The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-06-10
PRESIDENT HILL TELLS WHAT
COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED.
WOULD HELP COMMERCE
Speech Of President Of Great North
ern Road Before illinois Manu-
facturers Association.

Chicago, June 5.-James ]. Hill,
president Of the Great Northern rail
way, speaking tonight on commercial
expansion at q banquet Of the Illinois
Manufacturers association, said:
To-day we have about reached the
limit of our public domain which can
be made to furnish homes for an in
telligent and enterprising population.
In many Of the western states are
enormous areas of the best land, which
with Irrigation can be made produc-
tive in the highest degree. President
Roosevelt, who has spent a great lea
of his time in the semi-arid regions
of the west, has taken an active in
terest in this subject, and if his eff
forts and those Of Others who are
working for the same end result in
success, future generations will re-
joice in the memory of this work,
while they build for themselves COM
Portable homes in the thousand val
legs covering that portion of the coun-
try which is now given up to grazing
ranches for cattle and sheep.
Considering the question from a
national standpoint, the next interest
in Importance to agriculture is the
railroad interest Of the country. !
think l am safe in saying that, next
to the Christian religion and the COM
mon schools, no other single work
enters into the welfare and happiness
of the people of the wohle country to
the same extent as the railways; NO
other work could have made it posi-
BILE to occupy the enormuos stretches
through the interior of our country
and people them with cities, towns
and villages. While railways have to
answer for many mistakes of judg-
ment or Of intent, on the whole the
result has been to create the most
effective, useful and by far the cheap
est system of land transportation in
the world.
Much has been said about the in
crease of trafao in the far east.
Twenty years ago the trade cf Japan
amounted to about $40, 0O0, 600, and to-
day it amounts to $3.50, O00, 900, of
which the United States share is less
than one-ifth. Ten years ago we ex-
ported about s IS 1000, 900 annually to
Japan, and imported from her about
-$26, O0O, 900. Now u exports to japan
amount to $50, 1000, or six times as
much as they were 10 years ago, and
the increase in our imports has been
very small. In 1890 the entire foreign
trade with China amounted to about
90 cents per capita. Should the Chi
nese trade increase to So or 81 per cap
itai it would amount to more than the
entire exports Of the United States,
and surely this trade is worth striving
for.
with Manila as an American port
in the east and the hest ships that can
be built we should be able to- main
tain ourselves as a nation in the con-
troll Of a large share Of this traf'c.
We have enjoyed all the benefits OF
a protective tariff for many years
and whatever good 1t can do in the
way Of building up infant industries
has already been accomplished. The
growth Of our enormous o and steel
Industries, which are pointed out az
the result Of our protective tariff, can
be more surely traced to our enor
mcus in the iron mines Of
Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota
than to all other sources.
sIn a country as large as r large
amounts Of capital r necessary, an
this capital can be more readily FUR
nished by corporate ownership thar
in any other way. The only serious
objection to so-called trusts has beer
the method Of creating them, not FOL
the purpose Of manufacturing any par
ticular commodity in the first place
but for the purpose of selling sheave'
of printed securities which represen'
nothing more than good will and pros
pective profit to the promoters.
IF it is the desire Of the genera
public, through congress, to proven
the growth of such corporation, !
has always seemed to me that a sim
ple remedy was within their reach
Under the constitutional provision al