The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 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.

by the New York Journal of Commerce
as having said that the two mammoth
SHIPS he is building for the Asiatic
trade could be operated in successful
competition with foreign ships in spite
Oh the higher wages paid to American
seamen If our navigation laws permit
TED 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 transport
tatlon famous as one of the great
morey-saving inventions of the age
the simple principle that the bigger the
tra1nload the less the cost of hauling It
per ton per mile He has made his ships
bigger than any now afloat 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
Iore. the pioneers in the development
OF the Asiatic trade which will eventa-
ally require a larger fleet of similar
ships. But to fill even these for regu-
lar trips will require the massing
at the Pacific 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 con-
stituent 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
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 commerce of this country
and of the world with Asia. 1t is to
carry out in the whole vast field of in
tercontinental 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 its cost by land and sea,
and 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
new and more Astounding flood of
commercial and industrial energy into
the six states which it has been recent
Nv sought to array against If
The lawyers and politicians who have
been fretting and Tuning about the
supposed effects of 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 transcontinantal
freight rates as a necessary conse-
quence of an Immensely increased VOL
ume 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
ina bility to take in the broad horizon
of its 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 organiza-
ton of our commercial power we 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
fifty-two years from 1S4S to 1900, in
elusive, the United States lost in their
traffic with the Philippines over $685.
100000 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
transhipped to this country.
In twenty years the United States
has heretofore paid out over the coun-
tiers of London. Berlin and Paris over a
billion and 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 30, 1870, we have lost $780,
100000 in Chinese trade alone, exclusive
of the trade Of Hongl1ong, which is a
warehouse for all China, under British
auspices. And our ships have not
carried 1 per cent Of the foreign trade
of China or of the port of Hongkong.
The latest accessible tables 81 the
treasury department concerning our
sea trade show that of. our imports
from Asia in. 1899, $4,000, COO came by
way Of the Atlantic ports and only
$32, soc, 900 from the Pacific ports. OF
our exports, $29,600,000 went from At
lantic ports and only s18,7oo, 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 the Pacific at all, but rather by the
way OF European ports, 4 being
transhipEed al Liverpool and Ham
burg for New York or Philadelphia.
The total trade OF China in 1894 was