The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1902-03-28
NORTHWEST WILL PROFIT BY IT
ENORMOUS TRADE WITH THE ORR.
ENT WHICH LIES WITHIN
OUR GRASP.
NOT TO DESTROY COMPETITION
POTENTIAL BENEFICENCE OF THE
ECONOMIC FORCES CALLED
INTO PLAY.

MI. J. J. Hill was recently reported
oy 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
Oh the higher wages paid to American
seainen II u navigation laws permit
TED a better selection and control Of
crews. The reason for this confidence
Is plain. 1t is because he has applied
10 the construction of his vessels the
same principles which have made the
Hill methods" of organizing transpor-
tatlon famous as one of the great
moEey-saving inventions of the age
the simple principle that the bigger the
tralnload the less the cost of hauling IL
per ton per mile. He has made his ships
bigger than any now afioat in the ex-
pectation that they will carry full car
goes 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, there
fore, he pioneers in the development
Oh the Asiatic trade which will eventu-
ally require a larger fleet of similar
ships. But TO fill ever these for regu-
lar trips will require the massing
at the Paciti2 ports where they are to
be loaded of a much larger volume of
exports to Asia than has heretofore
been offered. The traffic of the Great
Northern alone would not suffice to
sustain them. These ships are a ON
| Sfltllent no. IF Of thn n-ro
whereby the Great Northern, the
Northern Pacific and the Burlington
systems are to be operated in mon
and subsidiary to the same general end.
The momentous significance of these
arrangements can only be appreciated
when it is understood that their pur-
pose is to make these two great trans
continental railroads the chief high
way of the Of this country
n of the world with Asia. 1t is to
carry out in the whole vast field of in
tercontinental rattle 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,
n tEus-fOllowing the law that COM
merce always flows along the lines of
least re sjstance-turn into this cheaper
channel on the shorter lines of latitude
the main stream of the commerce of the
world. The full carload is thus the unit
of power in a gigantic scheme of COM
mercial concentration which will pour
a new and more Astounding flood Of
commercial and industrial energy into
the six states which it has been recent
ly sought to array against it.
The lawyers and politicians who have
been fretting ana Tuning about the
supposed effects CT the so-called merger
on local freight rates have been OBJ
livious to the grandeur and potential
beneficence of the economic forces
called into play by this scheme, and
which will insure a much greater re-
duction of local and ranscontinantal
freight rates as a necessary conse-
quence of an immensely increased vol
ume of traffic TIA 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 it's worldwide relations. For but
few who have not studied the question
have any conception of the enormous
lIdOS Will LIZ TX III < III
the grasp Of American enterprise, but
which for lack of an effective o~rganiza-
ton Of our commercial power W. have
heretofore permitted other nations, and
chiefly Great Britain, to appropriate.
For the seven years ending with and in
elusive of 1898 not an American steam
! ship entered a 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
ffty-two years from 184S to 1900, in
elusive, the United States lost in their
traffic with the Philippines over $685.
600, 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
| tr%anshipped to this country.
In twenty years the United states
has heretofore paid out over the coun-
tiers of London, Berlin and Paris over q
billion and a half of gold due Asiatic
nations for trade balances. If this
amount of money had been saved to
the American people 1t would have
bought out the steel trust and the
Northern Securities company at their
capitalized figures. In the ten years
ending June 30. 1890, we have lost $780,
900, 900 in Chinese trade alone, exclusive
of the trade Of Hongkong, which is a
warehouse for all China. under British
auspices. And u ships have not
carried 1 per cent Of the foreign trade
OF China or Of the port of Hongkong.
The latest accessible tables OF the
treasury department concerning our
sea trade show that of our imports
from Asia in 1899, s74, ooO,C0 came by
way of the Atlantic ports and only
| sS2, 500, 900 from the Pacific ports. or
our exports, $29, 500, 900 went from At
lantic ports and only SIS, 700. 900 by a
OF Pacific coast ports, which means
that IS per cent of our t~rans-Pacihc
trade does not come to us by the way
of the Pacific at all. but rather by the
way Of European ports. being
t~ranshipled a. Liverpool and Ham
burg for New York or philadelphia.
The total trade of China in 1898 was