Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-11-30

Sans cannon at Fort Brady would permit
no Canadian craft to use the American
lock at the 500 without payment of a
heavy tonnage tax.
Canadians Angry.
Besides, Canadian lumber boats from
Ottawa and elsewhere plying to New York
through Lake Champlain, the Whitehall
canal and the Hudson river, are forced to
pay tolls Notwithstanding the treaty of
J 1869, while American boats in the very
same trade AVE free passage in the Cana
dian canals. All protests against this
discrimination have been u%navailing, the
plea of the federal government being that
the Whitehall canal is a state canal and
therefore beyond the jurisdiction and con-
troll of the United States.
This subterfuge, this elevation of state
sovereignty, naturally makes the Cana
dams disguised and angry, and we may be
sure that they will retaliate as soon as
they shall be able, which will he next
year, and drive Yankee boats out of the
St. Lawrence trade by returning to the
system of rebates which caused so much
trouble three years ago and which they
were forced to abandon only because they
had no lock at the 500 and could not go to
wal about it.
Yankees viii BE Powerless.
'"The situation, therefore, for next year
Is this: The Canadians will have a big
lock Of their own at the 500; they have the
only locks around Niagara Falls-the We'll
land canal-and the only locks around the
rapids of the st. Lawrence down to the
sea. They will nave a free way from the
head of Lake Superior to the Atlantic for
i fhpir cJr,,1 oo+c o,>I 1ro ,,,s11 1n i> ~ III.
with ours.
"Tlle notion that we can exclude Cana
dian craft from the St. Clair flats channel,
which is just above Detroit, I think,
speaking from memory, is erroneous
especially il that channel is boundary
water and not wholly on American soil.
But even if we could exclude them it
would amount TO little or nothing, as the
great bulk Of Canadian business to and
from Lake Superior arises or ends at Col
lingwood and Owen Sound, on Lake
Huron. and is carried by the Canadian
Pacific and North Shore Navigation COM
pany's ships, and the principal business
for the Welland and St. Lawrence canals
originates on Lake Erie, below St. Clair
flats, or is created by transhipment at the
foot of Lake Ontario into the smaller
boats, which go down the river.
$50 Canada is practically beyond our
reach, while we are practically at the
mercy of the Canadians.
United Action a Necessity.
"It is the plan of our association to have
the two countries come to an amicable un-
derstanding as to the construction, main
tenance and control of a ship channel from
Duluth and Superior to the sea before any
complications in this direction shall arise.
"In fact we are practically compelled to do
so and the quicker we see it, acknowledge
it and act on it the better it will be for us.
eve do not apprehend that a very long
time will be required to bring the two
countries to an understanding. Canada is
deeply in debt for railways, canals and
other subsidies and improvements; her
population is small compared to ours and
stretched in a narrow, thin ribbon from
the Gulf of st. Lawrence to Puget Sound,
yet she nus get out to the sea with her
larger craft. She is now struggling to
deepen her St. Lawrence channels to IA
feet and she wants help-in fact is sadly
in need Of it.
'"The states have been completely out
generated by the Canadians so we have no
passage of our own around Niagara Falls
or around the St. Lawrence rapids:
nevertheless "a per cent of the enor-
nous traffic at the 500 is ours and about
B5 per cent of all the lake traffic west of
Buffalo is also American. Therefore we
who have no locks and canals except at the
500 are a hundred fold more in need of
free neutral channels han Canada, which
has all of them, but the Welland, Lachine,
S%oulanger and other St. Lawrence locks
are of course too shallow to accommodate
our big upper lake shipping, and it is in
them and in a canal around Niagara Falls
that we need to expend the first money.
A stupendous Conception.
II may say a word as to the channels
needed. The idea of the more abb and ex-
perienced engineers is to have, ultimately,
three channels leading down to the sea.
One should consist of the main channel of
the st. Lawrence, cleaned out and deep
/! ened, so that laden craft can shoot at
great speed down to the gulf without
locking; the other should consist of locks
around the rapids for the use of vessels
going up that stream, and the other should
be down the Hudson, probably through
Lake Champlain.
"Such a plan would give enormous
capacity to the canals and rivers, espe-
cially for the traffic down the St. Law
renee. gaining rapid speed down and avoid
ing all danger from collision both ways;
and two canals, thus arranged, would have
practically four times the capacity of one
canal.
s'There should be two canals around
Niagara Falls-irst. one via Lockpoct on
the American side with eight locks of 40
feet lift each, and then the enlargement
on the same plan of the Welland canal in
Canada.
''The cost would not be 80 great as has
been supposed-s23 100000 to make the
Lockport canal and locks and s27, 600, 900
to improve ST. Lawrence, all permanent
structures to be 26 feet deep.
A Half Dozen New Yorks.
ITO carry out these plans would make
Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, Superior and
Detroit to the country back of them what
New York and Boston are to the territory
in their rear.
"But the quickest and greatest benefits
would be to the great producing sections
of the West. The wheat fields of Argen-
tina, India, Egypt and Southern Russia
are comparatively close to ocean trans