The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-03-20
Governor Ttldsn's Message On tho
Canals.

Canals.
There 10 one subject on which Governor
Tilden is, perhaps. better informed than any
other man in the State, or, indeed, in the
whole country, and that is the subject OF
subject upon which. important as it is, but
one American statesmen has ever succeeded
in building up distinguished reputation ;
for Fulton was not q statesman, but belonged
to the class of inventors, and what he gave to
the world was the means Of navigating more
swiftly and cheaply the great liquid high
ways created by the hand of Nature. 1t is
artificial highways of commerce of which We
are speaking and in this great field of effort
and enterprise there has been but one Ameri-
can statesman who has acquired splendid
and lasting fame, and even his laurels would
have been unattainable had he lived half a
century later. We, of course, refer to De Witt
Clinton, who is chiefly remembered for
his activity in securing the construc-
ton of the Erie Canal. This was
before railroads were even imagined
as possible. and when all the greater move
ments of commerce foated upon water.
De Witt Clinton had the sagacity to appreciate
and utilize the immense advantage which was
put in the grasp of New York by fact in
physical geography. The long mountain
range which runs parallel to the coast, forming
a watershed sloping on one side toward the
Atlantic and on the other side toward the Mis-
sissippi, and interposing barrier to water
communication between the West and the
East, is divided to its base in the Highlands of
New York for the passage of the Hudson and
above the Highlands, at the entrance Of the
Mohawk, there is stretch of almost level
country westward to Lake Erie, one of the
cluster OF great fresh water seas which are
the most marked features Of the geography Of
the Continent. An artificial waterway con-
Meeting the Hudson with Lake Erie was q
truly majestic conception worthy of great
mind. Had the invention of railroads been
postponed for century beyond that period,
instead of ten or twenty years, the importance
of the Erie Canal would have intellectually
surpassed the actual realization, great as that
has been.
1t has certainly been very great Phila-
delphia, which was larger and more i'm
portant city than New York up to the compile
ton of the Erie Canal. Immediately began to
fall behind, and within ten years the COM
mercial supremacy Of this city was estab-
lished on basis too firm to be ever shaken.
A prodigious impulse was at once given to the
settlement of the West, and the prosperous
communities which rapidly grew up on the
fertile southern shores Of the great lakes sent
all their products to market through the Erie
Canal, and the city of New York had mo-
nopoly of the business of the great rising
West When railroads were constructed
across the Alleghanies, with termini in other
Eastern cities, q portion of the Western
traffic was diverted from New York, which,
however. has continued to hold the lions
share in consequence of the greater cheapness
of water transportation.
But if railroads have prevented tho entire
concentration of Western business at this
port, which. would otherwise have resulted
from the Erie Canal, they have brought
compromising advantage in another re-
spect So long as goods could be conveyed
from the seaboard to the interior only on wagon
roads the importing business from foreign
countries was distributed along the whole
line of Atlantic seaports in proportion to the
extent of back country whose trade they sup
piled. 1t would have been wastefully absurd
for the country dealers of Pennsylvania or
Massachusetts to have purchased imported
goods in New York and have incurred the ex-
pense of transporting them by horse teams
But as soon as net of railways connected
eign importations began to concentrate in
this city, and here the bulk of the importing
business will always remain. We not only
import for the West as we should always
have done if there had never been a railroad,
but also for the whole long line of the Allan
tic slope, which we could never have done if
goods had continued to be distributed over
slow and expensive wagon roads
In spite of the creation of railroads our
strongest hold on the trade of the West still
consists in the cheap water communication
which we enjoy through the Erie Canal, an
advantage which can never be shared by any
of our rivals except the Canadian cities on the
st. Lawrence, which are subject to blockade
of ice for half the year, while our harbor is
always open. When we once get steam on the
Erie Canal, keep the canal in uniformly
good condition and charge very low rate of
tolls, we shalt have no reason to fear the Cana
dian competition, and no other water commu-
nication is possible between the West and the
ocean except by roundabout course through
the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The
commercial supremacy of New York is there
fore very secure if we make the most of our
unnvalled advantages for cheap transporta-
ton.
Unfortunately our State Legislature has
been squandering this great advantage for a
nerind of forty years-that is from the time