Sea. It is rumored that the United Fruit Company will, in the not too distant future, develop into an important oil producer. This expectation is based upon the fact that the vast stretches of tropical land owned by the United Fruit Company lie within the oil bearing belt of Central and South America. The United Fruit Company is also an important sugar cane producer and sugar refiner and as such works on common ground with the American Sugar Refining Company, another corporation which has become, or is about to become, an important shipowner. The molasses tankers of the American Sugar Refining Company will also be equipped in such a way that a certain amount of general cargo can be carried.1

The case of the steel industry.-Another industry which has absorbed shipping to a considerable extent is the steel industry, particularly as it is represented by large combinations such as the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the United States Steel Corporation, and the recently organized British Steel Corporation. Of these the Bethlehem Steel Corporation is in a rather unique position because it largely depends on Cuban and Chilean sources for its ore supplies. Its interest in shipping, therefore, originally centred around the carrying of ore by specially built steamers. The latest plan is to develop a type of boat which will take oil on the outward voyage and ore when homeward bound. The United States Steel Corporation, on the other hand, depends largely on Lake Superior ore. Its ore vessels, therefore, plow the waters of the Great Lakes, taking coal in return. Besides this, however, the United States Steel Corporation through the United States Steel Products Company, owns extensive fleets augmented frequently by chartered steamers, carrying its own ore products to foreign markets. More1 Cf. Chapter XIV.

over, of late, the United States Steel Corporation is entering the shipping field as a common carrier, through the medium of the New York and South American Line and the recently formed Isthmian Line, whose boats ply from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast of the United States through the Panama Canal. The shipping interests of the British Steel Corporation, whose center of gravity lies in Eastern Canada, are represented by the Canadian Steamship Line. All these steel "trusts" are important shipbuilders. The Bethlehem Steel Corporation Ltd., through its subsidiaries, has large shipyards at Fall River, San Francisco, Elizabethport, Wilmington and Sparrow's Point. The United States Steel Corporation, during the war, developed two enormous plants at Kearney and Thickersaw, Alabama, while the yards of the British Steel Corporation are located at Port Arthur, Lake Superior, Levis, opposite Quebec and Halifax.

Other examples.-A case on the border line between producing and trading interests is that of the Cambrian Coal Combine, an organization prominent in the British coal export trade whose various parts were brought together by the organizing genius of the late Lord Rhondda.

The best example of merchants branching out into the steamship business is that of W. R. Grace and Company, whose merchant line was mentioned before, and that of Gaston, Williams and Wigmore, who operate a fleet of steamers known as the "Globe Line."

Railroad control over steamship lines.-It would lead us too far to give, even approximately, an idea of the extent to which railroads have extended their service beyond the boundaries of their domain on terra firma. We confine ourselves to some of the more important facts. The Pacific Ocean, because of the length of passage and the absence of purely local traffic, seems to be the natural sphere

of the railroad-steamship line. Until recently the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, controlled by the Southern Pacific Railroad, divided the field with the Great Northern Steamship Company of the Hill roads, the Pacific service of the Canadian Pacific Railroad and certain Japanese lines. Oi these the Canadian Pacific Company, with its lines on both oceans, is by far the most powerful of all the railroadsteamship lines. It is encouraged and subsidized by the British and the Dominion governments and has done much to build up the trade and commerce of our neighbor in the North. United States railroads have proved their enterprising spirit by establishing trans-oceanic services on the Atlantic. Thus, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company participated in the establishment of the American Line to Liverpool. The Johnston Line from Baltimore to Liverpool was originally owned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Foreign railroad-steamship lines.-In England the railroad-owned steamship line is common in almost all the shorter routes from ports on the east coast to the Continent and also in the service across St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea, separating Ireland from Great Britain. Thus the North Eastern Railway runs a line in its own name from Hull to a large number of continental ports. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railroad has services to nine ports of the Continent and to Scandinavia. The British railroads have, thus far, not entered the trans-oceanic business; and there is little reason to believe that they will do so in the future, because of the splendid steamer connections between almost all ports of moderate significance. The oversea needs of the country seem to be adequately covered now.

REFERENCES

CHAMBER OF SHIPPING OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. Annual Reports for 1919-1920 and 1920-1921.

HOCHSCHILLER. Les Trusts de Navigation Trans-atlantique in Journal des Economistes. Dec., 1913.

INTERNATIONAL MERCANTILE MARINE COMPANY and other large shipping concerns. Annual Reports.

JOHNSON AND HUEBNER. Principles of Ocean Transportation. Chap. XX. (1919.)

LENZ, P. Die Konzentration im Seeschiffahrtsgewerbe. (1914). LIVERPOOL STEAMSHIP OWNERS' ASSOCIATION. Annual Reports for 1919-20 and 1920-21.

MEADE, E. S. The Capitalization of the International Mercantile Marine Company in Political Science Quarterly. Vol. XIX, 1904, pp. 50-65.

OWEN, D. Ocean Trade and Shipping. Chap. II. (1914). THIESS. Organisation und Verbandsbildung in der Handelsschiffahrt. (1903).

UNITED STATES. Commissioner of Corporations. Transportation by Water in the United States. Part IV. Control of water carriers by railroads and by shipping consolidations. (1912). Special Diplomatic and Consular Reports dealing with methods and practices of steamship lines engaged in the foreign carrying trade of the United States. (1913).

House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Proceedings in the Investigation of Shipping Combinations. (Vol. IV, "Report on Steamship Agreements and Affiliations in the American Foreign and Domestic Trade," by S. S. Huebner.) (4 Vols. House Doc. No. 805, 63 Con., 2 Sess., 1914).

CHAPTER XXIV

POOLS, AGREEMENTS AND CONFERENCES

Network of agreements supplements combinations.— The movement towards concentration described in the previous chapter is supplemented and aided by numerous agreements and conferences, some of which are again reinforced by pooling arrangements. To the extent that concentration is based on ownership relations, pools, agreements and conferences become less important, at least in number. This does not mean that the conference is less important to-day than before the On the contrary, the war, through the temporary elimination of German competition and the subsequent strengthening of British supremacy in such trades where American enterprise does not yet appear as the new rival, has solidified, though changed, the old agreements.

war.

Important investigations. - Careful investigations carried on by the governments of both this country and Great Britain have revealed the nature and the scope of almost all shipping rings, conferences, pools and other agreements existing at the respective period during which the investigations were made. In the United States the investigation of shipping combinations carried on in 1913 by the House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries, showed that the advantages of shipping combinations are greater than their drawbacks. It was found that, contrary to popular belief, shipping combinations were not confined to American trade, but were universal in their nature and not necessarily directed against the interests of the United States.