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National Geographic : 1925 Jan
Contents
ASIA GOES TO MARKET Change works fast in the Orient! There are trolley cars in Pekin. There are tele phones in Tokio. In Hong Kong houses and streets are electrically lighted. The 'rickshaw is giving way to the automobile. Chinamen are eating American breakfast cereals. They are smoking American cigarettes. And now comes news that a new chewing gum has been created especially for the Chinese trade. Asia, once looked upon as just a place from which to import silks and curios, has gone to market. In eight years China jumped from twenty-eighth to fifth place among world buyers of American goods. In ten, Japanese imports increased threefold. The Dutch East Indies, the Malay States, British India,Chosen,Siberia, Australia and the Philippines are eager for a chance to trade. Across the Pacific lie three-quarters of the world's people, white men, black men, yellow men and brown men. Year by year their buying power grows. Year by year they look more and more to America for manu factured goods of all kinds. A commerce destined to become the greatest in all history, already amounting to hundreds of mil lions annually, is to be the heritage of certain youth ful cities in the Pacific Northwest. And the names of these youthful cities, looking hopefully westward across the highway of this commerce, are Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, Astoria, Vancouver, Bellingham, Everett, Bremerton, Port Angeles, Gray's Harbor, Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Anacortes. They are the ports of Washington and Oregon. They are the natural outlets for American trade with the Orient. For they are nearer by several days' sailing than the ports of California to the chief points of Asia and the islands of the Pacific. They are nearer by rail to the Atlantic Seaboard. They are endowed with harbor facilities unparalleled on our Atlantic Coast. And the Pacific Northwest, of which they are the commercial capitals, the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, has tre mendous industrial resources- half the potential water power of the United States, half its standing timber, billions in foods, metals, coal and oil-to support this commerce. American industrial enterprise is reaching west ward, for in the Pacific Northwest it sees its greatest opportunity now! Table of exports from the United States, showing proportion sent to the Orient of the articles listed (Based on 1922 figures of the FarEastern Division, U. S . Departmentof Commerce) Cigarettes........----------------------- ------------------99% W ire nails ....... -- -- . ... ...............-- ------- ---- 67% Textile machinery- .. .- .......----- .-- --...... 63% Rails ....- -.. ..... . ............-------- 61% Transmission equipment --.----..---....--....--- 59% Power and other transformers ..... - - .- - - -- - 5 9% Generators------------------------- ----------------- -. - -51% Illuminating oil .. - - - -- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 47% Sewing machines --- . .- --- ---- --- --- --- -- ---------- 37% Construction machinery .........--------.------ 37 Motorcycles- ....... .....------ -. .. -- 36% Motors...................... - -- - -- -- - -- - .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .- - - --------...... 35% Motor trucks -----.... ..----........----- ----- 33 Metal-working machinery..- - - - - - ....-...------ 29% Automobiles .........................- --. ..- --- 27% Structural steel ----........ ------.... -..... --- ..-.. 25% Tires ................... -- - - .. ........--- . .. ---- ---- -- 22% STHE PACIFIC NORTHWEST tfhe Chicago Burlington & Quincy RR: the Great Northern Ry. . 3he Northern Pacific Ry.
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