The daily sentinel., 1908-05-14
HILL SOUNDS
THE WARNING

tCOntnued from nrSt paSe.)
times what it was in 1890. The
traffic passing st. Mary's locks rose
from a million and a quarter tons in
1880 to seven and half millions in
1889. and to forty-one and quar-
ter millions in 1906, an increase of
5000 per cent. This commerce on
the Great lakes has been made pos
sible by total congressional appro-
priations of less than a hundred mil
lion dollars.
The total appropriations made by
congress from the beginning to 1907
for the rivers of the Mississippi val
ley amount TO S20S, ,484. .720. This
seems to be a relatively large sum;
but when we consider that the United
States has spent during the past hun
dred years in regulating, improving
and extending our system of natural
waterways only u per cent of the
amount private capitalists have in
vested in the construction of rail
ways, our congressional appropria-
tions for the betterment of inland
navigation seem to have been con-
servatively small
The United States has as yet done
less than has been done by other
leading industrial and commercial
rivals in the development and use of
inland waterways, if we except-as
of course We ought-the chain of
Great Lakes which have no counter
part in any other country. Whether
it is desirable that the United States
should follow the example of France
and Germany as regards inland water
transportation is a question to which
the American people are now giving
serious thought. There can be moi
uncertainty as to the Importance of
the transportation services performed
by our coastwise shipping, and by
the fleet operated on the Great
Lakes. The coastwise and Great
Lakes traffic is rapidly growing; but
upon our canals and many of our
rivers traffic languishes or declines.
In no other country of the world
have rail transportation costs been
reduced to such low figure as in the
United States. In many other coun-
tries 1t has been found more econ
omical to do the heavier transporta
tion work by making large use of
waterways and to develop the rail-
way traffic more particularly with
reference to the speedy movement
and schedule delivery of parcels,
packages and geenral commodity
freight. Such an organization of the
business of transportation as has
been worked out in England, France
and Germany does not result in as
low average freight rates by rail as
prevail in the United States; but the
costs of wholesale and retail dis
tribution and of many manufacturing
activities are undoubtedly less than
they would be were the people of
Europe served almost entirely by
railroads and not by both railroads
"a nd lrxt n,G ~ Al
upon railroads, almost exclusively,
for the movement of bulky commod-
titles long distances even at low av-
erage rates, while we at the same
time neglect the development and
use of our inland waterways does
not necessarily mean that we have
organized our work Of production
and distribution in the most econ
omical manner. When conditions in
the United States approach more
closely those prevailing in Europe.
we shall find it increasingly desir-
able to provide ourselves both with
well-developed waterways and with
railroads more efficient than pres
ent conditions permit them to be in
the handling of package freight. We,
as well as Europe. will find it prof
liable to minimize capital and ware
housing costs.
The construction of canals and the
improvement of rivers in the United
States have progressed slowly, in
part at least, because the Federal
Government has in the past left to
the states the work of canal building.
and to some extent, the canalization
of rivers.
The states are manifestly incom-
petent to carry out the improvement
of our national waterways The |
great state of New York has the
financial ability and economic i'm
centive to reconstruct the Erie canal |
but its route is so clearly national
that the waterway should long since
have been taken over and enlarged
by the Federal Government.
The experience of our own coun-
try and of other nations shows CON
clusively that waterways should be
public ways-that their execution