The Fairmont West Virginian

LET CHINA ALONE.

The announcement from the State Department that the Chinese Boycott on American goods is being lifted, will be received with more assurance by American exporters when the Chinese themselves show it by commencing to order more goods. Mr. Wu Ting Fang, who is given the credit which he persistently disclaims of having organized the boycott, probably sees now that it is in good working order, that as a measure of coercion with the American government in connection with the new Chinese treaty, it was getting a little too much advertising. The American government would a great deal rather be jollied than clubbed into any given course of action, and the boycott has certainly assumed big stick proportions. The statement from the department that it is being raised does not exactly tally with the other reports in the press that it is spreading and especially that the merchants in the Straits Settlements where China does not pretend to sovereignty, have not been able to get American flour because they had to depend for their supplies on Chinese merchants who would not handle American goods. Our trade with China is estimated now at about $60,000,000 annually and that is a pretty large slice of trade to lose. At the same time the people of the Pacific Coast would rather put their hands in their pockets for that amount than to have it at the price of free Chinese immigration. The ways of both the Japanese and the Chinese in Oriental trade are a bit peculiar at the best and the Bureau of Commerce and Labor has persistent reports from its agents in the fields of the counterfeiting labels herself, but she at least has the grace to put up fairly good manufacturers under them. But it is stated in the Department of Labor that the American goods imitated in the Oriental markets are the most spurious sort of imitations, so bad in fact that they spoil the market for genuine American goods where it previously existed. The most of this imitating is done in Japan where the manufacturers are perfectly willing to let American goods take the odium that attaches to cheap and shoddy substitutes. American exporters everywhere are warned to have their exports to China labeled in Chinese characters as well as in English. But if the boycott is to be enforced, as it seems from all official reports, probably the exporters in this country would better turn their attention to the Philippines in their search for Oriental trade and let China take her own time in coming round.