INLAND WATERWAYS—CHISHOLM. 359 
So far we have considered only the really effective waterways of 
Germany, but some of the minor ones are also worthy of attention. 
For example, there is the celebrated Ludwig’s Canal, a waterway 5 
feet deep, connecting, with the aid of other waterways, the Rhine and 
the Danube. What does it do? It carries on a trifling and dwin- 
dling amount of traffic, chiefly centered, as is natural, at Nuremberg, 
where, in 1905, the total quantity of goods received and dispatched 
by it in both directions was much under 50,000 tons. At Kelheim 
this canal passed into the Danube 4,637 tons of goods, chiefly timber ; 
from the Danube toward the Main, 676 tons. Then there is the Ruhr, 
which flows through the great German coal field to the Rhine, and 
ean take barges of 165 tons—that is much larger than the great 
majority of English waterways. In this case it is worth while not- 
ing what it once did, as well as what it now does. In 1860 it carried 
in all 900,000 tons of goods, of which coal made up 868,000 tons. In 
1905 it carried 1,431 tons of stone downstream, and nothing up. 
The result was due to railway competition, which comes under the 
ninth of the geographical considerations above enumerated as affect- 
ing the utility of waterways. And now it may be remembered that 
this is a subject on which, I have intimated, something remained to 
be said in connection with the traffic on the Rhine. That traffic is 
carried on against a good deal of railway competition. In the nar- 
rower part of the Rhine valley there is a double line of railway on 
either bank of the river, and there are more railways running in the 
same direction higher up. But the competition is not equal, I mean 
not based solely on the merits of the two methods of transport. For, 
in the first place, the German state railways are admittedly not 
worked on the principle of-offering the most effective opposition pos- 
sible to the waterways; and, on the other hand, the states adjoining 
the Rhine have spent some £8,000,000 in bringing the navigation of 
the river to its present condition, and have handed over the river to 
the shippers free of toll. And yet even under these conditions some 
of the shipping companies in a recent period had very bad times. In 
1902 eight out of nineteen companies paid no dividend. In 1903 four 
paid none. Under the recent act for the improvement of the waters 
it is declared that when those improvements are carried out, or rather 
when the Rhine-Weser Canal or a section of it has been brought into 
operation, all those rivers on which the state has spent money in the 
interest of the navigation shall be subjected to such tolls as shall 
serve to pay a suitable rate of interest on the outlay and something 
toward the amortization of that outlay. This enactment has caused 
many of those who insist most stoutly on the advantages of water 
transport to cry out with dismay that the rivers will not be able to 
stand such a burden. “ For the human soul,” says George Eliot, “ is 
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