DEEPENING THE ST. LAWRENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 117, 19 May 1909, Page 7

DEEPENING THE ST. LAWRENCE

WORK TO BE BEGUN SOON. B* Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright (Received 'May 19, 9 a.m.) OTTAWA, 18th May. The Hon. iL. i J . Brodeur, Minister for Marine and Fisheries, stated in the Dominion House of Commons that the deepening of the St. Lawrence Channel to 30ft, and the completing of a 35ft channel in that part of the river between Montreal and the sea, would be shortly begun. A chief object of the scneme is to improve the shipping facilities of the Port of Montreal, with the view of making it the most efficient seaport in North America. Montreal occupies the strategical position of being 1000 miles from the sea, and at the same time meeting tho inland canal system, which makes her the distributing point of 2500 miles of water navigation:' Canada possessed the only complete waterway from the Great 'Lakes to the sea, which means the tapping of the grain-growing districts within her own limits of 171,000,000 acres. Theee canals give her during seven months of the year a 14ft channel from the Great Lakes to where ocean tonnage was met, and a 30ft channel through the -River St. Lawrence to the sea, permitting- vessels of from twelve to fourteen thousand tons to enter Montreal and take their cargoes direct from craft-bringing grain from the plains of Western Canada and the States. Realising the power of that trade situation, the Dominion IGovemment had decided to spare no trouble or expense in providing terminal facilities that would be second to none on the 'North American Continent.