Show CANALS FOR LESSON FROM EUROPE HOW WATERWAY improvement HELPS RAILROADS HAS A CREATIVE EFFECT construction of the march manchester ester sh ship ip canal shown to have resuscitated marty many dying towns town many give similar experiences experience in previous articles it was shown that the mater waterways ways carry goods more cheaply than railways do or can and compe compel I 1 the railways to carry for or less than they otherwise would and then the claim was made that the improve merit ment of waterways Is a benefit to the railways with which they compete several instances were given to sup port this claim and many more might be given it if space allowed for the writer who has studied the subject for 25 years has found many instances of benefit and not a single instance ot of harm to railways from the improvement pro of 0 waterways it Is now in order to see it we can find a reason tor for this rather surprising result waterways as has been said before produce benefits bene fita in three principal ways by direct saying saving in the cost of transportation of goods carried by water indirect saving by the lowering of railway rates through the competition of 0 water routes and by what ma may y be called a creative effect it Is tola this last named effect which we are now to consider manchester england before the con st ruction of the ship canal w was as a dying town hundreds Hand reds of stor stores e an and thousands of dwellings were empty factories were closed some moved away and population was decreasing with the opening of the canal all th thia f was changed Facto Fac toness riess reopened opened le ie new ones were built the empty houses were refilled and thousands of new ones built to accommodate the population that came pouring in and the berie benefits flits were mere not 1101 confined to Manc manchester hs alone but were distributed over the whole great industrial region containing over people of which manchester 1 Is the center it was not only natural but inevitable that the great increase in population and prosperity in manchester and the surrounding region should be reflected in the bruness and the profits of the railways therein liverpool also aided liverpool ought fought desperately to prevent the building of the canal and the establishment of the new port of manchester but instead of being injured by the canal the business of liverpool has increased taster faster than before during the 13 years before the canal was opened the increase inci ease in the harbor receipts at liverpool was only in the same length of time after it was opened the increase was 1365 the tons ot of traffic at manchester have riot not been stolen front from liverpool they have been created by the canal I 1 Prank frankfort fort Gei germany many before the river main was improved Impi oved was not a dying city but was mas decidedly stagnant Alaur mannheim and mayence on oil the which had been improved impi oved were glowing rapidly while frankfort was growing very little As soon as the canalization of the river was finished which was in the city began to glow and has kept on glowing ever eier since the population which was in has increased to in to in 1805 1905 and is probably pio hiob bably ably mole moie than now flow evidently the people of expect their city to keep on gi glowing oming too they spent over on a harbor when the river was as first in and aro ara hard at work right now building a new and much larger harbor at a cost of 0 just as in the case of manchester the ake benefit was not con fined to the city of frankfort the in du and commercial life of the whole region was greatly stimulated mines long closed mere v ere reopened new indu industries stiles were mere started and today there is an all almost continuous succession of fac facto tolles les lining the banks of the river front from frankfurt frankfort to the rhine everybody reaps benefit hunt the around and always and we me find that the im ill provement pro ement of waterways sets cities to growing factory wheels to humming and commerce to moving in a wider and swifter stream railroads get est more Iu business siness in big cities than lit in small towns in a densely populated manufacturing region than in one that la is thinly settled waterways therefore benefit railways lail ways and states and nations as well weil by promoting an in crease in in manufactures and in coni commerce merce but tor for one who likes to get clear down to the bottom of things there still remains the question why do waterways increase population and create com merce and industry T consul general mason now in parla paris but tor for some years at frankfort says german statesmanship was among the first to foresee that the time would come when railways having reached their maximum extension and efficiency there would remain a vast surplus ol of coarse raw matei bals coal ores timber stone and crude metals which could be economically carried long distances only by water transportation port por tation adon and that in a fully developed ted national system tho the proper role of railroads would be to carry passengers and the higher clauses cliss cs of merchandise lie manufactured ficara the raw s tallies staples that the waterways had brought to their doors |