INLAND WATERWAYS—CHISHOLM. 361 
the total length of 425 miles on this new route 307 miles would be 
made up of river and lake navigation needing no improvement to 
admit of its being navigated by vessels of 20 feet draft. A committee 
of the Dominion Parliament has. recommended the carrying out of 
the scheme and the adoption of a depth of 22 feet for the whole route. 
One drawback, however, is unavoidable on this proposed route. In 
consequence of its northerly situation, there would be only a very short 
season after harvest in which it would be free from ice. 
The United States waterway which continues to the seaboard the 
navigation of the Great Lakes is the Erie Canal with the Hudson 
River. This has the advantage of being connected with a much 
more important seaport than the St. Lawrence route, but, on the 
other hand, is much inferior as 
a waterway. It has at present & wNataralScale 17000000 222% "Stal miles 
depth of only 7 feet, and the af | MILWAUKEEL & 
maximum size of the barges 1 ISCONSIN 
which make use of it is only 
about 250 tons. In this case, ac- 
cordingly, we find that the rail- 
ways are able to compete with 
the waterway much more effect- 
ively than in Canada, even 
though the canal is maintained 
by the State entirely free from 
tolls. On this head, however, 
one instructive difference may be 
noted between the practice in 
Germany and that both of Can- 
ada and the United States. In 
these two countries the railways 
that compete with the waterways 
are all private undertakings. 
and do all they can to compete 
with their rivals in the most effective manner. The result is that 
of the total amount of grain carried to New York in 1905 about 
934 per cent was transported by rail as against some 6} per cent 
by water. In recent years, the actual quantity of goods of all 
kinds carried by the Erie Canal has greatly diminished—from a 
maximum of 4.6 million tons in 1880 to less than 2 millions in 
1904. And this was mainly made up of local traffic. The amount 
carried by the canal to tide water in that year was considerably 
less than one million tons. In 1880 all the canals of the State of 
New York carried rather more than 25 per cent of the total traffic 
of the State, in 1904 less than 5 per cent. In order to restore, if pos- 
sible, the efficiency of the waterways, the State is now spending about 
4 Bu 
7380u, 
SS 
Fic. 2.—Inland waterways of Illinois. 
