The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 17, 1920, Page 5

Bringing the Sea to the Northwest What the Projected Waterway From the Head of the Lakes to the Ocean ‘ Would Mean to the Inland Farmer BY A. B. GILBERT N A previous article for the Leader I showed how the farmers of the North- west had been losing their foreign market since 1900. The United States department of agriculture Year Book shows more than a 50 per cent loss of four great staples for 1910, as compared with the average yearly exports of these staples between 1897 and 1900. Artificial war conditions from 1915 on have stimulated exports of Northwest products,,but in our most feverish activity to feed Europe in 1917 and 1918 we did not eome within 75 per cent of the normal exports of wheat, beef, pork and corn between 1897 and 1900. Instead of keeping this war-time trade we shall in all probability drop back to that of 1910 or low- er. Rail haul to the seaboard has raised in cost to what appears a breaking point for our northwest- ern products. Producers, in fact, have no right to expect the consumers of the world to stand the expense of more than 500 miles of rail haul. What is more, longer hauls are unnecessary except tem- porarily. : Against the foreign trade of the Northwest is also the faet that England and France have acquir- ed great territories producing or capable of pro- ducing what we do. We can not blame the Eng- lish for favoring sources of supply which they di- rectly contrel, as well as countries like Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa, in which English capital is largely interested. The average Englishman probably looks on these other territo- ries as a means of escaping the American trusts and the consequent high costs. With our railroads turned back to the financiers and their profiteering guaranteed by the federal treasury and by higher and higher rates, with our government-owned ships being sold, with traffic being again congested at Atlantic ports, with ma- nopolies all along the line from the local elevator to the ship deck, the future of the Northwest would not be what one could honestly call bright were it not for two important factors—first, the rapid growth of the Nonpartisan league and of co-opera- tion, which together strike at handling monopolies, and, second, possibility of a Duluth-to-the-sea route. This map shows the railroad routes that now take western wheat, corn, beef and pork to the Atlantic seaboard by Iong and expensive railroad hauls which Jrevent our farmers from competing successfully with the rest of the world. The map shows, also, how near all the producing districts are to the Great Lakes. If the lake route is once opened without necessitating reloading of cargoes the bulk of the products of the Northwest can get to the lakes.with less than a 500-mile rail haul. PAGE FIVE . The latter is by no means the flight of engineer- ing imagination which many might think on hear- ing of it for the first time. Much of the work has already been done or is in process of being done. From the first four serious obstacles existed. Rap- ids between Lake Superior and Lake Huron; Ni- agara Falls; a stretch of rapids 70 miles below Ontario in the St. Lawrence; and more rapids necar Montreal. Montreal is a seaport. At a cost of more than $30,000,000 to our gov- ernment and Canada locks were built to allow ships to pass out of Lake Superior and novw this devel- opment. pays the original cost in every six weeks of operation during the summer, by saving more than that sum on the freight going through the locks as compared with rail haul around the lakes. In 1918 over 90,000,000 tons went through the Soo locks and the saving on it was not less than 10 cents a hundredweight, or $180,000,000. Most of this saving was for the steel trust on ore and coal and perhaps we have in this fact the reason why railroad interests did not prevent the building of these locks. CANADA ALREADY IMPROVING FAMOUS WELLAND CANAL The Niagara Falls barrier has already been part- - 1y overcome by Canada’s Welland canal. We have to say partly, because the Welland ecanal, with its 14- foot draft, allows only barges to pass. Unloading ships to barges and then again loading material onto ships would be a serious obstacle to commerce. But Canada, it seems, is more enterprising than we are. She is already engaged in making this canal capable of dropping ships 326 feet out of Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. The cost will besomething over $100,000,000. This leaves only the St. Lawrence rapids to be overcome and the engineering opinion seems to be that this is a smaller task than that of dropping the big boats out of Lake Erie, already undertaken. The method used to smooth out the rapids would be dams across the river at strategic points, with locks allowing the ships to pass around. Between the rapids the river is more a series of lakes than a river, with sufficient depth for the sea-going vessels. The surplus waterpower developed at these dams would, according to former Secretary™ of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, supply electric current to the value of $18,000,000 or more a year. The Mississippi river has been similarly dammed at Keokuk, Iowa, by private capital merely for the profit to be made on the current generated. A good deal has already been done for this St. Lawrence project. By our treaty with Canada and Great Britain, adopted in 1909, the two countries have a joint commission with jurisdiction over mat- ters of this kind. Our congress asked this com- mission to report on the possibility of opening the St. Lawrence in an act passed last year. Canada agreed that the matter should be looked into and asked for a conference on the questions to be sub- mitted for inquiry. Each government appointed a representative to draft the outlines of the inquiry. The commission is now ready to act and will hold hearirigs at lake ports and at interior points in both countries. In the meantime both governments have appoint- ed engineers to decide on the best way of doing the work, what it will cost, and what share each country should pay for. The commission will re- port within a year, and it will then be time for the legislatures of both countries to pass on whether the work should be done. Those who be- lieve in the undertaking, therefore, have a year in which to prepare the minds of our congressmen for favorable action. Perhaps it is not necessary to say that much preparation will be needed. The opposition will be similar to that which op- posed the digging of a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific in Central America, but it will be stronger. In that earlier political battle the op- position was the transcontinental railroads and it is the unfortunate fact that these roads, defeated in their first attempts, have been able to keep the canal from being used as it should be for trade between our two coasts and for the foreign trade arising west of the Rockies. A glance at the map along the lines which the products of the Northwest now travel to get to the sea will give one a good impression of the in- terests which would oppose the Duluth-to-the-sea project. First we see the railroads over which the Wall street financiers preside, interested in long (Continued on page 14) e A e A