SEATTLE'S EXPANSION IN TRADE EXPLAINED

Japanese Professor Gives Large Part of Credit to Business Men of City

SAN FRANCISCO, Saturday, Aug. 17. -- The fact that Seattle business men have done everything in their power to facilitate Oriental trade while San Francisco has neglected many opportunities was held forth as one of the reasons the northern seaport has outstripped this city in volume of foreign trade, by Prof. Yomato Ichihashi, professor of economics at Stanford University speaking before the San Francisco Advertising Club in the Palace Hotel. As reported by The San Francisco Call and Post, Professor Ichihashi said in part:

The other day I noticed a fact that surprised me not a little. Doubtless you share with me that surprise. In the volume of American foreign trade Seattle stands second only to New York. San Francisco, by the grace of inferiority of the remaining ports, occupies the fourth rank. And this tradal situation is according to the latest official returns.

Nobody would be astonished at the commanding position of New York in foreign commerce. But are we not rather shocked at the fact that Seattle is ahead of this port by a fair margin? Yet it is a fact, and no one can dispute it. And shall we say, therefore, "it cannot be helped?"

Position of Seattle.

First, as regards the position of Seattle. Everybody knows that the economic development of that port, like that of any other port on the Pacific Coast, must depend, as it still does, upon its commercial relations with the Orient. That fact was early grasped and an advantage was properly taken of it. The business men of Seattle have done everything to facilitate Oriental trade to obtain the maximum result.

In so doing, the merchants there did not overlook the obvious and important, but often neglected fact that successful and developing business is never one-sided. Special efforts have been made to make the Far Eastern merchants feel that Seattle is THE Pacific port through which they can most profitably and most conveniently do their business. Their facilities are brought to the Oriental traders to minimize difficulties which, as strangers in a strange land, they are bound to encounter.

Japanese Prefer Seattle.

It is a common saying among the Japanese that in Seattle they spend less time and money to get what information they seek. To the business man such facts are very important. If those mechanical efforts, to be sure, humanized with sincerity, enabled Seattle to accomplish what it has already done, is there not a lesson for this city to reflect upon, and that rather profoundly?

In the economic development of San Francisco, too, we know that Oriental trade has been one of the powerful factors. It still is, and will be such, constantly growing in its importance. It is not charged here that San Francisco world overlooks this fact. But purely from the standpoint of an Oriental onlooker, the accessible facilities in this port for trade are far from being ideal. There is room both for improvement of old facilities and for introduction of new ones.