Evening star., 1920-02-08

| annual Faln1aiiS. threatens the
city. back fushes the sewers and
! causes streets to sink. transforms
/ suburbs to lakes. Interrupts com
nerce and industry. siachs wages
profits and provisioning and does
| actual damage of destruction-the
sums total of all. whicll, year in,
year out. are more expensive than
| the amortisation Cor sinking fund.-
of first-class public works.
Therefore. would you be surprised
to see freight ships from China,
South America and Europe steam
straight up through the middle of
the United States as far as Louisville.
Cleveland. Pittsburgh. st. Louis and
Kansas City'
Second-class public works are
mostly makeslifts
This is what we hear in Paris.
Their particularly is to sink 4 lot
IF money, then more money. withoIt
profitable return on their cost. merely
20 accomplish an object. Such would
be the drainage projects of the upper
Seine, Marine, Yonne. Grand NORM
and other tributaries to insure Paris
against her annual floods.
Paris port de mer-Paris sea
ports very different story. 1t
makes Paris safe, gratis, as mere
by-product, elegantly utilizing the
flood waters TO bring the ships OF
Tarshish to her sons.
For forty years before the war the
city of Rouen blocked this great en-
terprise--bcat powerful Paris diplo-
natically il continuous performance
built her stone bridge and other
ridges and grew rich beyond the
'reams of avarice by merely trans.
serring the vast freight business Of
"aris from the railroad and river
Narges to the ocean freighters which
: ?ouen accommodated in her river
.ocks, eighty miles inland.
But Paris herself is only 155 miles
| 'lrther inland. on the same river
| is.ne. twenty miles of which can be
Naturally P2ris has long desired
% deepen, bank and lock the Seine
rom Rouen To Paris in order that
hose same deep sea freight ships
nay come UP and load and unload
al that Paris freight direct.
Long ago. in the forties. Havre
tr:ed the same obstruction on Rouen,
Havre being real seaport at the
Mouth of this river Seine and Rouen
hose eighty miles inland along 1t.
But Rouen cried out against the
N'ockinfr of navigable river. Then
4ayre dug the Tancarville canal by
which big Norman barges OF 900 tons.
drawing seven feet of water ana
costing (then) $4,000 apiece to build'
took Paris railroad freights at a
point fifteen miles above HaVre ana
Iightered it up to the very SIDES OF
ocean ships in Havre basins ii was
Stick end cheap. :.
Rouen's reply was world lesson IN
favor of inland seaports and against
mere barge transshipment, neveTthe-
less. Rouen began her wonderful I'M
movement of the river to the sea IN
IS46. At that moment ships drawing
not more than ten and half feet took
from eight to ten days to go up. IN
1913, after expenses aggregating sos.-
900 900. from Rouen to HaVre, shlps
drawing twenty-one feet We're eolhs
IN with the tide from the sea and ar
riving in eight hours. And. long be
fore that the Tancarville barges were
abandoned in favor of Roucn. the IN
land seaport, nearer Paris faris
freights sought the deep sea shlps
least distant from Paris. And Rouen.
without hinterland of her own. mere
ly existing on Paris freiGhts. became
the second port of all France, already
insufficient before the war--and to-
day embarrasslngly insufficient. Why,
at this hour there is cloGgcd. in and
outside Rouen, lost, perishing by de-
lay. eating up it's value in charges.
counter claims and deterioration,
sum total in merchandise, from coal
to silk stockings. which is causing
such distress, such annoyance, such
losses of wages profits and Partisan
prestige that the proud capital can
stand it no longer.
Il
Rouen herself objects TO longer.
There is enough for both. the war
has softened hearts and taught great
lessons. The French idea of invest
ments has changed. The most thrifty
and economical people in the world
the richest per capita, with riches the
most evenly distributed-is firing of
it's former specially of lending gold
to every foreign government. The
French people neglected their own
Industrial development to hoard for
eign bonds. 1t helped the allies
finances notably. But their adventure
with Russian bonds has given them a
shock. Henceforth they see the beau
ty Of home investments.
In the Seine, at Paris, half dozen
small tramp steamers are unloading
Welsh coal They come uo the river
straight out of the ocean; they pass
and leave behind them all transship-
Welsh coal direct in Paris.
Never-ending crowds stand looking
at them.
They are the greatest object lesson
since the war.
Everybody is talking about ship
ping and freights.
The Americans who knew the River
Loire from st. NaZaire to Nantes
never ceased to dream of ship canals
and making rivers navigaole from the
sea.
when Omaha shall be an ocean
I even heard that phrase,
"on to the gulf" said boys from
Cincinnati.
est. Paul will be loading deep-sea
Ships
"Why not Topeka"
| "Louisville's ahead"
SO they argued in their leisure at
| Tours
! From the lakes to the gulf,' was
I the watchword Of boys from Detroit
| Chicago. Buffalo and Cleveland. Each
seemed earnestly devoted to the
deepening. banking. Strengthening
and .'remaking" of the Mississippi.
Missouri. Ohio and other rivers or
| the extension of some ship canal to
| one of them. Each had been struck
by similar great works which he had
seen on the nifty crusade of the
A. f. F. CThe boys have been all
overD
Look a the inland town OF Nantes.
right here in France, without go
ing further" said a Detroiter. ocean
ships cross farms. fields. towns and
villages TO load at its factories.
MOSTLY il was unloading) They
build ships at Nantes. Local capital,
a little before the war. dug forty
miles of channel for ships drawin =
twenty-five feet at cost of $4,000
I
dredging deeper right through the
war up to twenty-four feet and