The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-01-09
FOR A JERSEY SHIP CANAL
Philadelphians Want a Wat
erWay Between the Del
aware and Raritan.
ARGUMENT FOR THE Big DITCH
Experts Advocate Widening
and Deepening the Pres
ent Route.

NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 1S99.-Strong argu-
ments in favor of a ship canal across New
Jersey to connect the Delaware and Rari-
tan Rivers were made by Professor Lewis
M Haupt and Thomas Martindale, of
Philadelphia. before the New York State
Commerce Commission Saturday. Phila-
delphia has appropriated $4,000 for the
preliminary survey, and it is purposed to
use the Delaware and Raritan Canal and
the swamps in its construction.
Professor Haupf was formerly a mem
Der of the Nicaragua Canal Commission
He deprecated the feeling of local jeal-
ousy and sectionalism which some people
entertained, arguing that they were all
bound together by common interest. Do
nestle commerce is a feeder of foreign
commerce. he said, and in Philadelphia
seventy-five per cent Of the is
domestic and twenty-five per cent. foreign.
He commended that the day of canals and
canalized waters is not yet past. This is
shown not only by the fact that the cost
of canal transportation is only about one
third of the cost of rail transportation,
but by the examples of Germany, France,
Belgium and other foreign countries in
developing their canals.
1t might be asked, said he, why these
canals should be built along the coast
when there is the great free ocean. The
answer is hat the ocean wa non-pro-
ductive of traffic. Centres of population
are the sources of business, and sixty
seven per cent. of the country's popula-
ton is collected on her waterways. He
quoted General r. J.. Wister to the effect
that in 1870 tha .naIo vrora oaI Dor;+oy,
Canal had a greater traffic than the for
eign of New York.
One of the disadvantages of the pres
ent situation, he said, is that Philadel-
phia, Baltimore and other ports are at
the heads of estuaries generally opening
southwark. Thus a vessel leaving Phila-
delphia has to go 103 miles and leaving
Baltimore It's miles to reach open water.
In the case of a vessel bound from Phila-
delphia for New York it has to sail about
go miles to reach a city ninety miles
away.
Taking up the subject of the relation
of draught to tonnage, he showed from
actual experience that a given canal ten
feet deep could accommodate only three
per cent. of the available traffic. Fifteen
feet would accommodate seventeen per
cent. more, and twenty feet ffty-six per
cent. more, so that a canal twenty feet
deep would accommodate about seventy
five per cent. of the available traffic.
The canals are being bought up by rail
roads to prevent competition, he said,
which is not only unpatriotic, but short
sighted. Paradoxical as it might seem,
deep draught waterways are a benefit to
the railroads. he declared, as they permit
the economical transportation of raw ma
t~erials, which encourages and builds up
manufacture, and in turn give more
traffic to the railroads. 1t is the high
class, short haul traffic that benefits the
railroads.
He read a letter from Chauncey M. De-
pew, written in 1896, in which Mr.. Depew
Erie Canal was a benefit to the New York
Central Railroad and had always promot-
ed it's development. President Van Horne
of the Canadian Pacific, was also quoted
the Pennsylvania Railroad canals is also
in thorough accord with that idea.
He went on to show how Interstate
Commerce is restricted as much by tolls
as physical obstacles. Philadelphia, he
said. is surrounded by toll gates; and he
complained of the acquisition of canals
by railroads. which had resulted in rais-
ing the rate on coal from between seventy
and ninety cents a ton (the former canal
rate) to the railroad rate of $l.70 a ton.
The railroads of the country are making
a ve=y determined effort to control the
canals of the country for a like purpose,
he said.
to the New Jersey law which permits
canals to be built provided they are not
more than three miles long and a hun
bred feet wide, pass through no cities
and do not go over or under a railroad.
This was cited as one of the obstacles to
canal development that must be over