The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-12-03
HONOLULU
HARD HIT
Freight Carriers Make
Local Merchants
Pay High.

That Honolulu is Disseminated against
by steamships and railroads in the inn
portation OF merchandise IS shown in
the recent experience of the travelling
representative, now in Honolulu, of one
of the largest manufacturing milling
concerns in the United States.
1t is difficult to realize that a great
manufacturing firm can ship its goods
from the Ohio river to Yokohama,
Hongkong, Shanghai and Manila at S
cents per hundred pounds. while the
same goods shipped to Honolulu over
exactly the same lines of railroads and
steamships are charged a rate of 90
cents per hundred pounds.
1t therefore costs Honolulu import
ers IS cents more per hundred pounds to
bring goods over 1000 miles of land
and sea than it costs to ship them clear
on to the Orient 1000 miles farther.
In other words two shipments may start
from the Ohio river on the same train
of cars, be loaded into the same steam
ship. When Honolulu is reached the
Honolulu-directed goods, unloaded at
our wharves, cost the Honolulu mer-
chant 90 cents per hundred pounds. The
steamer departs for the Orient and the
Yokohama, Hongkong. Shanghai and
Manila merchant has his goods unloaded
on the docks aeS only IS cents per
hundred pounds.
4 Mr.. John NJ Turner, travelling rep
resentative of the American Honniny
Company, whose headquarters are at
indianapolis, Indiana, with nanufactur-
ing establishments at Terre Haute
and other thriving railroad cities, is a
guest at the Alexander Young Hotel.
Mr.. Turner has been in the city for a
couple of weeks, and continues his BUSH
less trip to the Orient accompanied by
Yrs. Turner and Miss Turner, on the
teamship Coptic sailing today.
Mr. Turner is the wide-awake. typical |
ravelling man one sees running in and |
ut of Chicago, with rates and figures
I his fingers ends, and possessed of
he bright, active talk which is typical
f the Chicagoan in business.
But Mr.. Turner, since arriving in
honolulu, has learned things which have
irly made him aghast. First of all
{ was astounded when he learned that
IonoluIu's business community stood
Hy by while Manila, Hongkong, Shang-
al and Japanese business firms were
Sic to secure American goods more
leaply, as far as freight rates are con-
.rned, than they Inasmuch as freight
ties constitute one of the principal
enents of purchasing at a distance
ON manufacturing centers, the amount
freight rates comprises an important
ctor in profits and losses. While east
n and western business men haggle
it'll railroads and manufacturers over
difference of cent or two III rates
freight, Mr.. Turner has found the
onolulu business man apparently con-
mted to stand idly by while the bust
SIS man 1000 to 5000 miles beyond
m cuts under him nearly fifty per
mt in transportation expenses.
1T is perfectly astounding to me"
id Mr.. Turner yesterday, why the
isiness element of Honolulu does not
Use a howl, a howl that should be
ard in Washington. In the United ,
.ates there is an Interstate law which
Divides that the sum of freight rates
tween original and terminal shipping
,ints or to an intermediary point, shall
it exceed the total of a rate to
rn1inal point.
Honolulu is a good city. have just
opped in here for short time, but
dropped into a fine American city, t
it'll a cosmopolitan population. Its
,tels are p-to-date-the Young Hotel
a wonder in size,-and its street trac-
on line is one of the finest l have ever
en-. The other day when it was rain !
g cats and dogs saw conductor {
t off in the dripping weather to lift {
little child over 10 the sidewalk.
(SSsSsls+sls-ses