vy 
Dd 
m 
2B 
2 
oS 
0S 
v 
FOREIGN TRADE ZONES 
port. The economic and transportation investigations of the Ship- 
ping Board and the War Department have been designed to secure 
lata necessary for determining the proper function of each port in 
our national transportation system and to enable the Government 
to take the measures required to encourage the adequate utilization 
of ports properly located to serve as natural interchange points for 
our rail and ocean traffic. This duty has involved consideration of 
our foreign, coastwise, and inland water movements, the determina- 
tion of production and consumption, where they center, the seasons 
at which commodities are available for shipment, the paths by which 
they move, and the transportation lines of least resistance, whether 
by land or water, or some joint route, taking into account all natural 
or artificial obstacles. 
These investigations and the cooperation authorized with local 
interests, would be particularly needful in connection with the 
sstablishment of free ports, in order to insure the most desirable 
location and the most efficient arrangement and planning of the 
nort and its facilities. 
NAVIGATION FACILITIES 
Ee 
v 
In many of the free ports of Europe goods are redistributed to 
sther countries by rail as well as by water, but in the United States 
such redistribution would be mainly by water, exceptions being goods 
to and from Canada and Mexico, which might move to and from 
those countries under bond by all-rail routes. In some cases the 
establishment of free ports in the United States would involve work 
by the Federal Government in connection with the construction and 
maintenance of channels and barbor improvements. Even where 
existing channels may be regarded as adequate for establishing a 
free port, future commercial developments and future changes in 
the sizes and types of vessels seeking the port might result in demands 
‘or further improvements at the expense of the United States. 
Unless the navigation facilities are suitable for the classes of 
vessels which are most appropriate for the routes and the trade to 
he served, the development of the free port will be seriously retarded. 
In connection with the investigations now made by the Corps of 
Engineers, prior to undertaking proposed harbor improvements, it is 
not infrequently found that the improvements desired by local 
interests will involve a greater expenditure by the Federal Govern- 
ment for original construction or maintenance than is warranted by 
the benefits to commerce and navigation. In establishing free ports 
in the United States the same expert study of the navigation and 
commercial conditions should be made as is now required by Con- 
gress before projects are adopted for improvement of navigation 
facilities at our ports.