Inland Channels

Some day the country will undoubtedly dig itself an adequate steamer channel connecting the Atlantic with its inland seas, the Great Lakes. The midwestern farmer wants it badly so that he can pocket some of the freight now paid on his wheat between Minnesota and Liverpool. The alert eastern and midwestern city dweller wants it, for in another 25 years there will be some 40 million more people in the country to congest traffic and consume food. Routes. New York State has the makings of such a channel in its barge canal* connecting Lake Ontario (at Oswego) with the Hudson (above Albany). Partly because this canal has been a very expensive white elephant, partly because it would profit greatly from an increased volume of traffic through its heart, partly because it saw the nation's need, New York lately offered to turn its canal over to the Government and then put on political pressure to get the Government to accept. Army engineers were assigned to survey the cost and feasibility of widening, deepening and operating the canal.

Meantime, others have proposed that the U. S. persuade Canada to join in dredging out the St. Lawrence route to the sea. And a Buffalo lawyer, Millard F. Bowen, offered to form a public service corporation to dredge and operate the New York canal free of charge in return for certain waterpower rights. Mr. Bowen's offer received little attention, but debate on the New York v. the St. Lawrence route occupied much time in Washington committee rooms last fortnight, developed into a hot sectional fight, the Midwest turning out with surprising unanimity to favor the St. Lawrence route.

Arguments: The arguments presented by the New Yorkers were: 1) That the New York route would lie entirely within the U. S. 2) That U. S. ports, not Canadian ports, would profit by it. 3) That in time of war it would be valuable to the country to have the route entirely within our boundaries. 4) That it is more than 1,300 miles shorter as a route from the Great Lakes to the West Indies and South America. 5) That because it is more southerly it would be open for navigation from 30 to 45 days more a year.

The arguments against the New York route presented by the middlewesterners were: 1) That the St. Lawrence route is about 600 miles shorter on the way to northern Europe and about 200 miles shorter to southern Europe. 2) That there is no danger of war between the U. S. and Canada. 3) That the New York route is "up hill and .down dale," with 30 locks in 160 miles, not to mention some 80 bridges which would have to be elevated either permanently or when each vessel passed, whereas the St. Lawrence route would have only seven locks, no bridges and only 33 miles of "restricted" navigation. 4) That there might at times be shortages of water with which to operate the New York canal. 5) That the cost of the New York route is four times as great as that of the St. Lawrence route: $560,000,000 from Oswego to Manhattan plus some $125,000,000 to $155,000,000 for building a canal around Niagara Falls on the U. S. side in order to make the entire route stay in the U. S.--totaling perhaps $661,000,000--whereas the St. Lawrence development would cost only $253,000,000, of which $100,000,000 could be charged to water power development, and the remaining cost of $153,000,000 would be divided between the U. S. and Canada. Action. The Army engineers' report on the New York route was adverse on economic grounds. But last week two reports from higher experts in the War Department were favorable. Representative Dempsey (N. Y.), Chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee, had expected these reports to be favorable when he made ready, last week, to present to Congress the rivers and harbors appropriation bill. Tacked to this 40-million-dollar bill as a somewhat disproportionate rider was a provision, involving an ultimate expenditure of 600 millions, authorizing the New York project. House Leader Tilson gave Mr. Dempsey to understand that the bill would not be heard in that form. Mr. Dempsey retorted that it would be heard thus or not at all. Both visited the President, who was preserving strict neutrality in the controversy. Mr. Dempsey threatened to withhold his entire appropriations bill, but finally consented to ask only the cost ($500,000) of a Federal survey in New York.

*In 1785, while waiting for Congress to demobilize the Continental army, George Washington made a tour of inspection of New York waterways, laid out a route for a canal linking the western frontier with the Atlantic seaboard. In 1817-25. Governor De Witt Clinton of New York dug the Erie Canal ("Clinton's Ditch") from Troy to Buffalo. It was later found that his engineers had followed, inch for inch, the Washington route. More lately, the Erie Canal has been modernized as far west as Syracuse, where it joins the Oswego Canal to form the main New York State Barge Canal.