The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03

dent of the history of commerce, and
that is what Mr. Hill has been during
his whole life, could be oblivious to the
commanding part played in it by strug-
giles for control of the trade of the far
East. He saw where and how that
struggle might be renewed in this CEN
tury. The broad expanse of the Pacific
was the battlefield for the new COM
mercial forces. The low freight rate
might leap from shore to shore and re-
make the ideas and remold the bust
ness of the world. Existing demands
might be satisfied, new demands might
be created, among these teeming and
trading peoples. And out Of this could
/, be brought new fortunes to the agen-
cies already existing and ready for
their part in a drama now extended TO
the field of world commerce as the only
theater large enough for it's complete
presentation.
For many years before this idea be-
came public property Mr. Hill was at
work resolving his hypothesis into a
scientific working theory. He had
trusted and intelligent agents travelling
through China and Japan, reporting to
him facts and possibilities. He began
at once to build up a transpacific COM
merce by the northern route. A traffic
arrangement was concluded with the
great steamship company of the Jap
anese empire, and everywhere the con-
sumption of American products and
the shipment of imports and exports
from the Orient through Puget sound
ports was encouraged What has been
already accomplished, though it is
scarcely the beginning of momentous
changes to be witnessed in their full
ness only by the next generation, is
almost like fairy story.
One of the early demonstrations of
what could be done came in the ship
ment of American steel rails to Japan.
The empire was pushing forward it's
new railway system and sought to buy
in the cheapest market. American
bidders would not have dreamed of Sc
curing an order but for the determine
ton Of Mr.. Hill, who told them to take
it and he would. make a freight rate
that should enable them to beat the
world. 1t was then that the public
first learned that a transportation line
already doing business would make
rate of So per ton from Pittsburg or
Chicago to Yokohama. That rate has
since been made to -Hongkong and
the Philippines, and it is decisive. No
competitor by the Pacific route
can meet it. And with the competi
ton of the monster carriers now
building to cut down still further the
cost of the ocean carriage, the rate will
be such that the SueZ route cannot
meet it. A worlds commerce will
grayitate to the northern line, across
the American continent and the Pacific.
Both sides of the equation are filled
out. The westbound traffic will con-
sist of commodities of American origin,
billed through to the distributing cen
tiers of the Orient; and the carriers of
this gigantic system, by land and sea,
will have to tax their vast resources to
accommodate a business which appeals
indeed to the imagination, but which is
none the less measured by prosaic fact.
With the plan outlined but partially
ready for fu1fillment observe what has
happened. IT is only a few years since
:, : the United States
TRANSPAclFIC a md the Orient
TRADE awoke to a con-
GROWS SWIFTLY sciousness Of their
! new relation. Such
increase as there has been in the vol
ume of trade between them is due prac-
tically to the work of Mr.. Hill. Today
the iron, the cotton, the manufactures
of this country are firmly fixed in the
Eastern market and daily. extending
their hold. Today there is sale for
American wheat and American flour
across the Pacific that is the most
z beneficent portent of our time. For
these people are learning to consume
the food products of our continent.
With each step of their emergence from
a dead past to the living present their
adoption of our ideas, habits, products,
becomes easier and more complete.
The war now raging will introduce
American goods and create a depend
ence on American markets that years
of peace could not effect. And already
what has been done? The farmers and
milIers of the state of Washington are