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Show Steamers for Russia. Prior to November, 3014. the departure of a steamship from Seattle across the Pacific to Vladivostok was scarcely known. Not since an occasional adventurous adven-turous blockade runner set out to dodge the Japanese navy, with cargo destined for Asiatic Russia during the Russo-Japanese war, bad there been an attempt to connect Puset. sound by direct sailings with the Pacific terminus of t he trans-Siberian trans-Siberian railway. Before the present European war a large and substantial trade was carried on by Germans between Hamburg and j Vladivostok. Ships from Hamburg passed Into the Atlantic, thence through the Mediterranean and Suez canal to deliver their merchandise at the Siberian port after a voyage of between sixty and seventy sev-enty days. Supplies for the portion of Asiatic Russia best, reached through its Pacific gateway came chiefly from Germany, Ger-many, now cut off. Today a fleet of between thirty and forty steamships is engaged in carrying 1 freight, from Seattle, and Tacoma to J Vladivostok. They make the voyage in j about twenty days. Thev took American 1 products worttn $2. 00(1, 000 in Ifitj and $50. - 000,000 in the first half of 1916. ! A new trade, route has suddenly sprung . into life. Hus'tened by the exigencies of war, it commands recognition from the j shipping and mercantile world some years ' earlier than might have been Hie case; under normal development. Judged by I the requirements and the opportunities of ordinary times, the volume of the new-traffic new-traffic is at the outset artificially large. Nevertheless, il serves to indica le what will be. during the next quarter of a century, cen-tury, douhtlcss one of the striking commercial com-mercial phases of history. Nation's Busl- 1 ness. j |