9th December.
We take the following paragraph from the "London and China Express" of the 31st of October last Mr. F. A. Mackenzie wires to the "Daily Mail" from St. Paul, Minnesota: Mr. Tames Hill, President of the Great Northern Railway, who is Mr. Pierpont Morgan's principal ally in "combining" American railways, has almost completed the final step in gigantic attempt to acquire the Oriental trade for the United States. Having arranged cheap railway connections between the Eastern and Southern States and the Pacific Coast, he will in December launch a number of new giant cargo steamers, the first of a new fleet for Pacific commerce. The ships are of 28,000 tons, each being equal to the combined capacity of the Campania and the Lucania, Mr. Hil nan interview, said to me:—We don't aim to secure the European trade to the Pacific through America, but we wish to divert the American Eastern trade now going through the Suez Canal.
Our Eastern business has doubled in a year. We ace prepared to run our steamers at bare expenses if necessary, they being only incidentals to us, and feeders for our railway." Mr. Hill'added that should America not amend her navigation laws it might be necessary to run the new Pacific fleet under the British flag, English laws being more convenient and less costly.
A few notes on this paragraph will be of interest to many of our readers. The "number of new giant cargo steamers" referred to is raully two, which are being built at New Tondon, on the coast between New York and Boston. Mr. Hi'l's ori-yin-l inten ion was to build them in Eng'nnd, but he could not get ery promised as soon as he wanted, There wis no shipyard at all at the place where they are being
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.