The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1873-02-14

| half of the James River and KanaWha canal.
| it Is true there will accompany thfa report
Recommendation on the part of the commit
tee that these very important bills looking to
the development of the national commerce OF
the country he postponed, as the time OF the
present session is now too short TO mature
and perfect in both Houses these vast water.
| line schemes leading from the Mississippi to
| the Atlantic Ocean; but their importance
| and necessity is fully recognized, and is set
forth in terms which viii inspire with the
| brightest hopes the hitherto most dubious
of our citizens. This report will be made
| by unanimous committee.
1t will demonstrate to the whole country
| that there can be no remedy for the burdens
under which the West and Northwest are
suffering but for the National Government to
| improve those great t5dtsr highways, or lines
running east and west, which will admit the
produce of the mines and forests and the
| oast and bulky grain produce Of the MiSsis-
sippi basin to move eastward at cheap rates.
There must be canal like the Erie, with its
vast tonnage capacity; but, unlike the Erie,
it must have the capacity Of being used du-
ring the e.tire year.
General Negley's great speech (an abstract
of which your correspondent was favored
| with to-day will set out this necessity for
| these water-iines in the strongest terms, and
more prominently than all others our Virgil
MIA canal as line meeting the great demands
Of the Northwest in regard 10 cheaper
transit for their vast surplus grain crops
eleven of these interior States, now cut OF
| from the Atlantic seaboard, producing three
fourths of the grain-crops Of the entire coun.
| try; three-ffths of which, with cheap water
| transportation seeking the seaboard, will So
supplement our exports abroad rs to give Us
more favorable balance of trade to the
country, causing gold to flow into rather
than out of the country.
General Negley shows that this nation
cannot afford to allow that grain to be burned
or to rot on the western prliries when so
many of the poor on The Atlantic seaboard
are in want of it.
| He then took up the idea, too much enter
taiued until now, that railroads have taken
the place Of canals, and shows that of west
ern tonnage that the Erie canal, although
frozen up five months in the year, yet trans
ports more tonnage than every railroad lead
ing from the West to the East combined !;
that besides paying for itself ard its more
recent enlargement, it has paid SAC, 100000
to the State of New York. In fact, 1t is to
| the Erie canal more than all other causes that
the rapid development of that vast country
along the lakes and the Northwest is due,
which is without parallel in the history of
mankind. In the completion Of the james
River and Kanawha the West and North
west will have a more than an Erie canal
the capacity of the former being to the latter
in the proportion of twelve to seven.
| will not anticipate the coming events OF
the next few days further, but will say that
the friends of the canal in Virginia will have
no cause to doubt after the debate which will
tlke place on Thursday next that the COM
! netinn of our canal is an assured fact.
Whstleri t gets through ii sssss 4 ak,s ses.
sion or not, within five years we will sec ffe
barges which loaded Oh the Upper Missis-
sippi and Missouri with grain unloading into
the Galcgo and HaxaI mills from the Basin.
| ". 7. B.