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Show 1 OUR INLAND 'SEACOAST Roosevelt's Canadian Speech Revives Hope for St. Lawrence Waterway, International Problem for 20 Years I oVk CANADA TO 0CP Q o .J"-. SDPtKltX V. CANAL f f U' P RY.ANB ONTARIO tfl)eTC5 f f fS T C- S WfllANDCAMAl jr2AlO.P t-f? yj i IC I C. J CANADA U S.0FFCRS V ' . V -J" To PtlMN r-' f TO 0AM THESflfc . 1 t.rj.:rOnrl I '7 INfEHNATIONAL C V 7 ' I US jfStaartrrrtcVi . oKTATV- Ra'oS S "- Wtt n f Arnwn Vl.ir fliiJ - 000,000 program. This latter concession con-cession is most certainly justified. Canals to Be Dredged. One part of the job consists principally prin-cipally of deepening channels. To-carry To-carry a 27-foot ship from Duluth to the sea, Canada would deepen her locks at Sault Sainte Marie and increase in-crease the depth of locks in the Wel-land Wel-land project. The United States would deepen the channel of the Detroit De-troit and St. Clair rivers between Lakes Huron and Erie. But the biggest job would be in the 183-mile stretch from Montreal to Lake Ontario, where those rapids are located. Here, four great dams, would be built to deepen the waters and generate power. Ships would run around the dams. An estimated estimat-ed 2,200,000 horsepower would be developed, half going to New York, the other half to Ontario. Therefore There-fore these commonwealths would pay a large part of the bill, New York being assessed $89,726,750 against $182,726,250 for the United States government. A large portion of Canada's expenditures ex-penditures would be chalked against Ontario, but the treaty has been arranged ar-ranged so that these outlays need not start until 1949. Nevertheless, it is from Ontario's Premier Mitchell Mitch-ell Hepburn that major objections to the waterway plan are coming. Three years ago he announced that his province would not abide by the Hoover treaty, which automatically died in the United States senate. Hepburn Fears for Railroads. Premier Hepburn's objections are valid enough. He refuses to take action on the waterway until Canada's Can-ada's railroads are in better shape. President Roosevelt's answer to this same problem is that improved communications have always worked to the benefit of all sections. Looking beyond the practical purposes pur-poses of lake navigation and power development, far-sighted idealists regard the project as but another step in welding North America into a continent of unified social and economic eco-nomic ambition. But the expenditure expendi-ture of $550,000,000 is no task for idealists. Prime Minister King has promised prom-ised to give the proposed treaty "careful study." Premier Hepburn shows no signs of weakening. Meanwhile, Mean-while, hard-pressed American railroads rail-roads will not stand idle when their already dubious future is jeopardized. jeopard-ized. It's beginning to look like the folks in Massena, N. Y., were right. The St. Lawrence waterway is coming, com-ing, but maybe we won't live to see it! Western Newspaper Union. Premier Mitchell Hepburn of Ontario, On-tario, the waterway's biggest foe, who refuses to consider it until Canada's Can-ada's railroad problem is solved. ferred to wait. Eastern objection grew, too, in the fear that commercial commer-cial life would be ruined. "Greatest Internal Improvement." But by the end of his term, Herbert Her-bert Hoover had drafted and won Canadian acceptance of a waterway treaty. He hailed the project as the "greatest internal improvement yet undertaken on the North American continent." Canadian officials had good reason to sign it enthusiastically; enthusiasti-cally; the Hoover plan gave Canadian Cana-dian labor and materials much more than a proportionate share. This helped win the senate's disfavor, dis-favor, however, as did another stipulation stip-ulation in the treaty forbidding Chicago Chi-cago from diverting Lake Michigan's Michi-gan's waters. Almost overnight had arisen a rival plan to deepen the Mississippi for a Lakes-to-Gulf waterway, wa-terway, requiring water from Lake Michigan. Both Illinois senators voted against the treaty, which failed by a scant dozen votes. For the past year and a half President Pres-ident Roosevelt has worked actively to revive it, climaxing these efforts with the new proposal drafted last spring, by Secretary Hull. In fairness fair-ness to Herbert Hoover, it must be admitted that his plan was no more considerate of Canada than the Roosevelt idea, which would allow our northern neighbor to delay another an-other 11 years in starting her part of the construction. Canada would also be given credit for the $128,000,-000 $128,000,-000 she has just spent, on the Wel-land Wel-land canal, in her half of the $550,- By JOSEPH W. LaBINE Franklin Roosevelt's mind wandered wan-dered away from his neatly typed manuscript. Out front stood several thousand people come to hear him dedicate the Thousand Islands bridge near Ivy Lea, Ontario. Beside Be-side him sat Canadian Prime Minister Min-ister Mackenzie King. But the President Pres-ident of the United States thought only of water. Finally he spoke of it: "I look forward to the day when a Canadian Prime Minister and an American President can meet to dedicate, not a bridge across this water, but the very water itself, to the lasting and productive use of their respective peoples." Franklin Roosevelt was thinking about the St. Lawrence waterway system, a dream he has cherished since he was governor of New York, a dream that marked his first defeat de-feat in the United States senate back in 1934. That was the year Herbert Hoover's ambitious waterway water-way treaty came up for ratification with Mr. Roosevelt's blessing, only to land in the legislative graveyard. But last May 31, Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted to Canada Can-ada the draft for a new treaty. And several weeks ago President Roosevelt Roose-velt made the above remarks at Thousand Islands. So once more the St. Lawrence waterway commands North America's attention; once more two internationally minded nations na-tions wonder if the $550,000,000 project proj-ect will ever be built. An Inland "Seacoast." The dream is an alluring one. It envisions a new seacoast for the United States, 3,576 miles long and reaching into the heart of the country. coun-try. It would encompass 20,000-ton ocean-going vessels plying their way from Europe to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Law-rence, thence up the river and down through the lakes to Chicago or Duluth. Du-luth. It would include an abundance of cheap power, principally for New York state. At Massena, N. Y., which state department officials believe would become a new Chicago or Detroit once the waterway is completed, conservative residents are not too optimistic. "It's bound to come," they say, "but we won't live to see it." Objections to the plan go back pretty far, back to the days when railroads first found themselves competing with lake boats. Of late more objections have developed, but to appreciate this situation you must know its history . . . Canadians Built Early Canals. Just as Americans view the Mississippi Mis-sissippi as the Father of Waters, so do Canadians call the St. Lawrence the Mother of Waters. One hundred years before Boston was settled, valiant Cartier reached the site of Montreal. And before the American Ameri-can Revolution, canal-minded Canadians Cana-dians began digging their way around the rapids between Montreal and Lake Ontario, and the equally dangerous rapids of the Sault Sainte Marie. Canada's canal building has gone on ever since, most recent being be-ing the Welland canal to carry lake boats around Niagara falls. Today the chief remaining job is a system of dams to quiet those rapids rap-ids between Montreal and Lake Ontario. On-tario. It was in 1919 that the senate first requested an international committee commit-tee to investigate the rapids. Immediately Im-mediately came support from the West, Midwest and South, stacked against opposition from New York and New England. Up sprang the St. Lawrence Tidewater association, sponsored by active membership in 22 midwestern states and supported by the powerful Farm Bureau federation. fed-eration. By 1928 the Republican party made the waterway plan its major farm relief plank, promising reductions of from 8 to 10 cents a bushel in grain exports. America's impetuosity was not shared by slow-moving Canadians. The United States commission urged immediate development to capitalize capital-ize on the 5,000,000 potential horsepower horse-power which it discovered along the St. Lawrence. In less need of power, pow-er, and fearing that her government-operated railroads would suffer suf-fer at the hands of this new transportation trans-portation competitor, Canada pre- I II lj M llllll IlimilWll millllHIIJJW.. I.JUI1I.IJ.I.IHIMP. ii ..Jril : . ilffisii i iiliiii . p ' ;-.:-::;':':''::';::y' jj A peek from the cloudy present Into the hoped-for future. Will oceangoing ocean-going steamers like this ply up the St. Lawrence into America's GreaV Lakes, making Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland "seacoast" cities? |