The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-10
HE EUIUNE OF
 NEW ENGLAND From An Address By Mayor Fitzgerald of Boston.)


 l Mayor John F. Fitzgerald of Boston 1 gave the impression that the future of
 New England depended on the com | pletenesS with which this section 1 takes advantage of its present splen- l did opportunities, in a lecture deliv-
 cred under the auspices of the young mems lyceum- in the Chicopee City hall yesterday afternoon before about 1 800 people. The development of Con- necticut river navigation and of rail and water transportation in general, the improvements of educa tion, par tfcularly along the lines of manual training, and the cultivation of the South American markets for business purposes, were the things most nec- essary to secure the prosperity of the future, according to Mayor Fitzger- aid.
 Mayor Fitzgerald said in part: The pessin1istic attitude felt by New Eng flanders a few years ago relative to the future growth of their section of the country has been replaced of late by optimism. It has been found out by experience that the development of of the iron industry in the West has not cut down the field for our own industries Our cities are experience ing an L almost phenomenal srowth My Wealth1er and more populous than 1t eyer was before, despite the predic- part of the state that it was going to the 'tbow-wows.'' because I had been elected as it's mayor.
 But the growth of New England is just beginning. This fact is evident in the increased interest being taken in such projects the development of the port of Boston, the develop ment of the Merrimac and Taunton river waterways, and of your own Connecticut river navigation project. When you send your, men from this did to the rivers and harbors con- gress this past week. you are bound to succeed with a very few years. It is tune for you to succeed, for water much needed now. The reason why we are having five times as many in all Europe and why we are paying such outrageous prices for our staple articles that have to be shipped to us, is because the railroads are trying to take care of more traffic than they can possibly handle. They are rum ming their trains too close together. and at a cost which a prohibits pits low need 75,000 more miles of trackage than we have. It will cost s6,0O0, ,000.- 900 to built it, and with the railroads per cent, and with the foreign mon ey market frightened by the Balkan war. they simply cannot get the mon ey. This is no time for our govern l ment, with it's national debt of less l than billion dollars to hedge on the | issue of waterways improvements l
  miles of river transportation to our | rnisera b1y-Served trade.
 Nor is the demand for tranSporta- l tion facilities going to slacken with | the completion of the Panama canal. | We are going to need more and more inland transportation that our pro- | duets can reach the ocean and even tual1y take advantage of the new trade | routes furnished by the canal.
 We will need. too. more transporta- ton facilities on the sea. Our mer- Snf1 ay-rfe g per cent of our foreign commerce, must be developed. The government l is doing right to admit American ships to the canal free of tolls. The Ca nadian government has no cause for complaint, after the bad faith dis played by the Grand Trunk railroad. ileges which we grant to our ships in the canal which we built. AS re- gards inland transportation, we need that Grand Trunk line to Providence | not build it I going to do my best to induce the New Haven or some oth- CT road to com plete it. l.
 We need improvements in our edu- ca tlona1 methods in order to measure up to the full standards of our oppor- tunities- We must have less misfits, [, girls who cannot do the language work and the mathematics needed in the preparation for the professions must be given the kind of training they need. Our unslxilIed labor class Is made up mostly Of the American born, because the manual training ad- vantages of our schools have been so meager. The skilled labor Is being more and more monopolized by the foreigner because he has had In his 1 schools abroad the chance to learn the trade for which he is fitted. Bos- ton has perhaps the best manual l raining facilities in the country. But I Boston and the rest of New England i must train her citizens to do skilled I work If she is to realize the full prom ( Sc of her future.
 The building Of the Panama canal brings us into closer touch than ev- | 1T before with South America. and I New England must it herself to ob- ain an immensely larger share of the t rade of those growing neighbors of i ,urs than she now receives. We must t rain our business men to go after I he Spanish-American trade with the i spanish language, and with Spanish C methods The canal brings us nearer t o South America. and our own pro ected waterways development will ,ring us nearer to the canal Now Is . he time to lay the intellectual foun- : lations for the material prosperity which all these great works fereshad-