ent. In the same period our average annual imports from these
countries increased 112.9 per cent. (as compared with 113.9 per cent.
for Germany and 62.5 per cent. for the United Kingdom).[4] The trade
with these Pacific countries lies largely with the United Kingdom, the
United States and Germany (in the order named) and the United States
seems to be slowly moving forward to first place.[5] What progress the
United States has made, moreover, has been achieved under certain great
disabilities which the Panama Canal removes. "By present all-sea
routes New York is, in general, at a disadvantage compared with
Liverpool."[6] New York by the Suez route is 3 days further away from
Australasia (for ten knot vessels) than is Liverpool; by the Panama
route New York is from 9 to 12 days nearer. For points on the west
coast of North and South America, New York is one and a half days
nearer than is Liverpool by the all-sea route and about eleven days
nearer by the Panama route. When all the conditions of distance,
speed, cost of coal, tolls, etc., are considered, it is found that the
Panama Canal gives in many parts of the world an advantage to New York
over Liverpool, Antwerp and Hamburg. The result is an impulse towards
a keener American competition in the Pacific trade.

If our foreign commerce was gaining before the war, it has made even
greater progress since the outbreak of {64} hostilities. While
Germany's foreign commerce has been temporarily destroyed and that of
Great Britain has been hampered by the war, our total commerce has
immensely increased. In the year 1915 we exported over a billion
dollars in excess of our exports of 1913, our exports in the latter
year exceeding those of the United Kingdom or of any other country in
any year of its history.[7] This development, it is true, was abnormal
and consisted partly in increases in prices and temporary deflections
in trade. Nevertheless, while many American industries, especially
those engaged in the manufacture of war munitions, will suffer severely
at the end of the war, and while our export of such commodities will
dwindle, the war cannot but result in a relative advantage to American
manufacturers of export commodities.

Moreover, the war by destroying established connections between neutral
countries and their natural purveyors of manufactured goods in Europe
has opened the way to a future extension of American export. Like a
protective tariff, it gives