Show OUR TRADE WITH ChINA President Hill anil Wo Gen Have n Business Cousnltation Flonr vs > Rice Seattle Wash June 5ames Hill president of the Great Northern while here spent most of his time in conference confer-ence with Wo Gen the Seattle manager man-ager of the house of the Wa Ghong company of Hong Kong and made searching inquiries respecting the disposition dis-position of the Chinese toward flour as an article of food Wo Gen was of the opinion that if flour could be laid down in China for 62 cents per sack of fifty pounds it could be sold at a profit for 75 cents by dealers and compete with rice He thought that if the great masses of China began to use flour they would not go back to rice and if it could be placed within the reach of the laboring classes a demand would be created so large that all the flour mills on the Pacific coast could not supply onetenth of the calls made on them Hills idea is to carry flour so as to give it to the Chinese for 1 cents per pound and bring return cargoes car-goes of rice so as to supply the markets mar-kets here at 1 cents per pound He wants to be assured of a permanent demand before taking up the enterprise enter-prise and says that if the great Northern North-ern does put on a line of steamers they will be the largest and best possible to be obtained The question of a terminus termi-nus will be determined by the lowest rate at which flour can be placed on ships Seattle he sayS will be the place provided the conditions are fulfilled ful-filled This is understood by shippers here as indicating that this place will have the terminus provided the Asiatic line is set up Mr Hill declined to speak of the Northern Pacific deal except to say that the recent changes meant that the road was to be placed upon a substantial substan-tial basis There was to be no joint management of the great Northern and Northern Pacific and the two lines would be kept entirely separate He would not attempt to gain control of the O R N Co and never had any Intention of so doing As for the people of the west the best thing for them to do he said was to develop and bring about a change of conditions so that the easterner coming out here could send word back to his friends that by making the change he had benefited himself There had been so much of Instability that the eastern people were suicious and the people of the west needed to restore re-store confidence I this were done and the country developed through the railroads all would be benefited but the people vastly more than the railroads |