36 REPORT ON COOPERATION IN AMERICAN EXPORT TRADE,

Shipping lines controlled by foreign exporters.—In numerous
instances Americans find that foreign competitors have a decisive
advantage in particular markets because of their control of shipping
and even of distributing facilities. The great Japanese firm of
Mitsui* (Bussan Kaisha) is said to be interested in J apanese shipping
 enterprises, and some of the German and English houses which
are of the greatest importance in the trade of those nations are
closely affiliated with German and English shipping companies.
One effect of this condition is illustrated by the following statement
of a bituminous coal operator -engaged in building up an export
business to the west coast of South America:
Foreign ship companies who are interested in coal mines in Great
Britain and Australia, for example, have discriminated against ug
‘n an effort to throw business to their own collieries.
The coal import business of the east coast of South America is
dominated by British interests who operate English and Welsh collieries,
 maintain direct shipping service, and have their own docks,
coaling stations, and distributing facilities all along the east coast.
Under conditions before the war this made it impossible for the
individual American producers to compete with the British for the
important coal trade of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. }
The manager of a New York export commission house states that
certain British bankers were interested both in Portland-cement
manufacture in England and in British shipping lines running to
South America, and were thus enabled to obtain rates on their
cement which offset the advantage conferred on American cement by.
the Brazilian preferential duty. In consequence, British cement has
been largely imported into Argentina and Brazil. An American
cement manufacturer described this condition as follows:
Without a merchant marine which is controlled by our countrymen
 and which will give us the same facilities that all other export
countries have enjoyed we can not see how we can be permanently
benefited by our export trade. We are moved to make this remark
because of the fact that it has come to our notice that-certain commer.
cial arrangements which have been made by our Government with
the Republic of Brazil, whereby our product was admitted with a
venefit of about 35 cents per barrel as against that produced in any
other part of the world, have resulted, in many instances, in this
oenefit being absorbed in the freight rates charged by Englishmen
who controlled, through their agents, most of the steamship lines
sngaged in the South American trade from here.
These are but a few of the specific instances which have come to the
attention of the Commission in which exporters must compete with
foreigners who derive special advantages from their control of shipping
 facilities.

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1 See pp. 150-151