The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-07-20
san FnANcrsco UNEASY.


SAN FRANCISCO UNEASY.
The more far-seeing and wide-awake
among the business men of San Francisco
are beginning to appreciate that in this
Puget Sound country there Is being devel-
oped a formidable rival of that city for the
control of Pacific coast commerce. This
was significantly manifested few days
ago at meeting of the San Francisco
Chamber of Commerce, which called atten-
ton to insufficient harbor fscilities for the
prompt accommodation OF the shipping OF
the port, and requested the Harbor Com
missioners to build an extension of the
seawall about 5000 feet westward from its
present terminus at North beach. and to
build tidal basin within the proposed ex-
tension, by which latter device the wharf
age facilities of the, extension would be
nearly doubled.
The Examiner considers this matter of
''more than ordinary interest" and there
fore fit subject for a leading and pressing
editorial. It is notorious that even in this
comparatively early stage of that city's ex-
istence her harbor facilities are inadequate
to the demand for accommodation. Never
a week passes that more or less vessels are
not compelled to lie in the stream and wait
to be locked. The extension suggested by
the Champer of Commerce will. when
made, about exhaust the limit of practic-
able enlargement Of wharfage facilities,
and with the growing need for ampier
ferry-slip privileges and greater conven-
fences for connecting ship and rail, the city
by the Golaen Gate will be greatly cramped
for room to accommodate any very con-
siderabe addition to her present commerce.
The Chamber of Commerce and the Err
Gminey are evidently alive 10 these facts,
and to the direction in which they point,
and the latter, in its issue of July 16.
sounds q note of warning. That paper
walls for the shipping trade. The Puget
Sound cities and Victoria are rising to i'm
portance. 1t will not do for San Francisco
to despise these rivals. The example of
Chicago must not be lost sight Of The
city cannot depend on commerce coming
to it. Commerce must be forced to come
by the attraction OF cheaper and better
facilities than can be found elsewhere. The
problem of reducing harbor dues and short
ening the time of discharging cargoes is
worthy of close attention" and more in
the same vein.
This from city that has barely passed
the 800. COO mark sounds ominous. If their
situation is now so strained and cramped
as to prompt them to talk about forcing"
commerce to disregard natural advantages
and inducements, what must be their di-
lemma when tie Pacific coast commerce Of
ten, twenty or fifty years hence is to be
grappled with? These things suggest FORE
sight, forethonght and preparation to utiI-
ize natural advantages to the fullest extent
on the part of the business men of Seattle.
They must not 60 to sleep or rest on their
oars. They. too, must remember the early
days of Chicago and St Louis The boun-
ties of nature must be supplemented and
improved by the energies and the enter
prise of man.
With the tide lands to the southwark
filed in as they soon will be, the frontage
adapted to wharfage purposes at Seattle
viii be equal TO or will excel those of San
Francisco. with the difference that in the
case of the latter all dry docks and ship
building facilities must be subtracted from
the space needed for active commerce.
Where back of San Francisco is the Pacific
ocean, in the same relation to Seattle, but
not so distant from the bay front, lie the
broad and deep expenses of Lakes Union
and Washington. which at comparatively
trifing expenditure can be connected with
the bay and afford land-locked fresh water
harborage to the fleets of the world, with
unequalled advantages for dry docks, ship
building, IRON and steel works and all man.
ner of manufactures.
But Seattle must not lose sight of the
fact, most pertinently advanced by the
Examiner. that Commerce goes where it
has to pay the smallest tolls" Every mod
ern improvement in the means for handling
cargoes quickly and cheaply must be
adopted. There must be, in addition to in
disputable natural advantages, "the attrac-
ton OF cheaper and better facilities than
can be found elsewhere" Otherwise some
city less favored by nature may play the
role of Chicago while Seattle enacts the
part of st. Louis. By onerous exactions or in
adequate accommodations commerce NAV
be repelled by the best harbor in the world.
The business men of Seattle would do well
to ponder these facts and lose no time in
conforming their plans and actions thereto
The world is their oyster. Will they adopt
the best means for opening it?
All over the state the Democrats are ex-