The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-02-25
HARTMAN
STANDS PAT
lie Refuses to Sell His
Pacific Boats to
Japanese.


to Hawaii, regarding its place in Pacific
commerce, in the following news ar.
ticIe from the San Francisco Examiner
of February IA:
S. Asano and NJ. Shiraishf OF Toxic
two OF the shrewdest steamship off,
cials in Japan and respectively presi-
dent and general manager of the Toyo
kisen Kaisha, the Japanese company
operating steamers between this port
and the Orient, by a joint schedule
with Harriman's Pacific Mail and Oc-
eidental and Oriental lines, have at last
Jailed to get Hartman TO sell out to
them in part or in whole.
Messrs. Asano and Shiraisl1i have
made the following propositions to
Hartman: First to buy the steamers
Mongolia and Manchuria, which he
owns personally and which he leased
to the Pacific Mail at an aggregate
rental of $4,000 a month. Second, to
buy those vessels and the other three
or four Pacific Mail steamers engaged
in transpacific trade. Third, to form a
holding company into which to put ali
the Pacific Mail vessels, whether en-
gagged in the Panama or transpacific
trade they to hold 81 per cent of the
stock and operate the holding com.
pany and Hartman to be the minority
factor. Hartman was to get q. big
lump sum If he agreed to this holding
company and also agreed to maintain
the existing traffic agreement between
his railroad system and the present
transpacific service out of this port.
WHY LINE WAS IGNORED.
The Japanese officials ignored the
Occidental and Oriental line in Its
negotiations because the latter only
has chartered White Star steamers and
is controlled by the Pacific Mail.
Asano and Shiraishi forced their
steamer line into this port in 1897 by
threatening c. p. Huntington and
Colonel C. F. Croker with a rate war
against the Pacific Mail and Occidental
and Oriental steamer combine, They
are now building two new steamers in
Japan on the type of the Pacific Mail
liner Korea, in order to improve their
service in and out of this port. They
would like to own the Pacific Mail
combine in order to dominate Oriental
traffic from and to San Francisco.
Hartman has refused all of these
overtures for a number of reasons.
First, to sell out would be wound
to his vanity and also to his prominent
influence as a rail and transpacific
line owner and dictator. Second, he
has tied up the Santa Re SO closely
with the Pacific Mail combine and MS
coast railroad system that Asano can
not get the former to tie UP with his
line as a joint rail and ocean COMPETE
ton against the Hartman system.
Again, Hartman has been forced In
turning down the Asano proposals to
promise the Japanese steamship mag
nate certain concessions in the way of
joint rates and traffic that will make
il worth his financial while to stay
with the Pacific Mail and Southern
Pacific and Santa Fee combine instead
of seeking the favor of a new traffic
god in the shape Of Gould's Western
Pacific.
ABANDON PANAMA ROUTE.
There is still another reason for the
Hartman attitude. He has called r.
p. Schwerin of the Pacific Mail to New
York to consider overtures from the
Mexican authorities by which the Pa
ciffc Mail is to abandon the Panama
route in toto and run its steamers in
connection with the Tehuantepec 18TH
milan line or else divide is steamer
service between the two isthmian
roads. Hartman is said to favor the
latter project and thinks such an ar
rangement will greatly increase tha
net profits of the Pacific Malls Pana-
ma line system in handling business
between this coast and the Atlantic
seaboard and Europe.
Meantime the Hartman people are
watching closely the projected deal OF
the Hamburg American Steamship
Company to arrange with George j.
Gould for a transpacific service out OF
this port in connection with the West
arn Pacific. The neutrality-suspicious.
people are already under contract to
on the Gulf OF California
IN connection with the Stilwell syr1di-
Gates air line railroad from Kansas
City on it's completion next year,
The Hartman crowd are also watch
ng closely the movements of S. Take
manager of the japanese
steamer line Osaka Shosen Kaisha
who arrived here few days ago en-
,oute to New York to confer with tina
Gould people about having his conn.,
nanv establish a transpacific line in
connection with the Western Pacific.
rba North German Lloyd people are
,lso d;ckering with the Western Pa
.ifc about giving the latter steamer
connection between this port and the
Orient.
tt is TO the mutual interest OF Asano
md Hartman to minimize the import
ance of any Western Pacific steamer
connection to the Orient. This is an
additional reason why the Hartman
refusal to sell to Asano is not likely
N cause the latter for some time at
east 10 assume a belligerent mood.