The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1902-03-27
NORTHWEST Will PROFIT BY IT
ENORMOUS TRADE WITH THE ORR
ENr winch LIES WITHIN
OUR GRAsP.
MOI TO DESTROY COMPLETION
POTENTIAL BENEFICENCE OF THE
ECONOMIC FORCES CALLED
INTO PLAY.

Mr.. ]. j. Hin was recently reported |
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
OF the higher wages paid to American
seamen II our navigation laws permit
ted better selection and control of
crews. The reason for this confidence
Is plain. IL is because he has applied
TO the construction of his vessels the
same principles which have made the
Hill methods" of organizing transport
tation famous as one of the great
moEey saving inventions Of the age
the simple principle that the bigger the
trainload the less the cost of hauling II
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
fore, the pioneers in the development
Of the Asiatic trade which will eventI-
ally require a larger fleet of similar
ships. But 70 fill even these for regu-
lar trips win require the massing
at the Pacific ports where they are TO
be loaded OF a much larger volume of
exports 10 Asia than mas 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
arrangements can only be appreciated
when ii 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 i'm the whole vast field of in
tercontinental traffic the same principle
of concentration which Mr.. Hill applies
10 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 tkus--following the law that COM
merce always flows along the lines of
least r, sistanca-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 food of
commercial and Industrial energy into
the six states which it has been recent
ly sought to array against 1t.
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 transcontin2ntal
| 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
| 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 organlza-
| 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 1SiS 10 1900, IN
elusive. the United states lost I'm their
traffic with the Philippines over s2i5'-
600 600 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-
ters of London, Berlin and Paris over n
b,Il,on and a half OF gold due Asiauc
nations for trade balances. IL this
| amount OF money had been saved TO
the American people 1t would have
| honobt out the steel trust ana the
Northern Securities company at theH
centralized figures. In the ten years
ending June 30, 1900 we have lost sl2O,-
ooo 600 in Chinese trade alone, exclusive
~ the trade Of Honglzong, which is q
warehouse for all China. under British
ausn,ces. And our ships have nos
carried 1 per cent of the foreign trade
Of china or of the port OF Hongkong.
The latest accessible tables oil the
treasury department concefn'ns our
sea trade show that of our imports
from Asia in 1899. S74OOO,coO came oy
way OF the Atlantic potts and only
$40 SOC. 600 from the Pacific ports or
our exports, s29.soOOOo went from At
,antic ports and only siS,7ooooo by way
OF Pacific coast ports. which means
that S. per cent of our trans, i '.'.
trade does not come TO us by the way
of the Pacific at all. but rather by the
way OF European ports pelHS
transhipled a. Liverpool ant Harh