The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-01

WdentnEtOn, DeCemoefs 8t. 1SVa-
 The approaching discussion in Con- gress of the bill embodying the re-
 commentators Of the Congressional l Merchant Marine Commission appoin- ted Srou,~ anlo2g- the members of she big political parties at the last session
 to Investigate the whole question of | the decline of the American foreign carrying trade. brings into special prominence once more the South American neighbors with whom the | United States has such close relation | ship under the Monroe Doctrine but of | whose real character and ctrcumstan- ces so litte known in this country. An examination of the Consular Re- ports and other publications of the Department of Commerce and Labors | and of the Treasury Department puts in an entirely new light the Latin- American republics which are so fre- ouently misunderstood by those who made their acquaintance with them | 20 or 30 years ago as American schooi- boys, and who have heard of them since most frequently in connection with the opera bouffe revolutions of their development period.
 How many persons, for example, could remember, without stopping to think hard about it, that the Argentine Republic has territory fully onc- | third as larga as the whole United States, including Alaska? How many realize that in Buenos Ayres 1t has a city fast pushing itself among the great metropolises of the world--a city of more than a million people. growing faster than either New York. London or Paris; a city that would have worked itself beyond the class of Boston and Glasgow and Hamburg long ago except for the unprogressiveness | of the early settlers and for certain geographical hindrances that have but
 lately been overcome? Yet 1t Is Bue-
 nos Ayres and the growing country
 behind 1t. already with 8 foreign com | merce amounting to almost $S00,000.-
 900 a year, less than one-eighth of | which is the share of the United
 states. that most sharply gives point, perhaps,to several of the recommenda-
 tions ef the Congressional Merchant
 Marine Commission. For with ali these commercial possibilities as an outlet
 for American produce in a direction
 which properly anl naturally belongs | to them in preference to the merchants | of any other nation, our foreign carry ing trade has fallen into such state | that business men in Argentine cities
 can write to Europe and receive re- ply in fifty days, whereas the New
 Yorker cannot communicate with
 Buenos Ayres and be certain of get
 ting an answer in less than eighty days
 in fact, the best and quickest way to
 travel between the great ports of the | two republics is to 70 from Buenos II Ayres to England and thence across
 the Atlantic again to New York.
 Il Advocates of the establishment of | fast steamship service between New York and Buenos Ayres point to the
 fact that there are already six first
 class mail and passenger steamship II lines between the South American city
 and European ports. The companies
 which established these lines all re- | ceive aid from their respective gov
 ernments during the time when they
 were building up the business. Amert-
 can steamship owners say that if they
 could receive similar help. in the form
 of subventions for carrying the mails
 during the initial stages of the enter
 prise they believe that with the rapid II growth of the trade, the lines would
 eventually become sele-supportinK.
 The people of the southern part of | South America are already greatly in- II terested in the United States and in far greater numbers than now they
 would visit our cities on missions of
 business and pleasure if 1t were pos
 aible to sail directly from Buenos Ayres + to New York. Buyers would come to
 
 ties and technical schools. and we
 should be brought into closer and more Il effective relations with what seems
 bound to become one of the most inn portant marts of the Seven Seas.
 The United States Is only just walk | ink up to the truth that a second New York. the metropolis of another vast
 empire, Is being built up in the
 Southern hemisphere. That between
 these two huge centres of population | there should be as yet no regular
 steamship communication, except by
 slow freight boats. seems to indi- | cate, so mercantile authorities say,
 that the boasted American enterprises
 is less enterprising than commonly
 supposed. For the matter is one that
 means more than making a single
 line of steamers pay for itself at once 1;
 1t involves the safeguarding of
 American interests in region
 wkich is destined during the next half century to contest
 sell as much and buy as much per cap-
 ita as any on the globe.
 In its aim to become the metropolis
 of the Southern continent Buenos Ay-
 res has marked advantages over any
 other eity-advantages which are, to
 only slight extent. enumerated by | the climate and ethnological draw
 backs that exist in the countries to the
 nnrthward. Not until 1897 were ships drawing as much as 26 feet of water | able to make the port of Buenos Ay-
 res Now. however. with a system of | channels and interconnecting basins
 connected with railway freight termi- nals, the port is fairly well anuinnad