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United States Needs More Ports) Comparison of European and American Commerce cna —_ Shows This Country Lags in Supplying Port Facilities STUDY of the superimposed A maps of Europe and the United States with the principal ports indicated thereon brings out strikingly several facts. The regularity of the contour of the United States works a great hardship on producers in the in- terior as compared with the irregular outline of Europe that puts many serv- iceable seaports within comparatively short distances from points of produc- tion and consumption. This is particular- ly true with regard to our great agricul- tural communities of the Middle West producing grain and livestock. Compared with a distance of one hundred to two hundred miles in Europe, perhaps as much as three hundred in Russia, but much less in Roumania, our agricultur- ists are one thousand to two thousand miles from the seaboard. The only remedy is the St. Lawrence ship chan- nel that will allow ocean ships to pro- ceed through the Great Lakes, thus ex- tending the ocean inward more than 1000 miles. Compared with the Great Lakes, that extend less than half the distance across the northern end of our continent, Europe has the Medi- terranean and Black seas system on the south, and the North sea and_ Baltic on the north. Table I shows the population and area of the United States compared with that of Europe. In population Table I Population and area of the United ‘States com- pared with Europe in 1921 Population Area United = States \4555..% 107,833,284* 3,026,789 Wurone een os cee ne 487,741,055 5,166,476 *Official estimate of the United States census bureau. Europe is almost five times as dense- ly populated on an area larger in the relation of 5 to 3. Europe is larger in area by 5 to 3 but larger in popu- lation by 5 to 1. It would seem there- fore, that although the two areas do not differ greatly in size, the great press of population of Europe would make the large number of ports nec- essary and that such a necessity would not exist in the case of the United The author, R. S. MacElwee is commissioner of foreign trade and port development, Charles- ton, S. C., former director of the United States bureau of foreign and domestic commerce and author of Ports and Terminal Facilities, Wharf Management, ete. The following is an advance chapter from his new book on Port Development. BY R. S. MAC ELWEE States. We may drop out the great mass of European Russia which in- cludes Soviet Russia, the Ukranian re- public, the White Russian republic, the Crimean republic, the German Volga commune, and the several Cau- casian states as they have ceased to belong to commercial Europe, at least for the present. This takes off the excess of area over that of the United States putting the two on an equal basis of comparison as to area. True comparison, however, must be based on the volume of commerce, not the population. In considering the volume of commerce, we are thorough- ly justified in counting the coastwise and intercoastal commerce of the Uni- ted States as “foreign” commerce. Com- pared with our 48 states and the Dis- trict of Columbia, Europe, only some- what larger (5:3), has 37 independent states. Table II shows the comparison: Comparison of Commerce The coastwise movement between states of the United States, for in- stance, between the state of New York and the state of South Carolina, or the state of Texas and the state of California, and Spanish or Swedish ore to Rotterdam similar to Minnesota ore moving to Ohio and Pennsylvania fur- naces, in Europe is foreign commerce because these European states are in- dependent national governments, while our sovereign states of the United States rate as part of one national gov- ernment. In this manner, adding for 1920, 110,700,000 tons of coastwise trade to our approximately 132,000,000 tons of foreign trade, gives the United States a total of foreign commerce of 242,700,000 tons compared with Europe 268,700,000 tons. Including the Great Lakes, the United States engineers’ sta- tistics give 404,000,000 tons. In other words, in an area, approxi- mately the same as Europe, counting out Russia, the United States has ap- proximately the same total seaborne commerce carried on by a population only a little more than one-fifth as great. Although no figures are avail- able for Europe for the year 1922, the total foreign and coastwise commerce of the United States is about 294,000,- 000 tons, which is considerably in ex- cess of the total foreign trade of all 293 the European countries in 1920. In- cluding the Great Lakes it is 387,000,- 000 tons. Thus our foreign and coastwise com- merce over the magnificent distances of these great United States is already in excess of that of Europe by more than a fourth and this before our pop- Dabble It Total net registered tonnage of foreign and coastwiseé trade of the United States com- pared with the foreign trade of Europe 'Calendar Year 1920 Foreign ‘Coastwise trade trade Total trade United States ..131,772,913} 110,691,175 242,612,227 Hurope. %) 1 200;718,000. sa uweweees 268,718,000 *United States ..130,029,948+ 163,800,000¢ 293,829,948 *Calendar year 1922. 7Figures obtained from Statistical Abstract, oh agi of foreign and domestic commerce, page Figures for United States foreign net regis- tered tonnage were available only. Coastwise net registered tonnage was arrived at by the fol- lowing formula, Cargo tons of 2000 pounds in both foreign and coastwise trade were secured from United States engineers figures. The formula then is: United States foreign trade in cargo tons =A; United States foreign trade in net tor = B; United States coastwise trade in cargo tons='C; coastwise net registered ton- nage=X. Thus A:B::'\C:X, SS ulation has reached little more than a fifth of that of Europe. Yet, as the map will show, the coast of Eu- rope is dotted with important gate- ways of commerce while with the ex- ception of New York, the port of the greatest tonnage movement in the world, we have no ports that approach in volume Liverpool, London; Ham- burg, Bremen, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Havre, while our ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Galves- ton, Seattle and San Francisco are in the class with Marseilles, Copenhagen, Odessa, Amsterdam and Danzig. In other words, Norfolk, Charleston, Sa- vannah, Mobile, Los Angeles and Port- land, Oreg., about exhaust the list of the smaller American ports, while the British Isles alone can double them in number and tonnage moyement, not to mention the long list of well equip- ped ports such as Brest, Nantes, Bor- deaux, Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Cadiz, Malaga, Cartegena, Valencia, Barce- lona, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Venice, Trieste, Fiume, Pyraeus, Salonica, Ga- ‘latz, Batum and a lot more on the south, without even mentioning those on the north. . This can indicate only one thing,