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Show GOOD FORJOUNTRY IMPROVEMENT OF WATERWAYS WILL DEVELOP RESOURCES OF EVERY SECTION. FREIGHT CARRIED CHEAPLY Make a Direct Saving In Cot of Transportation Trans-portation by th Water Routes, and Indirectly 8erve to Lower Railway Carrying Rates. The claim has been mad In previous previ-ous articles and f.tcts and figures given to support the claim that waterways wa-terways carry freight more cheaply than the railways do or can, and that they compel tho railways to carry freight more cheaply than thoy otherwise other-wise would, making a saving of hundreds hun-dreds of millions of dollars a year, even under present conditions, and Indicating Indicat-ing a vast increase in that saving if all waterways should be improved. And then the surprising assertion was made, that tho surest way to enlarg the business and increase the profits of the railroads of the United States Is to Improve tho waterways of the United State. The best guide to tho future Is tho experience, of the. past, so let us see what hn,s actually happened hap-pened to railways when waterways have been Improved. That tho Improvements In the channels chan-nels and harbors of the lakes have been of great benefit, both to the railways rail-ways which parallel their shores and to those which run from lake cities to the Interior, Is a fact so plain that It needs no argument to support IL There are no more prosperous and profitable roads In tho country than those that servo tho region tributary to the lakes. But no one questions the wisdom of continuing the improvement improve-ment of the lak6, or of our ocean harbors. The real question Is as to the improvement of our rivers, and If we wish to study the effect of river Improvement, either on railway revenues reve-nues or national development, we must go to Europe. Results In Bohemia. During the fifteen years that improvements im-provements were under way on the Elbe river, In Bohemia, the river traffic, traf-fic, as a natural result of the better channel. Increased fivefold But traffic traf-fic on the competing railways Increased In-creased still more largely and the dividends div-idends on tho main line, from Teplltz to Ausslg, rose to 1G per cenL per annum. Similar results followed the canalization canali-zation of tho River Main, from May-ence, May-ence, on the Rhino, to Frankfort, which was finished In the tetter part of 1SSG. The river traffic, which amounted to only 150.000 tone In that year, began to grow and has kept on growing, being 1,273.000 tons In 1902. There are two railroads between Frankfort and Mayence, one on each side of the river. What happened to them? Did their business show a serious se-rious falling off? Or wore they forced into the hands of a receiver? On the contrary their trade, which was 911,-000 911,-000 tons in 1886, also began to grow, and by 1902 had reached 1,900,000 tons, or more than doublo what It was when tho railroads bad a practical monopoly of tho business of Frank fort The mere statement of the Increased In-creased tonnage does not tell tho whole truth of the matter, for the tonnage was not only more than doubled in quantity, but greatly raised in grade, so that it could pay, and did pay, a much higher rate per ton per mile. Fine German Waterways. Practically all the railways of Germany Ger-many are state owned and state operated oper-ated Out of a total of 35,000 miles, la ro-iind numbers, only about 2,500 miles are operated by private companies. com-panies. Germany also has one of the finest systems of waterways in the world, and a study of the balance sheet of the German railway system shows that the results which followed the Improvement of the Rlvor Main are not an exception, a mere coincidence, coinci-dence, but are the natural outworking of a principle of general application. In the calendar year 1907, after paying for operation, maintenance, repairs, renewals, new equipment, interest on bonds, contribution to tho sinking fund, and every other Item which the most careful bookkeeping required to be chargod up. the German railways turned $104,000,000 of absolutely net revenues Into tho treasuries of the vorlous states, This was $5,050 per mile of line operoted. while the corresponding corre-sponding figure on United States railways rail-ways for the fiscal year 190C-7 was only $1,907 a little over' one-third as much. Much the greater part of the total revenue of the German states Is derived de-rived from their railways, 71 cents out of Kvery dollar received by Prussia In 1907 being so obtained. Yet German statesmen keep on. year after year, upending money earned by their railways rail-ways in building and improving waterways water-ways to compete with tho6 same railways, rail-ways, on which they depend as the principal sourco of national income. In tho light of the facts given aiovo it will not do to say that thes German Ger-man statesmen do not know what they arc about. On the contrary, they are acting, as has been well said, "in furtherance fur-therance of a policy the wisdom of which time and experience have fully confirmed." Always and everywhere the result Is the same the Improvement of a waterway lit a benefit to competing railways. For this result, as for any other, there Is ft good and sufficient-reason, sufficient-reason, but It rou?t be left for another time to tell what that reason Is. |