Japan’s oil industry has a brilliant future before it. The use of kerosene in the country has grown at a wonderfully rapid pace. In the first year of Meiji the amount of oil imported was 639 koku. In 1901 it had reached 1,300,000 koku. The value of the oil imported in 1868 was only 7,236 yen; that imported in 1901 was 14 million yen.208 The following table shows the rate at which the import of kerosene into Japan increased:—

Notwithstanding the large supply that has come from abroad, of late years the demand for the Echigo oil has gone on increasing, as shown in the subjoined table, which covers seven years.

It is calculated that about 5/10 of the total quantity of this crude petroleum was used for lighting purposes. It would seem, then, that Echigo supplied 3/10 of the total amount of oil used for lighting in Japan during the seven years, and that the remaining 7/10 came from abroad. Taking the year 1901, the value of the crude petroleum being 2,345,916 yen, it is estimated that when refined this amount of petroleum would fetch not less than 4 million yen. But the fact remains that the proportion of oil imported is still very large, so that there is room for a further great development of the business.

In 1908 Japan’s output of petroleum was 1,872,592 U. S. barrels. Echigo is by no means worked out: new fields are constantly being discovered in that province. Then petroleum has been found in Hokkaidō and in the Yamagata and Shizuoka prefectures. So that among Japan’s modern industries her oil trade may be pronounced to be full of promise. How the quality of the Japanese oil compares with the American and Russian brands, we are not told by the Jiji, but from other sources we gather that when properly refined Japanese petroleum is equal to the best American and Russian oils.