New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-04-10

,sas the Enlargement would have been
.o,,,rI.t,d ere this, and the State now ae-
living a Revenue from her Canals oil not
Less than Five Millions of Dollars per an
mum. But in 1912 Tylerism gave over
the State to Loco Focoism, and the 0'cP
and Tax policy was enacted. Ana In
1s4s bv raising a cry against Negro SUIT
f,s0e the Stop and Tax party succeed
ed in electipg a majority of Delegates TO
the Constitutional Convention and therein
f.st,ned upon the new Constitution
clause forbidding the creation OF any fur
tb,, Debt for Internal Improvement or
kindred purposes, and requiring the sPpro-
nYi.tiou of large proportion even OF tue
surplus Revenues of the Canals Annually
- he extinction of the State Debt. The
.oDnletiop of the Canal Enlargement was
thereby postponed for years.
Vet all the time, as we have seen, the
bns;ness and revenues of the main Canal have
beep rapidly augmenting. The State En-
oineer in his late Annual Report states the
entire capacity of the Canal as originally
constructed at Thirteen. Hundred Thousand
TINS per annum, which capacity, as we
have seen, is but about ons-ha!f the present
| amount of transportation thereon. by
doubling the locks throughout and other
wise increasing its capacity in the process
Of Enlargement, the Canal has been render
ed adequate to the present requirement. and
barely adequate. The utmost present ca
pscity of the Canal is 100000 tuns per
anpum. which the completion of the pro-
cess of enlarging QeDgtheAing) as we'll as
danblipp the locks will increase to 100000
TINS in the course of the present year. pro-
vided the boats be all enlarged to fit the
increased capacity of the Canal. But even
this increased capacity, the State Engineer
estimates, will be overtaken by the trans
portation in 1858; and what shall then be
done? The Enlargement will not be COM
pleted, under the policy which the Herki-
mer politicians intended to fasten on the
Constitution, for many years.
The State has spent nearly or quite
Twenty Millions of Dollars on the En-
larpement and the unfinished Branche'.--
Ten Millions and Half are required
(says tho State Engineer) to complete
them. Until they shall have been COM
piieted, large portion Of the outlay Ale
ready incurred on them remains unproduc-
tive. Ought this state Of things to be pro-
tractedl Suppose farmer, having bought
a farm for $4,000, were to obtain posses
sion on the payment of the last dollar
what should we think of his capacity if be
were to pay $4,000 and then hire out by
the month to earn the other $1,000, calcu-
lating to lay up 500 per year and so OBJ
tain his farm at the expiration of ten years
fartherl Who would consider it predigal
or reckless on his part to borrow 81 900 on
the farm, get possession, and proceed to
raise produce and pay off his debt!
Now as to the urgency of the Enlarge
ment as a matter of public economy. The
average cost of through transportation last
year was S. CO per tun, or a little over a
cent and a half per tun per mile. The
cost of precisely this same transportation on
the Enlarged Canal, had that been COM
pleted and in operation, would have been
Just about seven mills per tun per mile or,
in other words, the Canal transportation of
1850, which actually did cost Six Millions
and Half of Dollars, would only have cost
Three Millions had the Enlargement been
completed; so that the immediate loss to
the State by the Stop and Tax policy of
ls42 was no less than Three and Half
Millions of Dollars in the single year 1850.
And that loss is augmenting every year.
Yet even this is bat one item of loss
by this baleful policy-the mere vestibule
of the temple. The commerce Of the West
is enormous and rapidly increasing but
the channels Of transportation are increas-
ing also. The Ogdensburgh Railroad, the
Erie Railroad, the Pennsylvania Main
Line, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, are
already competitors with our Grand Canal
for the transportation between the East and
the West and Virginia, South Carolina,
and even Alabama, are now making exer-
tons to open channels through which
portion of the rich commerce of tho Lakes
and the Grand Valley will reach the sea-
board. The cheapest route will inevitably
attract all which is at liberty to seek it.