The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-05

New York. July 4--( (SpeciaL)- time in the early fall a meeting is to be held whose membership is to be made up of citizens. both of the United States and Canada, who are in favor of making a waterway cap able of floating the largest vessels and esta ablishing Chicago, Toledo, Cleve- land and other lake ports as true ocean ports. The project has been in contemplation for long time. lt has. however. received little support in the United States. and might not now receive any were it not for the demonstration made during the war of the need of perfeeting our naviga- ble waters, especially the Mississippi, and the ocean way from the Great I Lakes.
 l Some years ago an organization was formed for the purpose of agitating in | favor of deep water canal stretch ing from a point on Lake Erie below l Buffalo to the new barge canal some miles east of Buffalo. The project was feasible. but did not seem to al i tract capital In the west the great | est interest until recently was cen | tered in the construction of a deer
 water canal whose eastern termina. was to be at Chicago. and whose west ern at some point upon the Missis- | sippi river. Construction of that kind Is certain, for already the Mississippi has shown it's capacity for transporting i of slow moving freight from the up. | per reaches of that river to New Or
 leans Ultimately much ocean going commerce which originates in the Mis- 1 sissippi valley will be floated down the l Mississippi and at New Orleans trans
 ferred to larger vessels.
 But aside from the original cor
 struction of the Erie canal and its
 more recent enlargement so that fl
 is now capable of floating barges oi 1 9 thousand-ton capacity. and alsi aside from the contemplated building
 of an inter coastal canal in accord.
 ance with the plan first suggested I by John c. Calhoun a hundred years ago. whereby vessels could be floated
 from Boston by intersor waters to the Gulf of Mexico the proposed construc- struction of true ship canal witt
 the navigable capacity of the Suez ant Panama canals, is the greatest prop.
 osition of that kind ever made In
 this country.
 1 There are some objectors. If cap1- | tai can be found and if government cooperation is assured, both in Can ada and the United States. then nc
 reason exists why a true ship cana cannot be constructed from Lake Fri port upon the Canadian side, around I
 St. Lawrence river. That river is O. itself with the adequate canaliza- | tion in certain places around the | rapids, one of the great commerce
 bearers of the world. Unlike the Pan anna and Suez canals however, it ca1 be navigated for only six months 0 the year. Ice closes these northerl! canals. Fasible as the project seem to be- nevertheless. it is meeting witt some objection. The wonder is wheth CT it is inspired by the railroad com panies. That objection might hay
 been justified few years ago. Bu it is expected that it can no longe
 reasonably be maintained The raj
 road companies have discovered tha
 water navigation, whether by navi
 gable streams or canals can be mad
 to supplement railroad transportatio and there need be no competitor: Furthermore. if is certain that yer
 great traffic will be offered by and bs
 both to the railroads and to the ship
 that navigate the waters. The rail
 roads did practically destroy the com
 merce of the Mississippi river, but c
 lato it has been discovered that thi
 river is capable of floating barge
 heavily laden carrying slow movin freight throughout it's entire lengt and has already become again an i'm . portant method by which the transpor 7 tation of the commodities of the Mis : sissippi valley. up and down stream can be secured.
 THE GREAT SHIP CANAL
 The engineers say that really ther are difficult engineering problems l overcome in order to construct a tru 1, ship canal which will connect the wal f CTS of the Great Lakes with the s