150 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE.

These museums are placed under the control of the Japanese consulates,
 and are left in charge of merchants properly qualified to act
as mediums in business transactions between Japanese and foreign
merchants or manufacturers. Such museums were organized in
Russia, India, Mexico, Turkey, and elsewhere.
Societies for promoting international trade—Japan’s foreign
trade has been materially encouraged by societies formed in foreign
countries for the purpose of developing thé mutual economic relations.
 A society of this kind formed by Belgian and Japanese merchants
 several years ago maintains a Belgian representative in
Japan, publishes a review in the languages of both countries, and
has carried on a fruitful publicity campaign.?
Registration of patents and trade-marks—Japan revised its laws
of patents, designs, and trade-marks in 1909. In 1899 it joined the
International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property.
Regarding trade-marks Japan has followed the continental European
 system, with priority of registration as the basis of its legislation.
 Foreign makers, not realizing this, sometimes neglect to
register their trade-marks, and as a result have found them not only
copied but registered by some Japanese fifm.* The purpose of the
Commission in noting this matter here and not in the.case of other
countries is simply that American manufacturers may realize, more
fully than they seem to have done, the necessity of careful attention
to registration of their trade-marks in Tokio.
Drawbacks and rebates—In its policy of promoting domestic industries
 and foreign trade the Japanese Government has made liberal
use of the drawback system. The toy, paper, glassware, match, iron,
and other industries have been given material aid in this manner.?
To give Japanese millers a better chance to compete with Americar
millers in Chosen, Manchuria, and China the government has rezently
 decided to include imported wheat among the articles on which
the Japanese import duty will be entirely paid back to the importer
when the flour manufactured from it is exported. American flour is
regarded as the strongest rival of Japanese flour.
Large trading companies.—A considerable share of Japan’sindustry
 and comunerce is concentrated in.the hands of a few large firms
which, for the greater part, represent large family possessions. Some
of the leading ones are the Mitsu Bishi Co., Mitsui &amp; Co., or Mitsui
Bussan Kaisha (Ltd.), the undertakings of the Sumitomo family, the
Okura-Gumi, Takata &amp; Co., Suzuki &amp; Co., and the Nippon Shogyo
i Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, 1904, p. 478 fol. TT
+ Saint-Maurice, La Civilisation Economique du Japon, 1908, p. 100 et seq.
Japan As It Is, 1915, p. 181,
+ Canada, Department of Trade and Commerce, Weekly Bulletin, June 7, 1915, p. 1382.
¥ Canada, Department of Trade and Commerce, Weekly Report, July 6, 1914, pp. 987
and 1401.