THE TRANSPORTATION OF WHEAT 197 



ranean, and thence to England. Whether the cargo of wheat 

 went all the way to England was not clearly stated, but it re- 

 versed the usual route to Great Britain, and full return cargoes 

 from Europe and the east were promised. The following year 

 at least one steamship took the same route to Europe, carrying 

 about 3,000 tons of wheat. In 1901 one steamer took a cargo 

 of 51,931 barrels of flour, besides 1,000 tons of miscellaneous 

 freight, from Portland, Oregon. This was the largest cargo of 

 flour ever floated anywhere previous to that date, with the 

 exception of one of 55,000 barrels taken from Newport News. 

 A single shipment of about 40,800 barrels of flour was made 

 from San Francisco in 1903. 



There is a widely prevalent opinion that the Oriental trade 

 of the Asiatic millions is the greatest commercial prize of the 

 age, and that it will absorb the entire wheat surplus of the 

 Pacific coast. Great American vessels have been built especially 

 for this trade, but their owners have not found the traffic as 

 lucrative as they had hoped. The mercantile marine system of 

 the United States is not the most encouraging for American 

 shipping. It is claimed that the Japanese vessels carry flour 

 and wheat across the Pacific at over a dollar a ton cheaper than 

 the American vessels. It is also claimed that the Japanese are 

 carrying out an ambitious plan for colonizing Manchuria on an 

 extensive scale in order to raise sufficient wheat to supply the 

 needs of Asia, and thus close its markets to American grain. 



During the last decade of the nineteenth century about 333 

 vessels were engaged in the grain trade on the Pacific coast. 

 They belonged to 12 different nationalities. Over 65 per cent 

 of them were English, and less than 3 per cent were American. 

 Regular lines of steamers carried nearly all the flour shipped 

 from the Pacific coast ports, but sailing vessels carried the great 

 bulk of wheat exported. In California ships are often loaded 

 directly from the car, but in Oregon and Washington the wheat 

 is more generally re-cleaned and then re-sacked, before it is 

 loaded. Practically all export wheat from the Pacific coast 

 is sacked. From the Atlantic and Gulf ports, wheat is gen- 

 erally shipped in loose condition. A very large portion of it is 

 carried in English bottoms. 



Transportation Charges. Early freight rates on wheat were 

 prohibitory. For example, the charge for transporting the first 



