COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE. 149

the Yangtse-kiang region of China to investigate the navigation route
there; (2) the extension of banking facilities in connection with foreign
 trade; (3) the establishment of bonded warehouses under supervision
 of the customhouses; (4) the expansion of sales of the principal
 exports; (5) information on the situation of foreign markets;
(6) marine insurance; (7) the control and protection of workmen;
(8) the operation of the gold monetary system and its effect at home
and on foreign trade; (9) the encouragement of the business of tea
exporting; and (10) the encouragement of exportation of silk.
Guilds—TFor the purpose of encouraging the combination and
harmonious working of those engaged in industry and trade the
Japanese Government enacted special legislation in 1897 relating to
the staple exporters’ guilds and in 1900 relating to the staple producers’
 guilds. In 1913 the guilds existing throughout Japan numbered
 916, with a volume of production or sale totaling one and a half
billion yen for 649 guilds reported. The principal producers’ guilds
are distributed as follows: Raw silks, 207 guilds; rice, 67; fertilizers,
29; paper, 25; porcelain, 23; weaving, 188; timber, 80; soy and miso,
28; charcoal, 24; and matting, 25.2 Many of the guilds are credit
guilds, which supply thelr members with funds for developing their
business at a low rate of interest, and may be compared with the
neople’s banks existing in Germany.?
Inspection of foreign markets—At frequent intervals since 1895
the Japanese Government has sent officials and commissioners to foreign
 countries to investigate foreign markets, especially with the object
of promoting direct exports by Japanese merchants, and also of inquiring
 into other matters connected with the interests of foreign
trade. Besides, student commercial agents and student manufacturers,
 as well as private individuals experienced in particular lines
of trade, have been dispatched on similar missions, the chambers of
commerce supplying them with either a part or the whole of the
traveling expenses. From 1895 to 1901, 124 persons in all were sent
abroad on such errands, some of them to China, others to Europe,
and still others to North and South America, the South Seas, Straits
Settlements, Siberia, Korea, India, the Philippines, ete.*
Commercial sample musewms.—Japan possesses 38 commercial
sample museums, comprising samples of commodities that at present
constitute the principal items of export, or are likely to become so in
the near future; also of those that are competing with imported
goods in the domestic market or are qualified to do so. The establishment
 of commercial sample museums in foreign countries is another
 item in the Government’s foreign-trade-expansion activity.
" 1japan in the Bopseind of the Twentieth Century, 1904, p. 474.
2 The Japan Yearbook, 1914, p. 433.
3 Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, 1904, p. 112,
$Ibid., pp. 475. 477.