropped 5 points, from 100 to 95,
but at the same time the other continent’s share in world trade
had risen 35 points, to 135, world trade in 1913 being similarly
fixed at 100.
But, as we have seen, the illustration is not clear because
world trade is taken as a whole, without any distinction between
imports and exports.
The matter becomes clearer when we consider exports alone.
It may be recalled that the value of Europe’s exports to overseas
countries in the years about 1913 was roughly £ 2 milliard in
gold. But in 1937 this had been reduced by one third to about
£ 1.4 milliard. Obviously neither of these data is correct. They
merely show that Europe’s share in world trade is declining, and
that is what we ought to know beforehand, because Asia has
begun to be industrialised, i. e. to retain for herself the enormous
reserve which Europe and the West held in the 1180 million
people of Asia when they gradually rose above starvation level.
Eastern developments, as they had to come, could be observed
as early as in Japanese statistics from 1914. A number of goods,
such as silk yarn, textiles, hosiery, china, glass, briquettes, tiles,
paper, oil, beer, soya, sugar, matches, soap and medical manu-
factures, which Japan had formerly been supplied with entirely
or partially from Europe, were now produced by herself. Even
then both industrial wages and export figures were rising. Sub-
sequently progress has been on a gigantic scale. The number of
industrial enterprises is increasing rapidly, with or without engine
power, but the former far more than the latter. In 1904 the
works using hand-power exclusively were still the majority, but
already in 1918 they were only one third of the total. Prac-
tically wherever we turn in Japanese statistics the picture is the
same: a rapidly developing industrialisation. The number of
industrial and trading companies rises, share capital and reserves
likewise. As late as in 1912 the number of foreign ships trading
on Japan was 53 per cent. of the Japanese, in 1921 the percentage
had been reduced to 25. The number of industrial workers has,
of course, increased, and their wages and standard of living has
been rising, and hence their purchasing power. The home market,