The Empire Builder’s Pacific Dream

James J. Hill, president of the Great Northern railway, argued in an interview that the time has come for the country to bend its utmost energy toward the development of foreign markets for our agricultural products. 'Let us turn our attention to the opening of trade for our agricultural products tooth and nail at this for a century, but our wheat is not wanted in Europe, where we meet hostile legislation. To send wheat there would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. The farmer in the Northwest is in competition with the peasants on the steppes of Russia and the ryots of India. We are in competition on an even plane and always will be so.' Hill noted that the country’s entire product cannot be consumed at home. 'If we can increase the exports of wheat to the Orient by fifty million bushels, I predict that it would advance the price of wheat we send to Europe from fifteen to twenty cents. The development of carrying lines on the Pacific is the key to the situation. If we could have carried grain, last year's crop in the Northwest and the Pacific states could have been marketed in the Orient. But there were no ships to take it. We have an opportunity that will not come again.'