Office of the Historian

No. 312.
Mr. Bingham to Mr. Evarts.

United States Legation,
Tokei, Japan, October 6, 1879. (Received November 4.)
No. 978.]

Sir: Referring to my No. 967, in which I enclosed the report of the British legation in Japan upon the general foreign trade of this country, [Page 695] I now have the honor to inclose a table of the yearly imports and exports of this empire from the first to the eleventh year of Meiji (1868–’78), as published in the Nichi Nichi Shimbun and translated in the Japan Daily Herald of the 6th instant, which shows the balance of trade against Japan during the eleven years to have been in round numbers yen 67,000,000, or more than five times the present foreign debt of Japan and its interest.

I have, &c.,

JNO. A. BINGHAM.
[Inclosure in Mr. Bingham’s No. 978.—Extract from the Japan Daily Herald, October 6, 1879.]

The following is a table of the yearly difference between exports and imports from the 1st to the 11th year of Meiji (1868–78).

Year. Exports. Imports.
Yen. Yen.
1st 15,553,472 87 10,693,071 84
2d 12,908,978 02 20,783,633 17
3d 14,543,012 59 33,741,637 56
4th 17,968,608 71 21,916,727 74
5th 17,026,647 21 26,174,814 94
6th 21,142,014 77 27,617,264 05
7th 18,780,078 79 22,924,587 08
8th 18,077,660 58 25,094,742 08
9th 27,503,457 73 25,121,897 88
10th 26,908,607 92 31,933,352,63
11th 24,614,760 24 29,815,353 49