Excerpt from The National Wealth of JapanA represents at any given time the result of the accumulated toil and efforts of past generations it can never be brought into existence at a moment's notice. When Japan, in the late war with Russia, not only displayed unparalleled valour and moral greatness, but also proved the ample capacity of her wealth far beyond the public ex pectation, she could do so solely in virtue of the great latent power bequeathed by our predecessors and ancestors it was by no means a result of spontaneous exertions merely.Japan has now entered the comit'y of World Powers and is destined to test her strength in the peaceful struggles of trade and industry with those Powers In waging this war of peace the first requisite must be to ascertain accurately the capacity of the national resources, and to devise measures to further develop and promote them. For comparison is a first essential in anything, and unless a careful inventory is taken as to relative strength, relative merit or relative weight, it is impossible to judge how one thing is superior to another, and how a nation can successfully cope with which it is called on to compete. Especially is the comparison of wealth imperatively necessary for enabling a nation to judge its position in the field of international trade and industry. It has therefore been a matter of serious concern to me that we had in Japan only scanty materials to judge the wealth-producing power of the country. Fortunatly this grave defect is likely to be removed.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.