'A roseate picture of an "'American Mediterranean" open to the commerce of all the world is painted by supporters of the project to construct a deep-water route from the Atlantic seaboard to the Great Lakes, vid the St. Lawrence River. This plan, it is claimed, would make ports on the Great Lakes essentially ocean ports, The picture is further enhanced by the report of engineers that the proposed waterway would release for manufacturing 4,000,000 horsepower ¢o contiguous territory in the United States and Canada. international Joint Commission i: now conducting hearings on the cost and feasibility of the plan. Briefly put, the scheme contemplates linking the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean by way of the new Welland Canal, which connects Lake Erie with Lake Ontario and the St, Lawrence River, From the foot of Lake Ontario to tidewater, at or near Montreal, is 181 miles rapids, promoters of the project presume, would be drowned out by two dams, converting the river into a series of lakes. The cost of the improvement has been estimated at from $250,000,000 to $500,000,000, which would be shared by the two governments. The lesser figure is divided at $100,000,000 for the international section, between Lake Ontario and St. Regis. and $150,- 000,000 from there to Montreal. In the St, Lawrence River between Lake Ontario and Montreal engineers report that there is available 4,000,000 horsepower, Half f this, equal to three Niagaras, is in the international section, and would be divided between the two, governments, The project, it is! claimed, would open the ports on the Great Lakes to a sea-borne' commerce exceeding 100,000,000 tons a year. It is estimated by supporters of the scheme that a saving of five cents a bushel on wheat would result, and as much whit by the St, Lawrence River, 131 of; perhaps on other bulk exports. As ich form international boundary it is now, these freights, in taking as far as St. Regis. Of the total the water-route through the Lakes distance it is estimated that 135 to the Atlantic, must break bulk miles are nearly all navigable for at Buffalo and at New York for ocean-going steamships, sis leaves transhipment.
46 miles to be improved, a distance Prominent among those support-approximately equal to the length|ing the project are Admiral Ben-of the Panama Canal. There are! son, chairman of the United States many rapids in the St. Lawrence!
Shipping Board; Herbert Hoover, River, which falls 91 feet in 65 former Food Administrator; Wil miles of the international section, liam C. Redfield, former Secretary of which 48 feet is in 12 miles; and of Commerce; "Secretary Daniels which 129 feet is in two stretches of the Navy, and Franklin K, Lane. of 14 and 8} miles each. These ex-Secretary of the Interior.
"Not since Theodore Roosevelt put his firm hand to the task of constructing a cana] across the Isthmus of Panama has the United States confronted a programme as potent in promise for the nation at large as the Great Lakes waterway, now so definitely taking form," says the "Grand Rapid Herald" approvingly for Michigan. Viewing it from every angle, the "Indianapolis Star' things that this international project "should be carried to completion "without. undue delay. Both Canada and the United States are suffering from the lack of transportation—facility ies and their industries demand the vast electrical energy which would be obtained, for the proposed waterway would involve the generation of almost unlimited hydroelectric power." The plan "needs no argument favourable to its encouragement and_development," declares the Cincinnati Enquirer," and adds that "indirectly, such a_ transcontinental waterway would aid all those others contemplated by the States to link ocean and Middle West and South and Southwest together." Railroad congestion would be relieved, and "it could never happen, as it has happened this year, that the farmers of Kansas would be unable to move their new crops of wheat. The inland waterways questions with which American statesmanship has had to deal."—"The Literary Digest." soco
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.