SPECIAL REPORTS FOR FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION, 201

General of Chosen. A few sawmills were erected, the lumber being
used for the construction of military barracks, for sale to private parties,
 and for export. The results, however, have not been either conspicuously
 large or successful. The imports from Japan, China, and
the United States amounted to $843,724, of which $69,203 was from
the United States and $663,149 from Japan proper.
Foreign combinations—1t should be noted in general, that commercially
 Chosen (Korea) is but an outpost of Japan proper. Most
of the important business connected with this field is conducted in
Japan, the principal companies being represented here only by
branches or agencies. Accordingly only ‘the conditions peculiar to
Chosen are treated in this report.
The combinations foreign to this territory operating in Chosen
may be divided into two classes, viz, private and government or semigovernment.
 In the first class are the Standard Oil Co., of New
York, the Rising Sun Petroleum Co., of Japan, and the Nippon Oil
Co., of Japan, all dealing in oils; and in the second class are the
tobacco monopoly of the Japanese Government and the South Manchuria
 Railway Co. (semigovernment), the latter supplying locomotives,
 cars, and railway materials.
0il.—The Standard Oil Co., of New York, maintains a foreign
staff of five members and a proportionate number of native clerks,
with headquarters at Seoul. The Chosen branch is under the direct
control of the main offices for Japan, which are located at Yokohama.
The trade of the Standard Oil Co. is chiefly in the superior grades of
kerosene (those having a specfiic gravity of more than 0.73), which
is imported from the United States in large, special shipments three
or four times a year, thus reducing the freight charges. The oil is
placed upon the market through native middlemen, who purchase it
upon a secured credit basis. Although the prices charged by this
company are roughly 10 or 15 cents per case higher than the prices
of their competitors, yet, through a perfected system of organization
and careful control of the field, it has been found possible to secure
and hold about four-fifths of the total oil business done in the country.
 The amount of business done by the company in Chosen has
averaged about $1,500,000 per annum during the past five years.
The only competitors of the Standard Oil Co. in this field are the
Rising Sun Petroleum Co. and the Nippon Oil Co. The former company
 is subsidiary to the Asiatic Petroleum Co., an English corporation
 dealing in the Borneo and Sumatra oils, and was organized
in Japan by the parent company to handle its products there. The
Nippon oil Co. 1s a Japanese corporation handling only the Japanese
 oils and has only within the past year or two so extended its
business in Chosen as to be considered a competitor of its forerunners
in the field. The competition of these two companies has up to the
present been confined to the lower grades of oil, although recently
increasing stocks of the superior qualities have been coming from
Japan. At present the Japanese product has no decided advantages
other than lower freight and insurance charges, inasmuch as the
Chosen customs duties now apply equally to Japan and other countries,
 as notified by the Japanese Government in its declaration on
annexation of August 29,1910. In another five years (August, 1920),
however, Chosen will regain its tariff autonomy and a schedule more
favorable to the Japanese product may confidently be expected.