The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1913. PACIFIC COAST TRADE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 67, 24 July 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1913. PACIFIC COAST TRADE.

In n letter from a well-known Seattle lumber merchant to a Christchurch, importer, light is thrown on the “slump” in the western States which the cablegrams referred to last month. The ' “Lyttelton Times” states that after speaking of the disturbed dition of the European money mar-, ket and its effect on American trade) the writer proceeds to deal with local factors that have aggravated the position. “The slump on the Pacific Coast,” he says, “has further been accentuated and precipitated by a naval demonstration which the United States Government decided upon in view of a threatening rupture with Japan. The Government has chartered between twenty and thirty tramp steamers to carry coal from Atlantic Coast coaling ports to the Pacific, Coast naval stations and also follow 1 the fleet around to this coast as col-! liens. Eighteen colliers are at pre-j sent loading in Norfolk and will bej thrown on this coast after they have discharged their cargo during August and September. These and a good many to follow will, of course, break! the freight market, because all of| them will be seeking outward cargo from here. The mere announcement of these charters caused a terrific' slump.” Low freights between the, Pacific Coast and Australasia will not la' regarded as a calamity hy the people of New Zealand so long as they are maintained both ways, hut the hack-loading is not, likely to he very profitable to anyone till the American tariff is revised along the lines pronosed hv President Wilson.