Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1916-12-21
IBy Associated Prsssl

PARIS, France.-Nothing has avail
ed to check thu increase Of the cost
If living in France. Bret q nsfS has
escaped the tendency Ever IAlER clse
considered il costs at least T5 PSF
cent more to live In France tl6aT than
IL did three years ago. War, of course
is the first explanation, but econCm.c
eAIerts declare that difficulties nf
transportation and high freign:s ,f:-m
the chief factors and that these diff
OLlties are due largely to the failurt
q the government to have ever car
lied out the projects for interior nav
igation which were urged by de Frey
cinet, Baudin and Audiffred years ago
In the opinion oil these same economic
authorities the failure of France TO
realize these canal projects has been
responsible for her anomalous posi-
ton in the wOrld-carrying trade
Opportunities Not Realized - T.
Although some 200 to 500 miles near,
er America and from 200 to 1000 miles
nearer the extreme Oriental markets
than Antwerp or Hamburg, the French
Port of Marseilles before the war was
surpassed by those Belgian. and Ger
man ports in Central European trade
to the Orient, while Bordeaux, Hayre
and other French Atlantic ports were
far behind them in trade with the two
Americas. The marvellous internal or
ganization of navigation and transport
tation in Belgium and Germany en-
abled them to drain toward their ports |
nearly all the foreign bound traffic of /
Central europe though frightening the !
route and increasing the time of de-
livery. @
Geneva, for instance, is further from
Antwerp than it is from Bordeaux, yet |
in 1912 Bordeaux received almost |
nothing from Switzerland while Ant |
werp received 81 900 tons to be ship
ped by its longer route to European
ports. In the same year Bordeaux re-
ceived and forwarded to Geneva only /
1900 tons while Antwerp was a way
station for $4,000 tons going into Swift
Zerland. .t.>
Bordeaux Importance Increases
The new necessities created by the
war, however, made Bordeaux the port /
for $4,000 tons of cotton and grain
and other commodities en- route for
Switzerland in 1915. Economic au-
thorities argue that with proper ia
cilities four years ago Bordeaux would
have received a lions share of the
$4,000 tons of ingoing and outgoing
Swiss traffic in 1912.
The question is one of the Rhine
against the Rhone so far as concerns
Central European traffic for which
Switzerland acts as sort of turn
table" and with it are connected inti-
mately the long-discussed projects Of
the Rhone canal, the canal from Mar
settles TO the Rhone, and the canal
from the Rhone to the Gironde with
Marseilles and Bordeaux as the ter
mini.
De Freycinet and other far-seeing
statesmen who elaborated these canal
projects, fell from power before they
were realized, but economic authori-
ties believe that the era of recon.
struction after the war will see France
turning first of all in the matter of
public improvement, to the question of
TWO Projects Highly Important
Two of the most important pro-
jected waterways remain to be built;
one of them lateral to the Rhone will
continue the system from HaVre and
Paris 20 Marseilles by way of Lyons
and will enable the Rhone to compete
with the Rhine for Swiss trade to the
Mediterranean: another connecting
the Rhone with the Dordogne-that Is
to say, connecting. Lyons and Mar
settles with Bordeaux-will give Swift
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE