A Belgian firm received the contract to furnish the steel work, having bid less than Spanish firms at Barcelona and Bilbao. The length of road so built is 3.2 kilometers (1.988 miles). The cost per kilometer (0.62137 mile) was 44, 100 pesetas ($6,890). The total cost of the road laid was 60,950 pesetas ($9,506). expense in detail was: Steel construction...... Pesetas. The 44, 100 $6, 890 3,250= 507 Transportation and laying steel construction.......... Total .. 60, 950= 9, 506 The rails, during the seven years they have been in position, exhibit a wear of one decimal of a millimeter yearly, and have not required repairing. Ample room is allowed between the rails for two horses to walk abreast. Horses do not appear to slip on rails of this construction. At each side of the rail are layers of binding stones, the paved road being higher than the face of the rails. The municipality of Valencia is of opinion that the saving in cost of repairs, through a road of this description, pays for its construction in a short time, and other and similar roadways are in contemplation. From various parts of Spain, inquiries have been made concerning this road. I learn that a similar construction was decided on at Alicante, in 1898, but was temporarily abandoned when events caused exchange to increase. A toll of (about) eight-tenths of a cent is charged each vehicle. passing over this roadway. A fuller description would have been furnished had it not been believed that the technically accurate working plans transmitted herewith* would themselves prove of much greater information than unprofessional statements. I am indebted to the mayor of Valencia and to Señor Mesegner, municipal architect, who invented the road, for copies of these plans. HORACE LEE WASHINGTON, VALENCIA, September 25, 1899. * Sent to Department of Agriculture. Consul. AMERICAN TRADE COMPETITION WITH GREAT BRITAIN. Under date of August 18, 1899, Consul Marshal Halstead, of Birmingham, says that a strong feeling exists in England over the orders given for American locomotives for use on English railroads. He warns American builders that an effort will be made to find the locomotives inferior to British-built engines, and adds: The railroad managers who have purchased American locomotives have been under a continuous fire of questions, and it is hardly worth while to add fuel to the flames by boasting that "prices will settle future locomotive orders in America's favor." Why not permit the answer of the railroad managers-that the purchases were made because British shops were too busy to take further orders-to have its soothing influence? The matter of price, or of efficiency, if a change in construction is required, counts for less here than in the United States. There is a good deal that is protective in this attitude on the part of the British public, in questioning those who dare to buy abroad articles which might be made here. The Atbara Bridge contract, the Birmingham Post says, promises to become "a classical instance of the kind of competition in which English firms have been apt to get the worst recently;" it promises also to be a classical instance of a protest, because British officials in Egypt purchased where they could get the article quickest. The Birmingham Post says: That the English makers were hopelessly underbid with regard to price has been before explained, but it appears that the principal and, indeed, the sole determining factor was the time of delivery. The earliest English offer was six months; the Americans accomplished the work, despite a week's delay because of the great snowstorm of last winter, in forty-two days. Parliamentary inquiries were instituted by Sir Alfred Hickman last April with regard to the circumstances under which the contract for the bridge had been given to an American firm, which inquiry has resulted in a full report on the matter by Lord Cromer. An exactly similar case, though with smaller value, has come to my knowledge through the declarations before me, as consul, of apparatus purchased here by the United States War Department for use in Cuban light-houses. I have heard of no protest from the United States. Mr. Halstead sends a printed account of the history of the Atbara Bridge contract, which is not given, as it has already appeared in American newspapers. On September 5, 1899, Mr. Halstead writes further: Under the headlines "Tried and found wanting" and "No repeat orders," the Ironmonger says: The American locomotives which have been delivered to the Midland Railway Company are naturally being subjected to some very keen criticism by English engineers. The representative of one well-known locomotive-building firm in this country gave me the other day quite a long list of their alleged defects, one of the gravest being the state of the boilers, which are said to leak so badly as to leave a distinct track along the ballast wherever they go. The engines are nothing like so strong as English makes; they are very roughly finished throughout, and when the parts arrived in this country it took the workmen as long to put them together as an English firm would require to build the entire machine. The comments of English engineering experts who have examined the American locomotives are by no means flattering, and it is confidently asserted that when (in the not far-off future) the engines have to be sent to the repairing shop, the verdict on their construction will be so unfavorable as to bar the placing of further orders. That this opinion is not due to mere insular prejudice on the part of the makers in this country will be conceded when I mention that two French engineers who inspected the Yankee locomotives at Derby fully confirm the conclusions arrived at as to the inferiority of the imported machines to those of British make, alike in point of strength of construction and general excellence of workmanship. The London Daily Mail to-day quotes Mr. C. Rous-Marten as saying that Mr. Johnson, the mechanical engineer in chief of the Midland line, informed him that— As soon as all the American engines were erected they would be placed on regular duty in comparison with a like number of British-built engines of approximately equal power, and, after a certain period, the results would be fairly and impartially compared. Mr. Rous-Marten credits Mr. H. A. Ivatt, locomotive superintendent of the Great Northern Railway, with saying: I have been examining them and I can not find any important part that ought not, with fair usage, to last as long, or nearly so, as those of our own engines. EXCESSIVE FREIGHT CHARGES TO GREAT BRITAIN. Consul Marshal Halstead, of Birmingham, on August 23, 1899, sends copies of recent correspondence between himself and the freight bureau of the National Association of Manufacturers. pears that a Birmingham merchant was forced to pay, on a shipment. of goods from Minneapolis valued at $9.30, £2 198. ($14.35) freight charges; in other words, the Minneapolis concern, says the consul, evidently knew nothing about freight shipments and simply sent the goods through without inquiring as to charges, and the steamship line took advantage of the opportunity and made the excessive charge of £2 25. ($10. 20) to carry the goods across the ocean. Mr. Halstead wrote to the National Association in regard to the matter and their reply says, in part: This particular case only shows how little our manufacturers realize the importance, in opening foreign trade, of availing themselves of the proper facilities for getting their goods to destination. Had this shipment passed through our hands, we would probably have delivered the goods from Minneapolis to Birmingham under contracts at not over $4.50, possibly $5, and perhaps for very much less. A recent report of the association shows a net saving of over 13 per cent upon all shipments made by it. BRITISH SHIPPING TRUST. Consul Marshal Halstead, of Birmingham, in transmitting a clipping from the Sunday Chronicle, says, under date of August 15, 1899: Once in a while, a voice is raised in England against a British trust, but generally any protest is in low tones, and trusts are accepted as a necessary modern condition. The inclosed article gives the facts of the way this particular trust injures British trade and helps foreigners. The article reads, in part: The Board of Trade has undertaken to make an inquiry into the effect of the shipping rings upon our trade. The ring, or conference, as it is also called, is a combination of two or more lines of ships to control the freights on a particular ocean trade route-in other words, to secure a monopoly of a particular freight market for the benefit of the members of the ring. This system is so widely extended that there are few ocean trade routes of importance which are not in the grasp of a combination of the kind, and the result is seen, not merely in the artificial enhancement of freights from British ports, but in the preferential rates given to foreign competitors with British traders at foreign ports. The ring may not be designed with that object, but its result is to give the German and other continental and American traders a tremendous pull in the markets of Asia and Africa by reason of the cheapness of freights granted to them for the carriage of their goods by the same steamers as carry the goods of the Englishmen at very much greater rates. This system is pursued by mail companies which receive subsidies from the home and colonial governments, and have not apparently a keen sense of their obligations. At any rate, these cheap freights are granted to the foreigner by the steamers which carry our mails and draw our money, and at the same time charge our traders more for the accommodation they get in the vessels than they charge their rivals. Let us see first how the ring, or conference, works. The various lines sailing to and from certain ports agree upon certain minimum charges from British ports, and, having secured a virtual monopoly of the carrying capacity, they seek to prevent competition by an ingenious and effective weapon. They agree to pay to every shipper a certain rebate on the net amount of the freight he has paid the line during a period of six months, and this sum is only payable after the lapse of a further period of nine months. But there is a very important condition: The shipper must not send a single consignment by any line not in the ring for the sake of a lower freight during the whole of that time, and if he breaks this stipulation he loses all the rebate which is accumulating to his credit in the companies' hands. The rebate for fifteen months will amount to a substantial sum, and the shipper will hesitate a long time before he agrees to sacrifice that bird in the hand for the sake of the two cheaper freight birds in the bush. The rebate is not an ordinary discount, nor is it intended as such; it is not payable for nine months after it has accumulated, and that stipulation alone shows that it is intended to be kept in hand as a sort of bond or recognizance for the continuance of custom at the rates fixed, without competition by the monopolists. Of course, the conditions vary; but the rebate is in all cases a deferred payment, so that the shipowners hold at all times hundreds and thousands of pounds of the shippers' money on such terms that if they fail to comply with the mandates of the monopoly they lose every fraction of it. In the South African ring, the rebate is 10 per cent on the net freight received during a period of six months, and it is not payable till nine months after that period has been completed. If during that period of fifteen months, even after the commission has become due, the shipper falter in his allegiance to the monopoly, he loses all that is due to him, and you can see at once how strong is the hold of the lines on the customer in such circumstances. It is contended that by these means the rings have (1) benefited foreign shipowners at the cost of British shipowners outside the ring; (2) maintained artificially the high rates of freight now in force at British ports; (3) deprived manufacturers and merchants of a free freight market and restrained the free course of trade; (4) enabled foreign traders, notably German and American, to get lower rates at foreign ports than can be obtained by British traders at British ports; (5) prevented other steamship companies from tendering for the conveyance of mails upon equal terms with the present mail companies. The rings prevent, or at any rate have prevented, by various means up to now the starting of any rival lines from the British ports. The Bucknall Line to the Cape was intended to carry goods at lower rates than the ring ships and in competition therewith; it was boldly declared that it would not give in, and that it was not to be bought out. But the ring got the better of it because of the hold it had in its rebate system. The rivals gave in, and later on began to run their fine new boats to India against the older and slower boats of the mail lines. But there, competition is just as severely discouraged. The strangest conjunctions are seen in this alliance; for instance, the Peninsular and Oriental, the Austrian Lloyd, and the Rubattino Line combined, it is asserted, to throttle a small competing line running from Bombay. The English line; in fact, offered to carry cotton to Japan for nothing, so that the new line might be run off the route. This is the mail line to which we pay a subsidy exceeding £1,000 a day. Nor is this the first time the Peninsular and Oriental has reduced its freights for such a purpose only to put them up again when the competition which had been feared had been killed. To deprive some competing line of a chance, the freights have been reduced to a nonpaying level, and when the competition has gone they have been put up again to a high figure. It is objected that no part of the revenues of the country should be used for the purpose of helping a line to crush out all competition in this ruthless way, and the argument is hard to meet. # * * * Take an illustration of the working of the rebate rule given me by Mr. Clarke, a member of a firm of South African merchants. Recently, an Austrian house offered his firm a consignment of goods for shipment to South Africa by an Austrian steamer entered outwards for Durban at cost, freight, and insurance 20 per cent under the prices which had been paid previously at Hamburg. The reduction was |