The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-02-03

A question of time before the full in- land passage scheme will be adopted by the Federal government for the sake or self-protection, if for no other reason.
 Canada Has Canal Cra<e.
 Aside from the Cape Cod project, the most costly tidewater enterprise Tn contemplation is that of building the Georgian Bay and Tidewater Ship Ca- nal from Lake Huron across the penin- suia to the Ottawa river and down that to the St. Lawrence river. Canada has always fought railroads with canals. In that way she has made the St. Law renee a mighty tributary to her pros perity.
 This new scheme Is to allow boats from the Great Lakes to avoid Lakes Erie and Ontario in their passage to the sea and thus divert largely the grain trade of the Northwest from the United States: The scheme will cost more than $100. 100000, and its details are under consideration by the Cana dian government.
 The other great canals now in use in this country are the two at Sault Ste. Marie, the St. Clair Canal and the Well land Canal, all of which furnish an outlet from Lake Superior to the St. Lawrence. The Georgian Bay enter prise will shorten that distance by sev- eral hundred miles.
 Another scheme along the same lines is to build a canal from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, near Toronto. This is a shorter project but 1t will probably not be undertaken if the Otowa river scheme is adopted, although 1t may come later if that canal should prove profitable and there Is room fol both. Mississippi and the Lakes.
 Nearly all the other canal projects a-a H. country have to do with the Mississip- pi Valley region. Washington first orig mated this scheme. He wanted to run a canal from the Chesapeake across to Pittsburg and then dig another to Ash tabula.
 The idea was given up because of the great cost. He also wanted to connect the Mississippi with the Great Lakes, a feat which has been accomplished and which Is to be developed probably at great cost.
 Chicago has already built a great ca nal of more than forty miles to dis charge the city's sewerage into the Mississippi. It Is planned to extend. it to St. Louis.
 Meantime a canal has been construct ed seven feet in depth from Hennepin, H.. to the Rock River, running along that stream to the Mississippi at Rock Island. It Is the most pretentious bit | of canal building that this country has seen in recent years. It solves the prob lem Of navigation from the lake to the Mississippi
 &1.OOO, 100000 for Canals. The other plans to connect the lakes with the Mississippi region all center about Pittsburg. The first is to build the canal from Ashtabula, a distance of 180 miles. Its cost will run we'll up to $lO0.000.O00, but it is argued that 1t will so reduce the cost of manufacture of steel products in Pittsburg as to give new life to the already prosperous in- 1 dUstries there.
 The second project is to connect Lake Erie with the Ohio by canal 346 miles long, from Toledo to Cincinnati. That
 will not benefit Pittsburg as much as the Ashtabula Canal, but it will form another link in opening the Great Lakes to navigation to the Gulf, and. fl Is argued, the entire region will be ben l efted.
 All the great navigable stream trIh- utary to the Mississippi are being im- proved by deepening the channels which really amounts to the promotion of canal navigation. and when the gen. , eral scheme of improving these high ways of commerce is finished 1t is os- timated that more than 1000 miles oi inland water transportation for freight in bulk will be added to the country's facilities.
 Another canal in contemplation Is a little one across the end of Michigan peninsula, in Lake Superior, and stil another that has been suggested Is across Eastern Massachusetts from Narragansett Bay to Boston. The lat
 ter, however. Is likely to remain in abeyance until the Cape Goa experiment Is worked out.
 Altogether, counting in the Panama