

THE CANALS OF Fk \.\CF 



on French soil, two years before the 

 French Revolution, you \vill not won- 

 der that he add- the following expres- 

 sion of his sentiments: "Such an em- 

 ployment <>f the revenue- of a great 

 kingdom is the only laudable way of 

 a monarch's acquiring immortality." 

 This in any case may he noted by you 

 all who are interested in waterway.-: 

 you see from this trustworthy author- 

 ity that canal-digging is the best way 

 to immortality. 



\Yhen the Revolution came we had 

 about i.ooo kilometers of canals. Na- 

 poleon had great plans for this as for 

 everything else, but they were not ful- 

 filled, the reason being that, as you 

 know, he had so many things to do. 

 He built only 200 kilometers. Since 

 then there have been two palmy pe- 

 riods for canals in France, first dur- 

 ing the Restoration and the reign of 

 Louis-Phillippe, and then the present 

 time. The canals learnt in the inter- 

 val what a crisis was. The Second 

 Empire was the period when an im- 

 mense impetus was given to railroad 

 building. Canals and railroads do not 

 like each other ; their manners are too 

 different. People who go quickly 

 have a tendency to scorn people who 

 go slowly ; and yet both kinds are use- 

 ful, and we know besides, by the fa- 

 ble of the hare and the tortoise, that 

 it is sometimes the fastest who arrives 

 last. Anyhow, the craze for railroads 

 rose so high at one time that there 

 were petitions for the drying out of a 

 canal, in order to use its bed as a rail- 

 road track ; but the canal survived and 

 i- -till in use. 



The greatest era of canal building in 

 France has been the present period. 

 One of the first things the present Re- 

 public did was to turn her attention to 

 the problem ; and the system now in 

 force, started in 1874. was fully or- 

 ganized by the great law of 187'). 

 The aim has been a thoroughly prac- 

 tical and logical one: to complete, to 

 unify, to cheapen. Most of the older 

 canals had been built by contractors 

 who recouped themselves by levying 

 a tax on -hipping. All those conces- 



ms have been purcha-ed back by the 

 State and now. on the imnien-e i ( 

 jority <>l" our waterway-, then- an- no 

 payment-. Some new creation-, which 

 were considered urgent, hav I" 

 made of late year- by the State with 

 the help of the chambers of commer 

 the town- and the department- who 

 wanted them. The-e had to i- 

 loans, and they levy taxe- to be able 

 to pay the interests; but this i- mer< 

 a temporary shift bearing on one- 

 eighteenth only of the whole, and the 

 rule is to have throughout the country 

 free canals as we have free road-. 



Another great work done by the 

 Republic has been the unifying of all 

 the waterway-: depth, breadth of the- 

 canals, distance between the locks, 

 have been made uniform throughout 

 the country, so that our thirty or forty 

 canals, built at different periods, in 

 the course of centurie.-. are now as 

 one single canal conveying good- to all 

 parts of France and to all her principal 

 seaports. 



Owing to the recent great effort 

 made by the Republic, our canals' to- 

 tal length is now 4.075 kilometer- ; 

 the total expense has been about two 

 billion francs, and far from con-ider 

 ing that it is too much we know quite 

 well that it is not enough, and we a-id 

 new sums from time to time. Many 

 improvements were decided upon in 

 1903 and our parliament voted over 

 two hundred million franc- to pro- 

 vide for them. To which sum- should 

 be added others supplied by local mu- 

 nicipalities or other bodies, the Hoiiai 

 Chamber of Commerce, for example, 

 contributing thirtv million franc- 

 above what the State i- giving for the 

 Canal du Xord. 



< 'ur canal- are under State -uper- 

 vi-ioii : they are built and kept up by 

 State engineer-, taught in our -pecial 

 high schools, and forming part of the 

 personnel of the Mini-try of 1'ublic 

 Works. 



The happy effect of the law- v>tcd 

 -ince the e-tabli-hment of the Repub- 

 lic was not long in making it-elf felt: 

 during the twentv-five \ear- between 



