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
