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Show I' I BIG SHIPS AND OCEAN COMMERCE. ! If Senator Clark carries out his idea and puts l! on a trans-Pacific line of 15,000 ton steamships, it j will not only be a powerful reinforcement to the - shipping of the Pacific ocean, but it will be a quasi protection to American Pacific ocean commerce, for Japan is already at work with the intention of dominating the commerce of Eastern Asia, and mm- every 15,000 ton steamship that appears in Asian B' waters is a check upon her aspirations. The great cost of operating steamships lies in the coal burned and in the wages of officers, en-j en-j giheers and crews. Americans cannot compete with the Japanese in running 2,000 or 3,000 ton ships. But a 15,000 ton steamer requires no more officers nor engineers and but a trifle more numer-ous numer-ous crew than a 2,C00 ton ship. A few more men l in the fire room are about all. Then a reduction j in the amount of coal consumed is made, the H; larger the ship using it. A 15,000 ton ship does fl not burn seven and a half times as much coal as H' a 2,000 ton ship. It is possible that Senator Clark contemplates using oil for fuel. In that event the Hj, ships could' take on at San Pedro fuel for the Hj1 round trip and not be obliged to buy fuel in the Orient. Again, the actual freight that a ship can B carry increases with the size. A 2,000 ton ship Hj can carry some 2,500 tons of freight. Jim Hill's Hj 15,000 ton ships carry 26,000 tons of freight at a cargo. The average yield of wheat in Minnesota is less than 15 bushels per acre. Think of a ship i that can take aboard 60,000 acres of wheat at a B; cargo and land it from our west coast in Yoko- i hama in fourteen days. No matter how cheaply Bj the Japanese work, they cannot crowd such ships HH as those off the sea unless they can get a corner JB; on fuel. But even at present rates, the cost of B; the fuel of Hill's ships does not exceed 40 cents i per ton of cargo. It ought to be the provence of the commercial Hi men of this country to dominate the ocean-car- rying of the Pacific, at least that between our fjm shores and Asia, and 15,000 ton ships are the big- KhK gest advance in that direction that has yet been EttB rnade. It insures the carrying, of raw or nearly raw products. Costly manufactured goods are another proposition, and this country should hurry up textile and polytechnic schools and schools of design. Speaking of steam lines, from the western terminus of the San Pedro road, off across the Pacific, Pa-cific, the first question is, what freightage will these ships have? There will be oil and there is a market for oil in the Orient; there will be some wheat and a good deal of barley; there would be much freight if the war between Russia and Japan were still raging, but that is over, and' the things which southern California has in abundance to ship, namely fruit and wool, are what the far east has in abundance to ship away. We had for the moment forgotten the wines and brandies of southern California. There ought to be a market mar-ket for them in the Philippines, in the foreign colonies in China and in the Straits Settlements, but hardly enough to give cargoes to 15,000 ton ships. But a little off the line of the San Pedro road are inexhaustible beds of iron and vast coal measures. If these could be utilized, if great smelters could be started and a great structural iron plant be established, there would for many years be a demand for all that kind of material that could be produced; for the east is the home of the typhoon, and the rich would if they could build houses- with frames of woven steel; there would, too, be a great demand for the steel beams and plates of ships. Doubtless the ships from San Pedro would have their quota of passengers. Our rich people are fast becoming globe trotters, and when they once start, not much less than an all round the world voyage will even temporarily satisfy them. We understand that the Pacific Mail ships and the Canadian Pacific fleet have been crowded with outgoing passengers for many months past, and this will doubtless continue until the next panic causes rich men to retrench and to become miserly mi-serly for three or four years. But while on the most prosperous ocean lines, like those that cross the Atlantic to and from New York, the passenger passen-ger money is a big item, the freights are what are looked to for the chiefest profits. It will have to be so on the Pacific. Mr. Hill can always rely on grain and lumber and fish and canned meats for cargoes, but it is not the same way in southern California. Four 15,000 ships will cost, if first class, $12,-000,000, $12,-000,000, or about half what the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake road cost. By the time they are ready for sea, a few millions more should be spent, in order to insure them full cargoes car-goes out and to make a market for what those ships will bring back, for 'he voyages will be twice as long as those across the Atlantic, while, if they go via the Philippines to Hong Kong, they will be three times as long. It is a fascinating thought to own and control a fleet of great merchant mer-chant steamships, for the building of a great steamer is man's highest mechanical achievement, achieve-ment, but they are expensive luxuries to own unless un-less they can be kept at profitable work. |