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

T.
PARIS, FIance.-Nothing has avail.
ed TO check the increase of the cost
If living in France Bref Oh has
escaped the tendency EverythIrp else
considered, il costs at least 10 pr
cent more TO live in France t.eaT than
IL did three years ago. War, of course
is the first explanation, but econcmsc
eArerts declare that difficulties nf
transportation and high freigntS f,:-'h
the chief factors and that these di FL
CElties are due largely TO the failure
O. 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 Woodworking trade.
Opportunities Not Realized r.
Although some zoo 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, Havre
and other French Atlantic ports were
far behind them in trade with the two
Americas. The marvellous internal or
ganization of navigation and transpor-
tation in Belgium and Germany en-
abled them to drain toward their ports
nrlx oil he fro IF
Central europe though frightening the
route md 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 $1,000 tons to be ship
ped by its longer route to European
ports. In the same year Bordeaux re-
ceived and forwarded to Geneva only
$500 tons while Antwerp was a way
station for $4,000 tons going into Swift
zerland.
Bordeaux Importance Increases
The new necessities created by the
war, however, made Bordeaux the port
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
transportation.
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 to 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.