River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-03-27
THE TRADE OF THE ORIENT.
And What 1t Means for Minnesota and the
Whole Northwest.

with foreign ships in spite of the higher
wages paid to American seamen if our
navigation laws permitted a better selec-
ton and control of crews. The reason
for this confidence is plain. 1t is because
he has applied to the construction OF his
vessels the same principles which have
made the "Hill methods of organizing
transportation famous as one of the
great money-saving inventions of the age
the simple principle that the bigger the
trainload the less the cost of hauling it
per ton per mile. He has made his ships
bigger than any now afioat in the expec-
and that it will cost but little more to
operate them thus filled than smaller
ships carrying a fraction of the tonnage.
These ships will carry cargoes at much
lower freight rates than have heretofore
prevailed, and are, therefore, the pioneers
in the development OF me Asiatic trade
fleet of similar ships. But to fill even
these for regular trips will require the
massing at the Pacific ports where they
of exports to Asia than has heretofore
been offered. The traffic of the Great
Northern alone would nf,I not suffice to sus-
ent part of the arrangements whereby
the Great Northern, the Northern Pacific
and the Burlington systems are. to be
operated in harmony. and subsidiary to
the same general end. The momentous
significance of these arrangements can
only be appreciated when it is under
two great transcontinental railroads
the chief highway of the commerce. of
this country and of the world with Asia.
1t is to carry out in the whole vast field
of intercontinental traffic the same
principle of concentration which Mr.. Hill
applies to his carloads and his ships
cargoeS-to so increase the tonnage
volume by concentration on this Northern
route as to reduce it's cost by land and
sea, and thus-following the law that
commerce always flows along the lines of
rncictan0a-tJIrn into
channel on the shorter lines of latitude
the main stream of the commerce of the
world The full car load is thus the unit
of power in gigantic scheme of CONNER
cial concentration which will pour a new
and more Astounding flood of commercial
and industrial energy into the six states
which it has been recently sought to
array against it..
The lawyers and politicians who have
been fretting and Tuning about the sup
posed effects of the So-called merger on
local freight rates have been oblivious to
the grandeur and potential beneficience of
the economic forces called into play by
this scheme, and which will insure a much
greater reduction of local and transcon-
tinental freight rates as necessary con,
volume of traffic than would otherwise be
possible.
blamed for the narrow local view they
have taken of this question, or for their
inability to take in the broad horizon of
it's worldwide relations. For but few
who have not studied the question have
any conception of the enormous trade
with the Orient which lies within the
grasp of American enterprise, but which
for lack of an effective organization OF
our commercial power We have hereto,
fore permitted other nations, and chiefly
Great Britain. to appropriate. For the
seven years ending with and inclusive of
1898 not an American steamship entered
Philippine port: Since the treaty of peace
of that traffic is still borne in English
vessels. In the fifty-two years from 1S48
to 1900 inclusive the United States lost
in their traffic with the Philippines over
$275, 0O0, 900 in trade balances against us.
or enough to have paid all the expenses
of the Spanish war. And this does not
take into account the Philippine goods
carried to English or German ports and
transhpped to this country.
In twenty years the United States has
heretofore paid out over the counters of
and a half of gold due Asiatic nations for
trade balances. If this amount of money
had been saved to the American people
it would have bought out the steel trust
and the Northern Securities company at
their capitalized figures. In the ten years
ending June 80, 1900, we have lost $780,,
of the trade of Hongong, which is a
warehouse for all China, under British
/ per cent of the foreign trade of China
or of the port of Hongkong. The latest
accessible tables of the treasury depart
ment concerning our sea trade show that
of our imports from Asia in 1899, $74,-
900, 900 came by way of the Atlantic ports
and only $32, 100000 from the Pacific
ports. OF our exports, $29, 900 went
from Atlantic ports and only SIS, 900 by
way of Pacific coast ports, which means
that IS per cent of our trans-Pacific
trade does not come to US by the way OF
of European ports beng transhipped
at Liverpool and Hamburg for. New York
or PHILADELPHIA The total trade Of C Cd1
of this was carried in American bottoms
Yet one line of steamships like that
projected by Mr. Hill would very soon
double that total and would put into
Manila, Shanghai, Hongkong, and other
Chinese and Japanese ports agents for
American trade that would soon make
themselves felt in the interest of our
manufacturers. The current of CONNER
cial exchanges thus established between
the United States ana the II Orient would ia
swelling tide the tributary streams of
every state in the Union and of every
country in the world All along the course
merce this broad and deep current will
set in motion the wheels of commercial
and industrial activity. But 1t is mainly
in Minnesota, whose chief cities, standing
at the head of the great interior lines
of water transit, are the terminal head
quarters and gateways of these great
W
it's influence will be felt in making them
far greater marts of trade than if they
depended on the narrower range of trib-
utary country around them. 1t will tend
to make them the emporia for the distri-
button of the products of the Orient
through the Mississippi valley. 1t will
lift these cities and this state to a COM
manding position among the interior
states and cities of the continent.
When the lawyers and politicians get
to thinking about this matter in it's larg
er relations they will probably come to
the conclusion that there is something
besides a question of local politics in
this matter of the so-called merger
that it does not mean. as they imagine,
4 marshaling of commercial forces and
such an organized concentration of COM
mercial power as will enable this great
system of Transportation traversing the
northern belt of the temperate zone,
which nature has marked as the chief
path of commerce throughout the world
TO enter into successful competition with
the rival systems which are endeavoring
to attract this great tide of transmun-
dane commerce to more southern latt-
tudes, and that, whatever technical o6
jections the lawyers may find or fancy
they find in ''the mint and cummin' OF
the statutes, it is in conformity with
that great economic law to which all
of way that through concentration lies
the only road to the highest economic
efficiency-to lower costs and lower
prices-St. Paul Pioneer Press.