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FOREIGN TRADE ZONES
port. The economic and transportation investigations of the Shipping
 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 determination
 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

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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 Government
 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 Congress
 before projects are adopted for improvement of navigation
facilities at our ports.