Foreign trade zones (or free ports)

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1801857903

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-199077

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Foreign trade zones (or free ports)

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States Government Printing Off.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: IX, 322 S; Ill., graph. Darst

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part 1. General analysis

Collection:: Economics Books

10 FOREIGN TRADE ZONES Bismarck had long importuned Hamburg to join: the Customs Union, and in 1882 it consented. Yet so strongly did the belief in the old transshipment trade persist that the greater part of the harbor was fenced off and set apart, to remain a free port, outside the Cus- toms Union. The Empire agreed to contribute 40,000,000 marks toward the construction of this free port, the remaining cost, about 150,000,000 marks, to be borne by Hamburg. The free port was opened in 1888. Thus Hamburg was enabled to continue and expand her transshipment trade and to offer such economies and facilities to shipping as to stimulate her merchant marine. The British and Dutch ports, which are so important in transship- ment trade, have not found free ports necessary because of the very limited tariff schedules of those countries. England entered the nine- teenth century with a cumbrous mass of tariff regulations mherited from the past, and it was not until 1853 and 1860 that Gladstone’s laws swept away import duties by the hundred. Import duties are now restricted to a very few commodities. The Netherlands, too, clung to the protective tariff until about 1850, when a movement for free trade grew up which resulted in a lowering of tariff rates until they were little more than nominal in amount. London without specially segregated free zones has been able to maintain its premier position as the great transshipment and con- signment market of the world, and it annually reexports goods origi- nating in other countries to the value of about $400,000,000. So important is the trade in foreign goods that it is able to devote entire warehouses to special commodities. Grain, sugar, tobacco, wool, meat and softwood form the bulk of the tonnage, but innumerable ‘other articles are handled. They come from the four corners of the earth, and include mahogany from British Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Africa; cedar from British Honduras and Mexico; walnut, rosewood, ebony, and teak from India, Asia, and America; costly carpets from India, Persia, Turkey, and China; silks from India, China, and Japan; porcelain from China and Japan; idols, ivory figures, bronzes, and lacquer cabinets from the Orient; furs from Canada and Russia; marble from Italy and Asia Minor; rubber from India, Colombo, Java, and Singapore; shells from the southern seas; ivory from Africa and India; feathers from Africa; spices from Ceylon; perfumes from Arabia; tin from the Straits Set- tlements and Bolivia; burlap from India; tropical fruits from India and the East Indies; and many other commodities. Dr. D. J. Owen, manager of the port of London, in a recent report showing the development of the great business of this port, makes the following statement: The trade of the port is, in reality, a reflection of the trade of the British Nation. A Tittle consideration will enable one to realize that London has not developed

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