HE demand throughout the west for a ship channel outlet from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, by way of the St. Lawrence, rests upon the need of that region for more direct and cheaper connection with the markets of the world, and also upon the physical make-up of the North American continent, which lends itself, by reason of the location, depth, and breadth of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, to such a connection -a connection that would give to the North American continent, a fourth ocean, its shores reaching to the borders of the harvest fields of the Middle West, now removed a thousand miles and more from contact with the sea.

On no other continent has civilization entrenched itself at any considerable distance from the ocean. On this continent alone it has done so under conditions that do not assure its continuance, unless the transportation handicap that distance from the sea always and everywhere involves be removed.

The North American mid-continent was claimed for civilization under peculiar conditions. The movement from the Atlantic over the mountains and into the plains beyond began before the days of the steamboat or of the railroad, and when the tools of industry and agriculture were for the most part as crude as they were in the days of Caesar. Not even the plow was yet an efficient tool, and the grain drill, the binder, the threshing machine were all unknown. The agriculture of western European lands was settled in

its ways, and that of our now great competitors Argentina, Australia, Russia -was not a factor in world tradein fact, did not cast a shadow over the future.

We invented the steamboat, we adapted the railroad, we improved the plow, we invented the reaper, the grain drill, the threshing machine and the modern binder, and we developed, ahead of any other nation, all of these things and put them to our purpose of subduing a continent.

By the most ingenious system of bonuses ever known to history, we invited the pioneers of three generations to put the lands of the interior under cultivation-lands that, for the larger part were level, treeless and rich and that made our quick results of large acreage under the plow and large production possible.

We financed our wars out of these lands. We held out to our farmers as a reward for their labor, not a fair return in cash for the crops harvested, but an increasing equity in the lands themselves, as the country might settle up and the value of the lands might increase.

The network of our railroads spread over the interior and on to the Pacific. The iron ores of Minnesota, the copper of Michigan and of Montana, the output of the smelters in the Rockies was added to the golden harvest of the farmers. The inland ocean of the Great Lakes became busy with a water-borne commerce that told of the rising greatness of Buffalo, Toledo, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Du

luth-Superior, Chicago and other thriving harbors.

The great cities of the prairies were called into being. The packing business moved westward from Cincinnati,

and the day of the open ranges began. The prairie states of the Middle West settled into their agricultural stride.

Then our factories carried the plow,

the binder, the thresher to other and new lands, agriculturally speaking-to the Argentine, to Australia, to Russia

all lying close to the sea, all able to ship from the farm to the market in Europe for less money than we can possibly hope to-unless a way can be found to move our farm lands closer to the ocean.

Our three great advantages-lands cheaply acquired, easily tilled, and stored with a wealth of bankable fertility-made possible the civilization that is now ours in the Middle West; these, coupled with the fact that we had no large or active competition in the market places of the world.

We now have that competition. It is here to stay. It will increase, rather than diminish, with the passing of time. New areas, outside of this continent, and fit for agriculture, will develop and become competitors of ours, with whom we must in all the future years do a competitive busi

ness.

For the major portion of the things the Middle West produces, the world's market place is Europe. Europe is where the consumers are-Western Europe, the Baltic, the Mediterranean. The people of the Atlantic Coast cities are fed in good part by the farmers of the east-by the farmers westward to the Mississippi. And the farmers of the trans-Mississippi region are thrown back upon the European market with their surplus with the surplus which we as a nation need to continue and will continue to produce in order that at all

times we may have plenty for ourselves.

EXCEEDS DOMESTIC NEEDS

The transportation-handicapped region of the United States is neither small in producing power nor is its production going to cease. This dairy cows, 55 per cent of other cattle. region possesses 63 per cent of the 75 per cent of the hogs, 76 per cent of the sheep, 61 per cent of the horses and 63 per cent of the total live stock value of the United States, as estimated by the United States Department of Agriculture. Of the edible crops that is, excluding flax, tobacco and cotton-the transportation marooned area produces approximately 60 per cent. And except for the South. when the area of farm acreage expansion is considerable, the marooned area under discussion holds the reserve high grade agricultural lands of the nation.

Taking the national resources that are non-agricultural, the transportation-locked area leads in hydro-electric power with approximately 50 per cent States. This region contains our fuof the potential supply of the United ture supply of coal and of petroleum; here are our copper and lead and iron supplies both of today and for the years to come. These unused and tangible resources point to expansion in the future, conditioned only upon the access of the Middle West to the markets of the world on an even footing.

The point, without being too dryas-dust statistical, is that the transportation-handicapped area within the United States is producing now, and can and will expand its production in the future well beyond any present or near future home consumption requirements.

CONTINUING INTERNATIONAL TRADE

According to the United States official figures for 1922, the average per

capita wealth of the marooned area is $3553. The average per capita wealth of the entire United States was, for that year, $2918. This can mean nothing else than that, both in producing and consuming power, the area in question, with its 45,000,000 people, carries its share of the load of foreign commerce, both going and coming. That commerce amounted, in 1924, in goods sent and received overseas, to 80,514,000 long tons, of which the marooned area's equitable portion, produced or consumed, would be 40 per cent, or 32,000,000 tons.

That, however, is not the yardstick by which to measure the need of the American interior for better transportation. That estimate is arrived at by detailed studies of all lines of production. It is worth while to consider whether any people engaged in the wholesale production of crude and bulky materials such as grain, foods, ores and the like will ever cease very largely to produce those things, or other things comparable in tonnage.

For example, contrary to popular opinion, the percentage and the volume of wheat exports from the United States have not decreased with the passing years. From 1866 forward the largest per cent of any wheat crop shipped abroad was during the period 1876-1906, during which time we exported an annual average of 30 per cent of our crop. In 1922 we exported 25.6 per cent; in 1923 we shipped out 19.9 per cent and in 1924 our shipments reached 28.8 per cent. The bushel figures are even more striking, showing that right now, in these post war years, the American farmer is maintaining his production and his exports of wheat well above the levels of the pre-war years. Today the wheat acreage of the nation is again. expanding. And if the farmer of a coming generation chooses to abandon

wheat it will be in order that he may produce other bulky foods, that, like wheat, create tonnage and invite tonnage in return. And it will be for the obvious reason that the production of these other things will be more profitable to him, and will make of him a more important trade-load factor. As an example the farmer has ceased to export flax. What is the result? The nation imports flax-ships it inland to the linseed mills situated on Lake Erie and at Minneapolis. Little, if any, tonnage of flax movement has been lost, and the erstwhile flax farmer is growing other tonnage and making crops more profitable. The result is a net gain in tonnage. The idea of a vanishing export tonnage from the interior and to the interior of the continent is a myth.

ENHANCES NATIONAL ECONOMY

Of the 80,000,000 long tons comprising the total 1924 overseas commerce of the United States 43,000,000 moved out of or into the ports of the North Atlantic, 23,000,000 by way of the Gulf of Mexico, 12,000,000 out of and into our Pacific harbors, and the balance from the South Atlantic ports. In addition to this there was a Great Lakes total movement to and from Canada amounting to 15,500,000 tons. These figures will indicate, to some extent at least, the general directions taken by our commerce in seeking outlet to the sea. They parallel the rail and water movements throughout the country, and they cast a side light upon the fact, already mentioned, that Europe is by far our largest customer, especially for those products that are essentially mid-western in origin, such as grain, food products, and the fabricated products of iron, copper, etc.

The transportation handicap which this interior commerce is under when moving into world trade is measurable.

The difference between the existing rate by rail to the Great Lakes, thence by water to Buffalo, by rail from Buffalo to New York, and from New York by ship to Liverpool, and a fair transportation charge for same cargo moving by rail to the Great Lakes and by water direct to Liverpool is set, by Alfred H. Ritter, Transportation Specialist of the War Department at a minimum of $4.00 per ton in favor of the St. Lawrence route, assuming that ships of ocean draft could ascend into the upper Great Lakes with, and for cargo.

The report of the President's Advisory Committee, the St. Lawrence Commission of the United States of which the Hon. Herbert Hoover is chairman, estimates that at present there is available for movement over this waterway 23,000,000 tons of cargo. This Commission states that,

It has been estimated that the values in a single year to the farmers alone would equal the capital cost ($123,500,000) of the waterway.

But in considering the question of possible tonnage a larger aspect of the problem should not be forgotten. A major transportation route not only fixes the rates chargeable by secondary routes, but it also fixes basic price levels throughout the area of its influence. Today the price of wheat in the mid-continent of North America is determined by the world market price, less the cost of transportation. Cut the transportation charge and you do not benefit the buyer. His requirements and market supply remain as before the saving reflects back to the shipper, and the farm price levels advance on all wheat sold, both for local consumption and for export.

An illustration may serve to make this point clear.

A farmer sells grain to a local miller.

The price he receives will be based on the local price for grain, which in turn is based on Liverpool, minus the total freight, from his station to that terminal market. It is obvious that, in this instance, the farmer, whose grain is ground into flour at the local mill. actually pays freight on his wheat to Liverpool. And whatever lowering of the freight rate may be obtained by opening the Great Lakes to Ocean commerce, will benefit that farmer to the same extent as it will benefit the man whose wheat crosses the ocean.

This principle of local price control through the establishment of low cost transportation to the ultimate market holds true for barley and for corn and lard, and for bacon and for lumber and copper and wooden ware and steel safes and machinery and clothing, for automobiles and for all the multitude of things produced or used by and in the mid-region. Today the Great Lakes-Ocean trunk line that runs via Buffalo and New York sets the price levels. Open a wider, better pathan adequate path- and every business. and not the farmer alone, must and will benefit thereby.

The foregoing estimates of tonnage and of saving thereon, using Alfred H. Ritter's figures, indicate an annual direct overcharge on actual movement out of and into the freight-handicapped mid-region amounting annually to $120,000,000. Nor does this take into account the unseen charge, by way of depressed price levels, on things produced but not exported. One hundred and twenty million dollars is interest, at 4 per cent, on $3,000,000,000. This figure is arrived at merely as suggesting that a reasonable expenditure of public money so used so to turn this capital value into productive channels may be justified on broad grounds of national economy.

By their official action twenty-two

It

states have severally and jointly approved the opening of the St. Lawrence barriers between the Great Lakes and he Atlantic. These states comprise what is known as the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Tidewater Association. hould be clearly understood that the purpose of these states is not to reach ny one point on the Atlantic, but ather to reach the ocean itself. They re not looking for a way to New York, only as and insofar as New York is one of the port cities of the world. The narooned interior comprising these tates is looking for a trade road to all he world-not for a detour, nor for a alf-way depot. It seeks a trunk line out of the Great Lakes and onto the high seas. Once there it can steer its course to the most desirable market.

still do.

A glance at a globe of the world will nake clear the reasons for this deternination. From the dawn of history until today, sea routes have controlled the world's trade. They still do. They always will. The reason is simple. Water transportation is far cheaper than transportation by land. Today, steamship against freight car, the cost is about one to ten. The cost of one mile of land transportation buys ten miles of ocean transportation.

And within the memory of men we have remade the map of the world. We have cut the isthmus of Suez and brought India, China, Japan, Australia the eastern coast of Africa thousands of sea miles closer than ever before to the doorstep of our principal buyer Europe. We have cut the isthmus of Panama and once more we have floated the continents closer together. By building the Panama Canal we have put Calgary and Seattle closer to Europe by way of the Pacific and the Caribbean than they are by way of the direct rising sun and Atlantic road. And of still deeper, more direct and vital concern to the interior of this con

tinent, the building of the Panama performed the miracle of bringing San Francisco and New York-the Pacific coast and the Atlantic-closer to each other than either city or either coast is to any inland point five hundred miles removed from the ocean. This has landlocked the interior of the North American continent. While our seacoasts move forward under the stimulus of lowered sea rates and active participation in world trade, the interior finds its transportation rates to and from the sea advanced, its competitors in other lands able, by reason of short land haul, to meet world conditions and prices that deny to the mid-section of North America its place in the world's markets unless we finish the job of world rebuilding along lines obviously pointed out to us by nature.

The world is round. The eastern coast of the United States points not toward the North Pole, but toward Europe. So do the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River. For two thousand miles this natural highway parallels the Atlantic coast. The Great Lakes, carrying a commerce equal to more than one-fourth the ton mileage of all the railroads within the United States, are open to ships of ordinary ocean draft and tonnage from Duluth and Chicago to Buffalo. Their channels are wide, their harbors ample, they are, in fact, an ocean extending a thousand miles along our northern border, linking the coal fields and the iron mines, linking the corn belt and the grain fields with the industrial East. Across the Niagara isthmus, the Welland Ship Canal is nearly ready to take the largest Great Lakes ships and let them down into Lake Ontario, where from the foot of the Welland Ship Canal, now nearing completion, to Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence is deep water. From Montreal, the second largest port of the Atlantic