The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1897-04-15
OF IMPORTANCE TO HECOAST
President of Great Northern
Writes of Asiatic Trade.
NEW MARKET FOR OUR WHEAT
Hill Says That He Is Building Up
Trade i'm the Orient and Suggests
That Tariff Duties Be Reasonable.


/ Washington, April I2-James ].
Hill, president of the Great Northern
railroad, and also interested largely in
/ transportation to the Orient, has writ
/ ten a letter to Western senator in
which he points out the possibilities of
/ trade in China and Japan, and suggests
1 that tariff duties be so adjusted as not
I to prevent trade with the countries
across the Pacific.
+ President Hill says:
1.-The Asiatic trade of the greatest
( Importance to this country, and partic-
ularly to such portions of it as are in
/ terested in raising wheat. A year ago
last fall wheat sold for from Is to 22
cents per bushel in the Palouse country,
south of Spokane, and this year it has
sold for from 60 to 20 cents. About
three years ago sent an agent to China
and Japan to investigate thoroughly
what steps could be taken to introduce
the general use of wheat and flour in
those countries, as against their own
rice, and found it simply a matter of
( price. then took up the consideration
of building steamers for that trade, de-
signed to carry cargoes of flour and
grain at low rates. / found that we
could build the shirs, but, owing to
! the sailors union fixing the wages of
sailors at $50 a month, and engineers
and other ship employees at about twice
the wages paid by European steamers,
it was impossible for us to compete with
the English, German, Italian and Scan
dinayian ships on the Pacific. After
the war with China, the Japanese used
a large amount of their war indemnity
for a subsidy to their merchant marine.
and we opened negotiations with the
/ General Steamship Company, of Japan,
which is owned by leading men of the
empire. We found their subsidy was
about equal to the cost of their coal
and the wages of their sailors. They
pay their sailors 50 month Mexican.
or 50. 80 in gold. enabling them to hire
twelve good sailors for the wages of one
American sailor. After some protract-
ed and difficult negotiations, we con-
cluded a contract with them for line
of steamers between Chinese and jap
anese ports and Seattle, on condition
that they would carry -four from Puget
sound to Asiatic ports at So ton,
] against from 81 to IS ton formerly
+ charged from West coast ports in the
/ United States. The low rates fixed the
rate for all lines between the Pacific
coast and Asia, and has resulted in
carrying out about 2S, 600, 900 bushels,
or its equivalent in -four, from the last
crop. There is left about 5000, 900
/ bushels between now and their harvest.
"'Thus you will see we have been
4 able to find new mouths which have
+ never before used wheaton bread, to
I take the entire California, Oregon and
! Washington wheat crop ont of the Eu-
ropean markets. This will reduce the
f amount going to Europe about 90 per
/ cent, and is three times the quantity
shipped to Europe from Argentina dur
/ ing the past year. The price of wheat
+ this year, as compared with last is 90
( to 25 cents higher, and 1 think it may
/ be said that from 15 to Is cents of this
/ rise is clearly due to the withdrawal of
/ the Pacific wheat from the European
I markets. l see in this mornings re-
4 ports telegram that European ships
are loading with barley, rye and mer-
chandise from San Francisco for Eu-
rope, after waiting months for cargoes
I of wheat. and that no more wheat will
go to Europe from the Pacific coast.
"The only way we could bring about
4 this reduction in the transportation of
( flour to Asia was by diverting the tea
and mating business, which has here
]
/ from Asia direct to New York, and car
rying these commodities to the Pacific
coast, by a low rate, and transporta-
tion inland by rail, to distribute the
commodities to points between Mime
sofa and New York.
81 have given you the facts, SO you
/ will understand the situation and be
able to see that, unless these ships can
/ bring their main cargoes of merchan-
disc to the Pacific ports at rates that
will compensate them for the traffic,
the business must go as heretofore, to
[ New York, and the rates on flour to
Asiatic ports will be again at the old
+ figure, or at an advance of about so
cents barrel, which would, in my
Judgment, destroy the business that
has Just been built up with that coun-
try. The province of Annoy alone,
which is near the coast, contains over
/ so, 600, 900 people, and, at 20 pounds of
flour per capita per annum, would con-
sumo the product of 40, 900, 900 bushels
of wheat. The large districts of Tien-
Tsin and Shanghai, both within easy
reach of the sea, would consume about
as much more as soon as the trade
could be fully opened. 1t is not outside
the range of possibility to say that we
] coulu snip wheat az DeNA Hahe or
1 points west, as long as the demand for
flour continues to grow as it has for the
past six months.''
There are over 1000 miles of rail
ways in operation in Japan.
Rebel Stronghold Captured.
Cape Town, April ia dispatch
from Vreysburg says volunteers have
captured and burned the insurgents
stronghold at Ganssepe. Lieutenant
Harris is among the killed.