Omaha daily bee., 1903-02-01

respondence of The Bee.)-I
stubbed my toe on the American
ttH3I invasion the moment landed in
Rotterdam. The obstruction was
a square box marked;
organ.
From Meriden. Connecticut, u s. A.
Z. Keltners Groote Magazijnen van Pianos
kalverstraat, Amsterdam.
little further on we're barrels OF ma
chine oil from New York, and next to than
lot Of American sewing machines IN
crates. Out in the river Mas, anchored to
floating buoy, were great steamers un-
loading Minneapolis -four into two large
barges to be sent up the Rhine. and all
along the Boompjes were American goods
Of various kinds.
l took carriage and drove for several
miles up the wharves, crossing the bridges
to the Noordereiland and onto the left bank
OF the Mas. We went by warehouse after
warehouse, and everywhere / saw more OF
less stun from the United States.
On the Holland-Am quay there was
an acre or so of cotton bales from Calves
ton awaiting transshipment for the Dutch
cotton mills Nearby was a yard filied
with resin barrels from Savannah which
gave forth a smell like a canning factory,
which stuck In my nostrils until driven out
by the coffee warehouses; where the rich
smelling beans CT Java and Sumatra were
being loaded on a ship for New York
At one place l stopped my carriage and
photographed a wagon load of Standard
OIL barrels. and at another took a snap
shot Of a gang Of Dutch emigrants about TO
board a ship for New York. l saw car
goes of American lumber, buckets and boxes
OF American meats wagon loads of lard
and tallow and all sorts of crates holding
American machinery. One item was a
cargo Of Chicago moving machines being
loaded on barges for the interior OF north
ern Europe. and another was barge after
barge OF American cottonseed oil which
passed through under one of the draw
bridges as l waited to cross.
At the same time l saw a score OF ocean
steamers loading for Asia. Africa and the
Dutch East Indies and rode past miles and
miles of river and canal craft.
AS went on could see something OF the
enormous business which the Dutch have
with the rest OF the world. They are tho
little giants of commercial Europe. They
do not number as many as three times the
population OF Chicago, but they have twice
as much foreign trade as the 120, 900 900
Russians. three times as much as the Span
iards or Italians and twice as much as the
whole South American continent. Holland
stands sixth In the point OF business done
among the commercial nations OF the world
and about one-tenth OF its trade is with the
United States. 1t makes exchanges to the
extent of more than $1,000. 900, 900 a year.
and II annually buys more than 500, ,000, 900
worth Of goods from us.
Let us stop a moment and think what
this means. This little country has In
round numbers Just about 5000, 900 people,
CT 1000 900 families. but II buys 500. .00O, 900
worth OF Uncle Sans goods every year.
This means that on the average every
family buys 800 worth annually and this
Notwithstanding its sales to us will not
average more than S12 or SIS per family
OF course. much OF the goods are bought
to sell again, and some go to the Dutch
East Indies. which are eighty times as
large as Holland itself, but the trade is
there all the same. and the business IS so
big that II viii pay the most careful nurs-
ing and the most enthusiastic pushing
The South American continent is less Inn
portant to us than Holland. Our trade
with the Chinese brings in nothing like
as much as our trade with the Dutch and
in Its possibilities 1t is worth as much as
the business OF any OF the countries OF
Europe with the exception OF England
Germany and France and that undeveloped
empire, Russia.
Just now is the best time to increase this