The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1902-03-28
THE TRADE OF THE ORIENT.
And What 1t Means for Minnesota and the
Whole Northwest.


Whole Northwest.
Mr. ]. ]. Hill was recently reported by
the New York Journal of Commerce. as
having said that the two mammoth ships
ne is building for the Asiatic trade could
be operated in successful competition
with foreign ships in spite of the higher
wages paid to American seamen if our
navigation laws permitted better selec-
ton and control of crews. The reason
for this confidence is plain. 1t is because
ne has applied to the construction of his
vessels the same principles which have
made the Hill methods of organizing
great money-saving inventions of the age
the simple principle that the bigger the
tralnload the less the cost of hauling it
per ton per mile. He has made his ships
bigger than any now afloat in the expec-
| tatlon that they will carry full cargoes
and that it will cost but little more to
operate them thus filled than smaller
ships carrying 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 the Asiatic trade
which dnt will eventually require larger
| these, for regular trips will require the
massing at the Pacific ports where they
are to be loaded Of a much larger volume
or exports to Asia than has heretofore
been offered. The traffic of the Great
Northern alone would not suffice to sus-
| tain them. These ships are a constitu-
emit 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
stood that their purpose is to make these
| 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
| principle of concentration which Mr.. Hill
| applies to his carloads and his ships
cargoesIto 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
| least resistance-turn into this cheaper
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 a gigantic scheme of CONNER
| clal concentration which will pour new
| and more Astounding flood of commercial
and industrial energy into the six states
| which 1T 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 economic forces called into play by
| this scheme, and which will insure much
| greater reduction of local and transcon-
| tinental freight rates as a necessary con-
| sequence of an immensely increased
| volume of traffic than would otherwise be
! possible.
Our local statesmen are not to be
| blamed for the narrow local view they
| have taken of this question or for their
| inability to take in the broad horizon of
who have not studied the question have
| any conception of the enormous trade
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
| seven years ending with and inclusive of
| 1898 not an American steamship entered
| Philippine port. Since the treaty of peace
we have done better, but the major part
| of that traffic is still borne in English
| vessels. In the fifty-two years from 1S4S
in their traffic with the Philippines over
| $3.50 900 in trade balances against us,
| or enough to have paid all the expenses
| take into account the Philippine goods
carried to English or German ports and
| transhipped to this country.
In twenty years the United States has
| heretofore paid out over the counters of
London, Berlin and Paris over a billion
and a half of gold due Asiatic nations for
| 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 &C., 1900, we have lost $780,
| 600, 600 in Chinese trade alone. exclusive
| of the trade of Hongong, which is
| warehouse for all China, under British
| auspices. And our ships have not carried
| / 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,-
| 600, 900 came by way of the Atlantic ports
ports. OF our exports. $29,6OO,0 600 went
| from Atlantic ports and only SIS, 900 by
| way of Pacific coast ports, which means
trade does not come to us by the way of
| the Pacific a. all, but rather by the way
| of European ports. being transhipped
| or Philadelphia. The total trade of China
| in 1899 was $121, 100000. Only s17,O0O,OOC
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
| 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
grow gro and widen until it drew into its
every State tue in the Union and Of every
| country in the world. All along the course
| of this great highway of the worlds COM
merce this broad and deep current will
set in motion the wheels of commercial
| and industrial activity. But it 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
| systems Of transcontinental railway, that
| its 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
| 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 its 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,
| the extinction of competition, but such
| a marshaling of commercial forces and
| such an organized concentration of COM
| mercial power as will enable this great