In Vol. I of the Commercial Returns of the United States nth Foreign Countries during the years 1895 and 1896, issued from the U.S. Bureau of Statistics in 1897, Mr, T. R. Jernigan, U.S. -Consu!-Genoral at Shanghai, writes as follows on " Maritime Commerce The most ancient maritime State nimed by history was Phoenicia, and though small in territory and population as compared with either Syria or Egypt, it in some respects far greater power than either. This was due to its maritime supremacy, for it was maritime commerce which made Tyre, the capital of Phenicia, the most splendid city of that period. No commerce enriches nations like the commerce of the sea. While the tonnage of the internal commerce of the United States exceeds the added tonnage of any two of the most us nations of Europe, the tonnage of the Pen. nsylvania system being larger than that of the entire British merchant marine, the human mind could not measure, in its most imaginative fight, the wealth of the United States if their maritime tonnage approximated their internal tonnage. It is the maritime commerce of England which has made London the largest city in the world, and enables London banks and merchants to regulate the price of exchange and of products, and with merchant marine approximating that of Great Britain, the great metropolis ut America would soon be that of the great metropolis of ed. the world, fixing every morning the prices that would rule all civilised marts of trade. It is authoritatively stated that the people of the United States have for some time been annually paying $150,000,000 to have their produete transported in the ships of fore nations, 0 sum sufficient to build fifty first class. battle ships, or a merchant marine that would soon sweep the sea with the supremacy of American commerce. The pro-duets mails of. the United States should be carried in ships fying the Stare and Stripes, a desideratum strongly appealing to the pride of Americans, and it is no less to be desired that statesmanship should find for American ships the nearest, routes to the markets demanding American products. Such was the policy of the States that have attained commercial renown and wealth, illustrated, as Strabo says, by the act of the merchant captain who, rather than have his ship captured by the Romans, thus disclosing to his rival the locality of his cargo his ocean route, stranded her, afterwards receiving from his Government full value la testimony of his loyalty to the public weal of his country. When Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in November, 1497, the route of the commerce of the world was changed, and the commercial splendour of the Italian republics began to fade. Since the cutting of the Suez Canal, ocean steamships no longer steam the longer route of the Cape, and the profits of the stock of 3 the canal prove the immense traffic that passes through it, thus making another change in the route pf the commerce of the world. The gates of China are now open wider than ever before to trade. When the Empire, with its {00,000,000 inhabitants, attains to the present advancement of Japan, the foreign trade of China, compared with the present, foreign trade of Japan, the population of each Empire being considered, will be worth $1,000,000,000. A glance at, the map of the world shows that the Pacific side of the United States is nearer to China than the principal comniereial nations of Europe, and that the cutting of the Nicaragua Canal would place the Atlantic side much nearer than it now is, If the estimate of W. W, Bates, ex-United States Commissioner of Navigation, be accurate, that an antount of money not than $4,500,000,000 or an average of 50,000 009 annually, for thirty years' past has been paid out to foreign shiba for ocean transportation," it is evident that had this large sum of money been expended in the interest of American shipping and making new and shorter routes to foreign lands for that shipping, our merchant marine would have been more prosperous and our command of the ocean carrying trade more assured and secure. Ata time when dissensions between India and Lancashire on Indian cotton duties are being discussed in British review: British chambers of commerce are debating and providing the means to extend Britis the business men at home should move with renewed energy on lines promotive of American commerce.
Shanghai, 22nd December, 1898.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.