One of the great advantages enjoyed by German commerce is in the free ports of Ham burg, Bremen and Liibeck. They were, in for mer centuries, independent states and controlled the Hanseatic League, the dominating force in medizval commerce of the north. They came into the German Empire retaining many of their privileges, among them being the right to main tain free ports; that is to say, ports in which car goes may be received, transferred, dealt in and reshipped independent of the tariff barriers of the rest of the nation. This freedom from tariff restrictions made England the mistress of the seas and it has made the free ports of Germany the rivals of England as places for the exchange of goods from all parts of the world. While in tariff countries goods may be put into bond and taken out again for re shipment to other countries without paying duty, the inconvenience is so great that vessels from all parts of the world prefer free ports in making their exchanges and will go hundreds of miles out of their courses to avoid the in conveniences of tariff regulations. This has made Hamburg one of the largest ports in the world, exceeding Antwerp and rivaling New York, although its geographical position is far less favorable. In administering the free ports, The railroad development in Germany in length of line operated shows an increase from 1890 to 1911 of 42.6 per cent. In that year the total mileage of railroads in Germany was 38,462 miles.
The operations of railroads in the principal custom officials regard the free portions of the harbor as foreign territory, and though goods are handled and transshipped on the piers and docks and stored. in the warehouses, nothing is admitted to the tariff-protected part of the port until the duty is paid. In this way Germany enjoys the advantages to commerce of free trade and the protection to her industries of the tariff.
Germany's progress during the past gen eration is shown by the figures for trade and transportat;on and overseas shipping. The business of the post-office increased from 1,303,400,000 letters in 1887 to 5,994,300,000 in 1911, or 359 per cent, and the number of post offices increased from 19,476 to 40,987 or 110 per cent. During the same period the increase of population was but per cent. The num ber of post-offices in Germany per 100,000 population in 1909 was 79, in the United King dom 53 and in France 34. During the same period, 1887 to 1911, the number of telegraph offices increased from 14,565 to 46,444 or 218 per cent, while the number of messages in creased from 17,860,000 to 49,643,000 or 178 per cent. The number of telegraph offices in Germany per 100,000 population in 1909 was 69. The receipts of the post-office from postage and telegraph charges amounted in 1887 to $47,500,000 and by 1911 they had in creased to $196,000,000. The railroad system countries from 1895 to 1910 may be seen in the summary given in the table above.
The inland waterways of Germany including navigable rivers are 12,226 miles in length. Those of the United Kingdom are 8,127, France 8,015 and the United States 20,915 miles. In the year 1887 there were Z0,390 vessels engaged in inland navigation in Germany, 19,989 of such vessels having a total capacity of 2,100,000 tons. In 1907 there were 26,191 of such vessels having a carrying capacity of 5,900,000 tons. In 1911 the traffic on the inland waterways was 76, 000,000 tons, or one-sixth of the railroad ton nage.
The development of Germany's overseas commerce is even more striking than that of her inland waterways. In the period from 1888 to 1913 her tonnage more than doubled.
In 1888 she had 3,034 sailing ships manned by 21,053 sailors, having a net register of 758, 359 tons. By 1913 the number of sailing ves sels had decreased to 2,420, having a net regis ter of 396,904 tons and manned by 12,980 sailors, but her steam vessels had increased from 717 in 1888, having a register of 470,364 tons and manned by 15,856 sailors, to 2,098 vessels having a net tonnage of 2,655,496 tons and manned by 63,713 sailors. In addition she had in 1888, 60 sea-going lighters of a net register of 11,459 tons, manned by 167 sailors, while in 1913 there were 332 lighters, having a register of 101,324 tons and manned by 1,053 sailors. The total increase was from 3,811 ships, having a registered tonnage of 1,240,182 tons, manned by 37,076 sailors, in 1:•::, to 4,850 ships, having a register of 3,153,724 tons, and manned by 77,746 sailors in 1913. Thus the tonnage increased two and one-half times and the number of sailors more than doubled. The tonnage of steam vessels which was hardly more than half of.that of sailing vessels in 1888 had increased to seven times as much in 1913, which is even more important for purposes of traffic than would appear from the figures since the steam vessels, making greater speed, are able to make a greater number of round trips in a year than are the sailing vessels. More than one-quarter of the gross steam tonnage on 1 Jan. 1913 was represented by steamers less than five years old while more than half was by steamers than 10 years old. This indicates the rapidity with which the steam vessels have been constructed. The sea-going traffic at German ports has been developed much more rapidly than has the same traffic elsewhere in Europe, as will be seen from a comparison of the figures for the year 1887 with those of 1911. In 1887 the number of merchant vessels carrying cargoes arriving in Germany was 29,359, carrying 1,675,498 regis tered tons of cargo,, while in 1911 the number of vessels was 56,544, carrying 5,397,913 tons of cargo, an increase of more than 300 per cent. The number of outbound vessels in 1887 was 28,564, carrying 1,661,471 register tons, while in 1911 it had increased to 55,795 vessels, carrying 5,495,791 register tons.