Other views of the world's carrying trade are of interest here. The Hamburg-American Company runs steamships in sixty-eight different lines. There is a line of its ships from Europe to each port of importance from Montreal to Newport News. It maintains other lines to the important ports of the West Indies, to Ports Limon and Colon on the narrow mainland, and to every important port on the north, the east, and the west coasts of South America. It reaches nearly every port of importance on the coasts of Europe, and down the west coast of Africa. Indeed, on the west coast of Africa the natives see two German steamers to one under the British flag. It sends other ships through the Suez Canal to skirt the coast of Asia as far as Vladivostok; it maintains cargo gatherers among the islands along shore, and then, from Japan, it reaches across to Portland, Oregon, where it connects with our Northern Pacific Railroad. It runs every kind of ship from the 23-knot passenger packet to the economical cargo carrier that uses perhaps little more than ten tons of coal a day. The traffic of the world is, in a way, within the touch of this one corporation. The worldwide tides of commerce are felt and noted daily in the home office, and while losses are suffered, here and there, through depressions in business, _or through competition_, the profit made by the vast fleet as a whole is sufficient to yield regularly the modest dividends that satisfy the owners. The fact that the powerful North German Lloyd is allied with the Hamburg-American in all matters that affect German commerce and trade is also a matter of interest in this place. To show now how an effort to force a new company into an established trade affects freight rates, it is necessary only to refer to such an instance as the "war" that prevailed in the trade from New York to South Africa in 1902. As Smith notes in _The Ocean Carrier_, the rival steamships lost from $10,000 to $15,000 on every trip. Moreover, the low rates were of no advantage to commerce, for commerce demands stability first of all. It is worth noting, too, by the way, that in the course of this war, goods were carried by English steamers from New York to Africa for less than was charged by the same companies on ships from London to the same destination.