Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

188 ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

Bureau reports, as solely due to the special minuteness in the
taking of the census in that district alone for that year.
This particular depression in trade in these northern regions
was mainly due to the undeniable fact that war expenditures
were light in these places. Turning to I907, we find that the
commerce of the districts which had suddenly expanded by
reasons of war was becoming retarded, while that of the places
which had more or less suffered during the war began to display signs of rapid progress. This latter phase was particularly the case with Osaka and Kobe. Sendai and Akita alone
had no power to recuperate and showed no increase in the
number of tradesmen or in the amount of business taxes.
FOREIGN TRADE
General view of the effects
War is generally accompanied by "unfavorable balance of
trade." In our country this tendency was intensified by the
fact that since I896 imports had continuously exceeded
exports and no small amount of foreign capital had been
imported. But it is quite worthy of notice that during the
war our exports as well increased somewhat. Movements of
gold and silver were also greatly affected by the war. Loans
raised abroad served to check the exodus to a certain extent,
but the margin between the inflow and outflow was by no
means small. This is primarily attributable to the reckless
export of specie previous to the flotation of foreign loans.
Trade relations during and immediately after the war can be
tabulated as follows:
TRADE RELATIONS, I903-7
Year Exports Imports Total Excess of imports
over exports
Yen Yen Yen Yen
I903........... 289,502,442 317,I35,517 606,637,960 27,633,075
1904........... 319,260,895 371,360,738 690,621,634 52,099,842
I905........... 321,533,610 488,538,016 810,071,627 167,004,406
1906............ 423,754,892 418,784,108 742,539,000 -4,970,784
1907............ 432,412,873 494,467,346 926,880,219 62,054,473