12 Conservative *
SHIP CANALS AND DEEP WATERWAYS
To THE EDITOH OF THE CONSERVATIVE :
I was much pleased to see in the last
issue of TIIE CONSERVATIVE that your
attention hnd been drawn to the subject
of ship canals and deep waterways. The
editor of THE CONSERVATIVE may not
have forgotten that four years ago ,
while ho was Secretary of the Depart
ment of Agriculture in the cabinet of
President Cleveland , I sent , in his care ,
to bo submitted to the President , a paper ,
I will call it a brief , upon this great
subject. It was in the nature of a
petition requesting him to go to Congress
and the country with a special message
recommending such aid as might be
required to build a ship canal and deep
waterways , to provide cheap transporta
tion between the Atlantic seaboard and
the base of the Rocky Mountains. The
country at that time was in a condition
of wide-spread , universal distress from
the panic of 1893. I saw in the under
taking of such a great national work , or
thought I saw in it , an immediate
restoration of confidence and the employment
I
ployment of vast volumes of skilled and
unskilled labor that would have brought
comfort and peace to suffering millions
of men , women and children all over
our stricken laud. I was absolutely
sure that I saw in it then , as I think I
see in it now , the greatest step for
national advancement and develop
ment in population and wealth that is
possible in this generation. As a measure
of peace it would divert the minds of
men from war and insure internal peace
and prosperity for at least fifty years.
If this great national work had been in
augurated in 1895 , such a colossal crime
upon a friendly nation as the Spanish
war , and that which is still going on ,
which the President bought for twenty
millions spot cosh , and which is now
costing a million a day and thousands of
lives , would never have been commit
ted.
The editor of THE CONSERVATIVE
may remember the bare outline which
was contained in the paper to which
reference has been mado. It was about
as follows :
1. The federal government to pledge
the national credit by an issue of $500-
000,000 , or $1,000,000,000 if necessary , to
build a national system of deep water
ways , this system to consist of a ship
canal via the St. Lawrence river and
Lake Ohamplain to broadwater naviga
tion on the Hudson river to secure all-
water transportation from the estuaries
and harbor of New York to Lake Michi
gan and Chicago.
2. The immediate completion of the
Hennopin canal , already authorized by
congress , to connect that great inland
sea with the Mississippi river as men
tioned by THE CONSERVATIVE.
3. A deep waterway from the Mis
sissippi river across Iowa on or near the
imperial parallel of 41) , to the Missouri
river.
4. A similar deep waterway from the
Missouri river through the Platte valley
from which , every ten miles , electrical
power could be taken from the Platte
river for propelling all sorts of water
craft , to the foothills of the Rocky
Mountains.
5. Supplementing this great central
waterway , I would have a system of
lateral canals built by state authority
and state aid , supported by the national
credit , if necessary , for which , as for
the broader waterway , the perennial
streams which flow from north to south
in our two sister states * furnish ample
water the whole system being under
federal control and supervision , low
tolls to be levied for maintenance of
and operation and payment of interest
on bonds for ten years , no tolls for
revenue for all time afterwards , water
transportation being practically free.
I venture to say that the president of
the United States who marks his public
service with a plain initiative of his
own with such a mark will live forever
in the grateful memory of his country
men. I venture to say that , if Grover
Cleveland in 1893 had secured the in
auguration of this great national en
terprise , he would have been re-nomina
ted and re-elected in 1896 , and would
have handed himself down to posterity
in the history of his country as De Witt
Clinton has come down to us for build
ing the Erie canal.
"The cost is too great , " said the late
Charles A. Dana , with a few pungent
words of dissent , when he kindly noticed
the outline I gave him of the national
highways. Ho did not wish to buy
peace and order when the perils of dis
content and disorder alarmed the coun
try. And yet , before the utterly cause
less and wicked war with Spain , and the
one that we have bought the two wars
have been continuous and are one is
ended , we shall have expended in
destroying thousands of innocent
human lives and countless millions of
property in this country and the Philip
pines , more than twice the amount of
money which it would cost to build this
great national work of peace.
But , it is objected that such a system
of cheap transportation would hurt the
railroads. The ready answer is that it
would help the railroads by the upbuild
ing of innumerable towns and industrial
centres along these canals as the Erie
canal has helped the New York Central
railroad between Albany and Buffalo.
If New York state can favor the ex
penditure of $60,000,000 for the enlarge
ment of the Erie canal , could not this
great nation pledge its credit for $500-
000,000 , fora great measure of assured
prosperity and progress for the whole
country ? If the nation could destroy
$5,000,000,000 of property , a million
priceless human lives and spend $4,000-
000,000 in war to save the union , would
such a nation feel it as a serious burden
to expend $500,000,000 , for a work full
of blessings and benefits to all the
people of the country ?
The safe basis for this enterprise rests
upon the simple and indisputable fact
that the transportation of freight by
water from the great producing west to
the seaboard can be done for one-third
less cost than it can be by railroads.
The enormous saving which such a
measure would bring to the buying and
selling and conserving millions is so great
as to be almost beyond human estimate.
Let it not be forgotten that China , for
a thousand years , has made possible the
support of hundreds of millions of
educated and refined people by the
agency of internal canals and water
ways.
GEORGE L. MILLER.
Omaha , Neb. , Feb. 20 , 1900.
THK SHIP SUMSIDY.
Speech of John 1M. Forbes on the
Ship Subsidy Question.
"Fifty years ago Great Britain was
protecting her shipbuilders , not so much
by national legislation as by permitting
a system of guilds which undertook to
regulate not only the rates of wages
paid for work on ships , but the number
of apprentices a shipbuilder might use ,
and every other detail of his business ,
and of course endeavored by combina
tion to fix. the selling price of vessels.
American shipbuilders were free and
unprotected , and their maritime genius ,
exercised freely , enabled them , in spite
of high rates of interest and high prices
of iron and hemp , to lead the world in
foreign commerce , carrying English
goods from England to the East , cover
ing the Eastern seas with their flags ,
and doing absolutely the whole packet
business between England and America :
so that nobody , however bigoted his ad
miration of the mother country , ever
dreamed of trusting himself to any but
an American packet ship on the Atlan
tic. Steam , and later iron , helped to
change the condition of shipbuilding ;
but while emancipation from guilds and
other paternal restrictions has brought
the British islands up in the scale , our
fatal hallucination in regard to protec
tion has weighed around our necks and
landed us on the same shoals from
which our competitors had escaped. The
war , with itd Confederate cruisers ,
formed one element , but the pervading
influence of the Goddess of Protection
has been the continuing cause of our
downward career , and now the costly
experiment of bounties and subsidies
will be urged , and perhaps accepted , by
those patriots who wish to keep our
taxes high , before we can emerge from
the dead sea in which we have become
embayed.
"The laws of trade are immutable ,
and so long as our people set them at