How enormous, then, will be their absorption of western capital and gold.

Is it still maintained that the Orientals lack the capacity for such development?  Then look at their achievements in every country to which they have emigrated, and especially in this.  Their progress here in the industrial arts, even while they were but a handful, was so rapid that the government was called on to restrict them.  Even now the papers contain alarming statements to the effect that Japan is invading our markets with those specialties in the making of which we, but a little while ago, considered ourselves superior to all the rest of the world.  And no tariff is high enough to keep them out.  It is observed by all travellers in China and other Oriental countries that there exists in as great a degree as in the West a desire for indulgence in those things classed as mere luxuries which, in all nations, absorb so great a share of its total wealth.  Every one who travels through the eastern countries marvels at the extraordinary richness and delicacy of those things adopted by them for ornamentation, luxury, and convenience.  And they are of such a character as, far more than in the western world, involves the consumption of the precious metals.  Along with the national desire to adopt that which is useful and ornamental, a highly mimetic nature prompts them to seize upon and adapt with singular readiness that which is brought to their notice as being useful and constituting a salient feature of western civilization.

To sum it all up, we have in Asia somewhere near 800,000,000 of people, who are certainly increasing by 10,000,000 a year, probably many more, and these people pressed on by Russia on the north and west, by Great Britain and France on the south, as well as by the wonderful energy of the Japanese on the east.  How much gold will all these people absorb in the future?  And it should not be forgotten that not only is the present population to be supplied, but an increase of population is to be allowed for, which at ten dollars per capita would alone absorb the entire annual gold production above the amount used in the arts.  If any one thinks this forecast fanciful, I only ask him to consider what has been done in the last thirty years, and then make his estimate.  For what the possible absorption of the precious metals by the Asiatic people may be, we need only to refer to what has been done by India.  By reason of the development of her industries and resources caused by her intercourse with western nations she has imported in net excess of exports, from the years 1835 to 1893, $750,000,000 of gold and $1,750,000,000 of silver, or about one-seventh of the entire world’s output of gold and about one-half of the world’s output of silver during that time.  Professor Shaw is authority for the statement that her demand for the precious metals is yet unabated and great as ever.  When we remember that the average population of India during this time was only about 200,000,000, and that there are about three times as many people yet in Asia who have even greater latent powers to absorb the precious metals, one can form some feeble estimate of what an exhaustive drain upon the gold and silver supply of the world will ensue when these nations awaken and develop their resources and energies through the stimulating influences of western ideas and example.