Waterways and Railways

APRIL, 1910

BY LOGAN G. McPHERSON

OF all the means used by man for travel or for the conveyance of things from one place to another, waterways and water-craft have held the largest place in history and literature; all that pertains to them still appeals to the imagination and to a sympathy deepened by centuries. Rivers formed by the processes of nature existed before the land-roads wrought by the hand of man. Sloops and triremes, navigating the seas, penetrated the rivers also.

As the stationary succeeded the nomadic life, forests had to be cleared and swamps to be drained. Not only in Holland and Belgium, but in AustriaHungary, and even in England, the digging of ditches to drain supersaturated soil was the first step toward the construction of canals. Along a drainage channel a small boat could be propelled from one farm to another, and in a deeper and wider channel to a neighboring village. Thus were foreshadowed the artificial waterways which have generally been built to connect two natural waterways.

With the recession of the mediæval period, canals were extended, rivers were dredged, and their banks revetted to make more secure the channels for navigation, and to prevent the inundation of adjoining lands. With the launching of larger ocean vessels, harbors and ports were improved. Wares brought from foreign lands by sailingvessels to the ports were trans-shipped to the interior by smaller sailing-vessels or rowboats, over the rivers, and by boats drawn by hand or by animalpower along the canals. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the differentiation between deep-sea craft and inland water-craft became still more pronounced because of the utilization of steam as power.

By elemental forces the deep seas have been made, and are maintained as highways, free of cost, and for their use no toll is charged. Upon the vast expanse the roll of the mightiest steamer shakes no yielding bank. The ocean will carry the greatest vessels that man can build. His concern is only with the proportions of the craft: the relation of weight, displacement, and cubical contents to the propelling power, and to the resistance of wind and water. The more powerful the engines, the more serviceable the shape, the less is the resistance, the greater the burden that can be undertaken, and the greater the speed. The degree in which inland waterways are available for navigation depends upon the degree in which their physical characteristics approach those of the deep seas. Over great bays and into estuaries the largest of the present-day ocean liners can go; but there are few of the boundaries dividing estuary from river which they can pass. Smaller ocean-going craft can traverse the deeper reaches of the greatest rivers, permitting regular communication such as that which exists between Cologne and Strasburg on the Rhine, and Liverpool, Havre, and Hamburg on the seas.

The facility with which even the greatest rivers can be navigated varies greatly. The Rhine, the Elbe, the Oder, the Weser, the Danube, flow over stretches of hundreds of miles, along gradual declivities which in great measure have firm beds, and their currents carry little mud and silt in suspension. Others of the continental rivers have more tortuous channels and a less gradual slope. But few of those of England are navigable from as far as one hundred miles in the interior. There is no one of these rivers of any country upon which navigation is not impaired to a greater or less extent, by drought in summer and by frost in winter. In the United States but few of the rivers tributary to the Atlantic are navigable for considerable distances. The depths of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Ohio, fluctuate within wide limits from one season to another. The channels of the greater rivers are tortuous and subject to constant modification by the violent periodic rush of the currents, which carry in suspension an almost unbelievable amount of sediment that is deposited here and there on the bars.

Although not comparable with the deep sea, a river is still a natural highway. Its channel has been cut, its bed and its banks determined by the erosion of the ages. Even when the channel is dredged and the banks revetted, the river is still in the main a product of nature, existing in accord with and not in opposition to the play of natural forces.

This does not mean that the construction and maintenance of a canal must necessarily be in opposition to nature. Yet the fact that a canal is dug by man instead of the force of nature evidences that it is not a natural channel, the product of natural force. Canals that are built through level country easily become stagnant, because their currents are weak; when built across elevations, the supply of water must be preserved, often at extraordinary expense, and has to be adjusted by the use of locks. Canals are more susceptible to drought and to freezing than are rivers, and artificial banks tend to yield to the force of the water pushed aside by passing craft.

On the deep sea any number of ships as large as can be navigated may pass with undiminished speed. On a river, the size of craft, the rapidity of movement, and feasibility of passing, are limited by the width and depth of the channel; these limitations apply with greater force on a canal; and where there are locks the rate of movement and facility of passage are further restricted. It is not uncommon for the canal-boats on the comparatively short stretch between Paris and the Belgian frontier to suffer a detention of seventy-two hours in making what would normally be a twenty-four-hour journey, because of waiting turn at the locks. In England the locks on the canals, which as in France are tunnels, average perhaps more than one to a mile, expensive of construction,through which the propelling of the boats is slow and laborious.

The introduction of steam as power applied not only to locomotion by sea but to locomotion by land. From the time of the building of the first steam railway a score of years were consumed in experiment before the construction of road-bed, rails, and locomotives had arrived at that mutual adaptation which gave some indication of the possibilities of this method of transport overland. That the canals had found a competitor which would wage a winning contest for supremacy was realized first of all in England. An article published in the Quarterly Review in 1835 said, “The disadvantages of the canal are many. The frost at one season of the year entirely puts a stop to all conveyance of goods, and the drought at another renders it necessary to proceed with half cargo. The speed at which goods can be conveyed on a railway can be so regulated as to be certain and constant, while boats are frequently delayed for hours at the lockages of a canal. Railways may be made to branch out in every direction to accommodate the traffic, whatever be the nature of the surface; while the possibility of carrying branches from a canal in any direction must depend entirely on the surface and a supply of water. Experiment has shown that at the speed of two miles an hour, under the same moving force on a turnpike road, on a canal, and on a railway, the canal has the advantage of the turnpike as 15 to 1; of the railroad as 2 to 1; at the speed of 2.82 miles the railway and the canal will be found to be equal, but at the rate of three miles an hour the railway has obtained the advantage over the canal in the ratio of 22.4 to 19.9, and at nine miles an hour the canal can take only one-eighth of the weight conveyed on a railway with the same power.”

It is evident that at a speed of thirty miles an hour the disparity is still greater. The everyday spectacle in the United States of great freight-trains moving at this speed at intervals of a few minutes, and passing on double tracks, gives some comprehension of the relative feebleness of the most capacious canal that it is feasible to construct. The test chronicled in the Quarterly Review was with traffic at grade in a straight line. In rounding curves and on up-grades the advantage of the railway multiplies.

Little wonder, then, that the canal proprietors of England, panic-stricken from the very inception of the railway enterprises, in many cases blocked the projects by opposing the charters until the railways had taken over their canals. The apprehensions then felt that the canals could not hold their own against the railways have been fully verified. The canals that did not pass under railway control have, with but few exceptions, fallen into decay. Although by reason of being responsible for the up-keep of the canals forced upon them, and in many cases for dividends they have guaranteed, the railroads have had every incentive to build up their traffic in order to make them at least self-sustaining, these canals have been operated year after year at a loss.

In the United States, during the early decades of the nineteenth century many canals were built, at a cost ranging from fourteen to seventeen thousand dollars a mile in the level middle states, to from thirty to sixty thousand dollars a mile, and even more, in the mountainous east. It was at first the general belief that, while the railways would be more useful for the conveyance of high-class merchandise, demanding quick service, they would never supplant the canals in the conveyance of low-grade heavy commodities. Within about thirty years, however, from the opening of the first railways, that is by about 1860, they had clearly demonstrated their superiority in the carriage, not only of high-class merchandise, but of low-grade materials and commodities. Canal after canal was abandoned, until at this time there are very few interior canals in use in the whole country.

In England the railways not only demonstrated their superiority over the canals for the transportation of interior traffic, but in very great measure displaced the coastwise vessels that had been in service between one and another of the ports. For example, the railways carry the traffic between Liverpool and London and between Bristol and Hull, which in earlier days went by vessel. In the United States the railways demonstrated their superiority not only over the canals, but also over the rivers, in large measure displacing even the steamboats for which the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries were famous. Both in England and in the United States these results were obtained by the railways so reducing their rates to and from places between which they had water competition, that the boats could not afford to continue in service. In obedience to primal law, in the struggle for existence there was survival of the fittest.

In the countries of the continent of Europe, especially in Germany and France, the railways when under corporate ownership developed the same practices, and were leading to the same result, the entire defeat of the waterways. There was a great outcry that instruments created by pygmy man were despoiling the gifts of nature, destroying the usefulness of the naturally-ordained highways of commerce. In both countries there was governmental interference to protect the suffering waterways from the rapacity of the iron and steel marauders. In Germany the rates of the railways were made, and are maintained, at a level so high that the water-craft, which are allowed to charge whatever they please and to whomsoever they please, have in this respect a tremendous advantage. In France the rates of the railways were arbitrarily made, and are arbitrarily maintained, at a level which averages twenty per cent higher than the rates of the water-craft, which, in that country, as in Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy, are allowed to charge whatever they please. Discrimination between one shipper and another by the watercraft, which do not have to publish or adhere to established rates, is permitted by governments which rigidly prohibit such discrimination by the railways, compelling them to publish and maintain their rates.

From time immemorial, improvement of harbors, building of wharves, and provision of the appurtenances necessary to enable a port to engage in deep-water traffic, have been at the expense of a nation, a province, a city, or other community. Such expenditure has been incurred in but few cases and at few places by private corporations. In the continental countries of Europe even down to the present day this practice has undoubtedly been justifiable, inasmuch as the seaports have often been the commercial metropolises, the entrepôts for merchandise collected for export or imported for distribution throughout a nation having comparatively little interior commerce, depending for its prosperity in the main upon that moving by sea. This traditional practice obtains even in the United States, where the domestic traffic is by far the more important, with the result that the national government is continually besieged to improve one port that it may more successfully compete with another, which in turn makes demand upon the national treasury.

In the olden time, and even to this day in many places, especially in the countries of continental Europe, it is held that the provision of highways in general should be at governmental expense, because they are for the use of the people in general. In the mediæval period, when communities were almost entirely self-sufficient, there was not often the inducement for corporations to provide highways, nor could adequate capital as a rule have been obtained by private subscription. Moreover, any one of the large rivers traversed what then were several countries. This led to the improvement of such streams under international agreement, to the abolition of tolls on international traffic, and finally to the abolition of tolls on all river-traffic. Governmental improvement and maintenance of riverways, and governmental construction and maintenance of canals, have continued and extended, until at this time, with negligible exceptions, tolls are not charged for the use of the rivers of Europe, nor in most cases for the use of canals. The results of this policy are shown by statistics that are startling.

The total capital expenditure of Prussia on its rivers, canalized rivers, and canals, to 1906, amounts to $132,500,000. The expenditure in improving its rivers has averaged over $30,000 per mile, the average on the Rhine being over $60,000 per mile; the expenditure on the canalized rivers and canals has averaged over $40,000 per mile. The total expenditure on the maintenance of its interior waterways in 1905 was over $4,000,000; its total receipts in that year from these interior waterways about $1,700,000. That is, the revenue from the interior waterways in 1905 was over $2,300,000 less than the expense for maintenance. If there be added thereto interest on the capital at three and one-half per cent, amounting to $4,637,750, it is found that the charge borne, without offset, by the state of Prussia during 1905 for its interior waterways amounted to nearly $6,500,000.

In France, the grand total of the governmental capital expenditure on rivers and canals amounted in 1906 to $320,000,000, varying from $64,000 per mile for improvement of rivers to $200,000 per mile for construction of canals. The annual expense for maintenance borne by the government is between $3,500,000 and $4,000,000. It is estimated that the total traffic of the rivers and canals of France yields to the boatmen from $12,000,000 to $16,000,000 annually. The government receives none of this. But let it be supposed that from the higher figure there is deducted $3,500,000 to cover the annual expense of maintenance, and there is left but $12,500,000. Interest at four per cent on the $320,000,000 expended by the government on the construction and improvement of these waterways would amount to $12,800,000 a year. That is, the government has made a capital investment of $320,000,000, on which it not only receives no interest, but pays annually for maintenance over ten per cent. Because of this investment and outgo a bare livelihood is obtained by the boatmen and their families, whose entire revenue is less than the cost of maintenance and the interest, if the latter be calculated at four per cent. If the charge borne by the French government on account of its interior waterways be distributed over the total traffic, it will average over four and one-half mills per ton-mile. This, added to the low estimated average transportation charge of a centime and a half per ton-kilometer, discloses that the interior waterway traffic of France bears a charge of nearly nine-tenths of a cent per net ton per English mile, which considerably exceeds the average received by the railways of the United States on all their traffic.

In Belgium the capital expenditure on the rivers and canals has been from $55,000 to over $450,000 a mile, the total to 1905 being $79,050,000. The average annual charge for current improvements and maintenance is $445,000. The receipts for 1905 were $400,000. If to the deficit in meeting the current expenditure for that year be added interest on the capital at three and one-half per cent, amounting to $2,766,750, it is found that the total charge borne, without offset, by the state of Belgium on account of its waterways for the year 1905 amounted to over $2,800,000.

In Holland capital expenditure on inland waterways has been made during long periods of time, not only by the national government, but by provinces and communities, and to a limited extent by private corporations. Adequate records of the totals have not been kept, and if they had been it would be impossible to allocate them between the purposes of drainage and navigation. The annual expenditure by the national government on the maintenance of the inland waterways has, during the past ten years, ranged downward from about $3,000,000 to $2,000,000 perannum. The total maintenance expenditures of the provincial and local governments and the private companies were not procurable. Neither the national government nor the provincial nor local governments receive any return on the capital expended in the construction and improvement of the rivers and canals. On the limited extent of these waterways for the use of which tolls are charged, these tolls are but nominal, the cost for maintenance and operation being in largest part without offset. That is, even in Holland, the one country in the world where it might reasonably be expected that the use of the inland waterways would be attended with direct pecuniary profit, they not only pay no return on capital, but do not meet the current expenditure for their maintenance.

In Russia the capital expenditure of the government on the interior waterways during the last one hundred years has approximated $500,000,000. The annual expenditure for maintenance and operation is about $6,000,000, against which the only offset is about $90,000 per annum.

It is Germany and France that are pointed to with pride by waterway enthusiasts, as countries whose example in encouraging and developing traffic upon inland waterways might well be emulated. Yet in Germany the length of the navigable waterways, which was 6200 miles in 1875, was 6200 miles in 1905 also, and the Rhine carries fortythree per cent, the Elbe twenty-four per cent, of the entire inland water traffic. In France the length of the interior waterways really available for navigation is 7378 miles, and over but about half of these is carried ninetysix per cent of the interior waterway traffic. These are the rivers and canals in the northeast, serving Paris and Havre, and carrying coal to and from Belgium and Germany. The other interior waterways of France, that is, the other half of those really available for navigation, carry less than five per cent of the traffic.

Contrasting with these statistics as to the status of the waterways, which have been obtained directly from the respective governments and from official publications, are the statistics in regard to the status of the railways, which likewise have been obtained from official sources.

In Prussia, if the traffic of 1905 be measured by ton-kilometers, it would seem that the waterways carry onefourth of the total freight, but in reality they carry but about one-seventh. This is because the longer haul of the freight on the waterways, the far more circuitous haul, gives a greater volume of ton-kilometers than the haul by railway, which is usually over a route that is approximately direct. Although the total capacity of all the freight-cars is substantially the same as that of all the water-craft, they carry seven times as much freight. This of course is because of the greater speed of movement, the greater promptness and rapidity of loading and unloading. Notwithstanding the lower rates by the Rhine, over one-fifth of the coal from the Westphalian mines to the city of Frankfort is carried by practically parallel rail-lines. The capital expenditure on the Prussian railways to 1905 was $2,286,000,000. The receipts for that year were $432,315,000, the expenses $262,075,000, thus leaving a surplus of $170,240,000, which is equivalent to nearly seven and one-half per cent on the capital and is over one-fifth of the revenue of the state, which owns substantially all the railways within its limits. This is the result, notwithstanding the traditional fostering of the waterways, and notwithstanding that the possibility of developing the Prussian railways to a capacity even approximating that of those of the United States has received practically no consideration.

In France, if allowance be made for the longer distance caused by the circuitous routes of the waterways, it will be found that they carry but eleven per cent, and the railways eighty-nine per cent of the traffic. The waterways of France are not only exempt from the payment of any return on capital or for maintenance, but they are exempt from all taxation and from all service to the government. On the other hand, through taxes of one kind and another, the government receives from the railways over $30,000,000 a year, and its saving because of special services performed gratuitously or at reduced rates by the railways amounts to about $20,000,000 more. If a corresponding burden were placed on the boats, they would all be at the bottom of the canal. Yet the receipts for the railways stand for 1907 at $13,760 per mile.

The administration by the Belgian government of the railways which here, as in Germany, are nearly all owned by the state, is admittedly wasteful. But, notwithstanding that fact, their surplus revenue during recent years averages over four per cent on the capital. As Holland is the one country in the world where it might reasonably be expected that the use of the inland waterways would be pecuniarily profitable, so also is it the one country in the world where it might be expected that the management of the railways could not be other than a losing struggle for existence. Yet these railways, which are leased from the state and are operated under corporate management, pay a rental to the government averaging about one and one-half per cent on its capital investment, pay for their maintenance and operation, and in addition return to the shareholders in the operating companies dividends which have ranged from four and one-half and five per cent in 1899 to three per cent in 1908.

In all of the countries that have been named, the tariffs of the railways are under strict governmental control, which in the case of Germany and France permits the charge of higher rates per ton per mile than the average rates of the railways of the United States. In every one of these countries the government practically makes the boatmen a present of the waterways. Yet in every one of these countries the superiority of the railways is manifest, even although not one of them has developed anything like the efficiency of those of the United States. Their locomotives being far less powerful, and their freight-cars much smaller, it is not possible to haul train-loads anywhere nearly so heavy.

This greater profitableness of the railways than of the interior waterways, notwithstanding the adverse conditions to which the governments subject them, clearly indicates that they are the better adapted for the purposes of transportation, so that the larger traffic flows to them despite the artificially imposed handicaps. The principal reasons for this are clearly shown in the article in the Quarterly Review which has been quoted. In their development the inland waterways and their craft have not made as much progress as even the backward railways of these countries. In the United States, where the railways have attained a far higher degree of efficiency than in Europe, and where the waterway traffic has not been nursed and bolstered to such an extent by the government, their victory over the rivers and canals is more complete. The impression that there is a clearly defined distinction between the kinds of commodities carried by rail and those carried by water, is not correct . The traffic of the waterways in greater proportion is of heavy and coarse commodities, but they also carry a share of the highclass merchandise, and the railways carry a large part of the fuels, ores, stones, and other crude materials.

Channels of transportation, to be efficient, must accord with the channels of traffic. In this respect the interior waterways of Europe have an advantage over those of the United States. Inasmuch as the import and export traffic of every country of the continent is mainly by water, it must pass through one or the other of the ports, of which nearly every one of the more important is at or near the mouth of one of the great rivers.

While the rail traffic between one and another nation of Europe is small compared with that which moves by deep water from port to port, rail traffic between one and another region of the United States, whose total area is about equal to that of Europe, vastly predominates. Here the flow of traffic is mainly between the east and the west. In this direction the only waterways available for considerable traffic are the great lakes, which, in depth, extent, and navigable facility, are comparable to the great seas. But even the great lakes are not navigable during a considerable part of every winter because of ice-floes in the straits. The Erie Canal, originally constructed to connect the lakes with the Hudson River, has had a losing struggle, tolls for its use having been abolished in 1880 in order that it might carry some crumbs of the traffic that in vast volume moves over the railways.

Before the railways had become the generally accepted means of transportation in the United States, the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Ohio rivers were the great highways of the Mississippi Valley. Merchandise went down from Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and came up from New Orleans and Memphis. Collection from and distribution throughout the interior was made by wagon from the river-landings. Drought in the summer and ice in the winter caused cessation of navigation. When railways were built paralleling these rivers, they gradually secured an increasing share of the traffic, until at the present time there are but few lines of steamboats in regular service. In but one respect do these waterways now serve an important phase of commerce. This is in the conveyance of coal from the fields of western Pennsylvania, the Virginias, and eastern Ohio, and from fields in other adjacent states, to the South. Yet during 1908 but one and a half million tons of coal passed out of the Ohio River into the Mississippi. The coal that passes from the Pittsburg field down the Ohio River beyond the Pittsburg district is but a small fraction of that consumed within the district itself; and even the companies engaged in the river coaltraffic supply a large part of their markets by rail.

In the United States, as in Europe, the improvement and maintenance of the rivers is held to be a function of the national government. In calculating the charge for transportation, the owners of the water-craft, as in Europe, need consider only the investment in the craft. The charge for the transportation of any particular consignment therefore need but little more than cover the cost of transportation.

The railway companies, on the other hand, are obliged to provide their entire plant, road-bed, structures, and equipment, and to bear the entire expense of maintenance as well as of operation. Their capital is obtained from investors, who will not subscribe unless they think there is prospect of return. The railways moreover are heavily, the water-craft but lightly, taxed.

Yet the railways are censured when they reduce their rates to meet water competition, although in such cases they simply adopt the same basis of calculation that the beneficence of the government permits the water-craft to adopt. That is, when the railways reduce their rates between competitive water points they figure their charges to cover but little more than the actual cost of transportation. If the government in its beneficence permits the charges for water transport to be made on a basis that disregards capital and maintenance, why should there be objection when the railways adopt the same basis, especially in view of the fact that the capital and maintenance expenditure of the railways are not obtained by taxation, as is that of the waterways?

It must be understood that if a railway has to choose between carrying certain traffic or not carrying it, it is justified in carrying that traffic even at a rate so low that it will but little more than pay the actual expense of running the cars or the trains to accommodate it; inasmuch as whatever surplus the traffic yields above this prime cost contributes by that amount to the expense of maintenance. If a railway company, by devoting cars and locomotives to such transportation, should not have sufficient equipment remaining to carry other and more profitable traffic, it might be argued that it would be justified in abandoning the comparatively unremunerative for the sake of the remunerative traffic. The next step in this line of the argument is that, if the transportation of the less remunerative traffic be an economic necessity, additional means of transportation should be provided to relieve the overburdened railway.

Here arises the question: Should this additional means of transportation be provided and maintained by the nation at the expense of the taxpayers, or should it be provided by the subscription of investors? Investors will not subscribe capital unless there is prospect of return. It is incontestable that capital for the improvement of rivers and the construction of canals cannot be obtained by private subscription because they offer no prospect of return. It is equally incontestable that the capital of private investors will flow by the hundreds of millions of dollars into the construction and extension of railways if the operation of those railroads be not unduly hampered by antagonistic public opinion, and unjustly impeded by ill-advised legislation.

Where nature has provided navigable waterways, competition of the water-craft with the railways is economically sound. Expenditures to prevent inundation, for irrigation, and for reclamation, cannot be here discussed. But wherein is the justification for the government expending without recompense money, obtained from the taxpayers, for the provision and upkeep of channels of transportation to compete with the railways that are constructed and operated with invested capital? It must be remembered that capital, in the one case as in the other, comes out of the resources of the nation; that if the government expends capital in ways that are economically unsound, there is so much less to be spent in ways that are economically sound. Why then should the government bestow capital gratis upon a less efficient means of transportation to which investors are not willing to subscribe?

It must also be understood that money expended by the government upon an interior waterway, although it come from the pockets of the whole people, can usually at the best benefit but the limited area contiguous to the waterways. In Germany over sixty per cent of the industrial establishments of the country are located in the valley of the Rhine, with the result that the interior districts are in a backward state of development. For this reason there is vigorous and widespread opposition to the expenditure by the state of further vast sums upon waterways that will pay no return and will serve only the adjacent districts. It is admittedly, as a rule, less expensive and more convenient to ship entirely by rail from one point to another, neither of which is on a waterway, than to ship by rail to waterway, unload and reload, and then transfer again from waterway to rail. In the United States this contention has far greater force. Even the Erie Canal, upon which the State of New York has showered millions of dollars, does not serve the interests of the southern and northern counties of that state; and inasmuch as it is principally designed for the conveyance of through traffic, it renders but negligible service even to the counties it penetrates, these counties receiving and shipping nearly all of their products by rail.

Those in favor of the improvement of rivers and the construction of canals are wont to cite the Manchester Ship Canal as an example to be commended. It is unquestionable that this canal has revivified the commerce of Manchester, and increased the value of lands along its banks to which industries have come, many plants having been attracted from other places of prior establishment. It certainly would be a cause for regret if the $85,000,000 expended in its construction had not resulted in some benefit to somebody. Up to this time there has not been a dollar of return to the share capital, which was subscribed not only by the business interests of Manchester but by clerks, workingmen, and even servantgirls, in the furore of popular enthusiasm that attended the inception of the project twenty years ago. It is a matter, however, that, concerns the people of Manchester. They were certainly entitled to have the canal if they were willing to pay for it. Had the $85,000,000 come from the national treasury, the case would wear a different aspect.

At this time, happily, the popular enthusiasm of a few years ago in favor of the construction or reconstruction of a general network of canals in any part of the United States would seem to have waned. The country may well await the result of the expenditure of the $101,000,000 appropriated by the State of New York for the improvement of the Erie Canal; and what the Panama Canal has yet in store no one can tell. A system of waterways to carry even heavy and coarse commodities in the channels of traffic now served by the railways would have to be a network of such extent and intricacy that it would convert the whole United States into a gigantic Holland.

Public interest for several years has been centred upon the provision of a deep waterway from the Lakes to the Gulf. There was clamor for such a waterway along which Lake vessels could go to New Orleans and thence out into the Gulf with unbroken cargo. The report of the Special Board of Engineers on the Survey of the Mississippi River, submitted to Congress by the Secretary of War on June 9, 1909, effectually demonstrates that this is entirely visionary, that the proposal to construct a channel from Chicago or St. Louis to New Orleans, adapted for lake, or ocean-going craft, is too wild for consideration; that the Lake vessels are not adapted to passage through rivers; and that even a fourteen-foot waterway would involve an expenditure entirely incommensurate with any volume of commerce in prospect. The report further states that “The immense commerce of the Rhine would be carried more readily and cheaply on the Mississippi to-day than on the Rhine, if such commerce were available for transportation by water and demanded such transportation. The decline in the commerce of the river has not arisen from its lack of navigability, but from the reduction in the amount of material available for shipment.” This does not mean that the volume of commerce has decreased, but that it moves by the railways. That is, the shippers prefer the railways, even although the Mississippi as it is to-day afords better facilities for navigation than the Rhine. The great traffic of the Rhine is due, not only to its tremendous and comparatively stable volume of water, its gradual descent in a firm channel, its being a minor estuary and a direct thoroughfare between the great industrial centres along its banks and the cities of the North Sea, but also to the advantages derived from extensive adjacent deposits of coal and of iron ore. No river in the United States is so favored.

That transportation by water has been and will continue to be a necessary factor in advancing civilization, no one can deny. The great vessels that ply the oceans, the seas, and the lakes, are of marvelous efficiency. To the extent that their usefulness can be furthered, expenditure is justifiable. The improvement of harbors conduces to this end, as does the construction of such canals as that of the Sault Ste. Marie, which permits large vessels to pass from deep water to deep water. By the same token the ship canal projected across Cape Cod, to enable coastwise vessels to avoid the circuitous voyage around the Cape, is a worthy undertaking. The building of a ship canal from the upper reach of Chesapeake Bay across to the Atlantic has been discussed for many years. This would save nearly two days in the voyage of the vessels that now have to round the capes at the mouth of the Chesapeake. Even on minor streams, the modern gasoline boats are doing good service by plying between river towns with rail communication and the smaller settlements and farms along the shores that have not that advantage.

In the United States, as in every country of Europe, the subject is a matter of politics, tossed forward and back as one or another party comes into power, and as popular enthusiasm waxes and wanes. Appropriations are made with liberality when there is a gust of favoring sentiment; and then, as the exchequer becomes low, work under way is not infrequently allowed to go to rack and ruin because funds for its prosecution are withheld.