INLAND WATERWAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 17 May 1941, Page 7

INLAND WATERWAY

SPECIAL ARTICLE.

ST. LAWRENCE-GREAT LAKES Canada and United States Agree POWER DEVELOPMENT ALSO PLANNED

| j (By S.B. in the Melbourne “Age”) • A few weeks ago the United States ' | Government announced that agree- j ment had been reached with Canada [ concerning the construction and maintenance of war vessels in ship j I yards along the shores of the Great! Lakes. At the same time Congress j had at last assented to the com-1 ! mcncement of one of the most dc-1 j bated development schemes ever | placed before it—the Great Lakes-St j Lawrence seaway and power development project. J In 1934 the same project was! placed before Congress and rejected after a debate of exceptional heat, j The rejection was in spite of Presij dent Roosevelt’s expressed approval | of the scheme. In 1932 a treaty had | been signed with Canada coni mendi ing the scheme as being important j to the common welfare of Canada j and the U.S.A., while in 1933 the I Senate Foreign Relations CommitI! tee had announced its unanimous j approval. Since that time President Roosevelt had worked to reverse the Congress decision, even to the extent of granting £1.000,000 for survey work by his Government. CONFLICTING INTERESTS In 1934 it was the hostile Michigan interests which killed the bill, for Chicago and other American lake ports feared that the waterway would so benefit the Canadian lake ports that their own business would be affected. The mid-western States were in favour, and Canada had again and again expressed her need of it. The scheme provides for a canal system to link the Great Lakes with the St. Lawrence, thus providing .salt I water shipping with a waterway of 2500 miles stretching from the Atlantic to the very centre of Canada at the western point of Lake Superior. Aluminium and nitrate manufacture was envisaged in the scheme, and colossal power development was planned to supply Eastern Canada and New York State. The cost of this scheme was seized upon by its critics. Both nations concerned would have to find £80,000,000, which the hostile Michigans con. - tested was a fantastic figure in re- • lation to U.S. benefits, although they : were not blind to the Canadian benefits. A GIGANTIC PROJECT Now that the scheme has been apl' proved and an irrftnediate start an- ‘ nounced—President Roosevelt’s £l.5 000,000 survey is proving a golden ! dividend investment —the agreement to build merchant and naval ship- • ping on the lakes for deep sea em- [ ploy ment is made possible. Ship . yards 2500 miles from the Atlantic } are invulnerable to attack by sea ! The value of the Great Lakes as a j shipping highway has long been re- > cognised. Amazing numbers of ships, ’ built upon specialised lines, ply the . lakes to-day, carrying wheat and i manufactured products. Lake Su- • perior, the greatest body of fresh ; water on earth, is literally ap inland sea. Through the Sault Ste Marie Canal passes a greater volume of traffic than through the Suez Canal. On these inland seas are four main ports—Chicago, Toronto, Fort William and Port Arthur, and Buffalo. • Toronto is Canada’s greatest indus--1 trial city, with a concentration of neai-ly 3000 plants producing manufactured goods aggregating an an--1 nual value of £100.000.000. It created an inland harbour at a cost of £lO,000.000. Buffalo, hard by Niagara Falls, and looking into Canada across Lake Erie, is the greatest fresh water port in the world in point of tonnage. Its manufacturing industries, vital to-day to the British war effort, are supplied with iron ore, limestone, oil, lumber and gypsum by ships. Twenty million tons a year are handled by shipping. It is the western terminal of the barge canal to Lake Ontario, while 27 miles away is the Welland ship canal, which from the Atlantic along the St. permits smaller shipping to come up Lawrence. Its water-borne trade with Chicago, Detroit, Duluth, and Canadian cities is vital to its existence. A quarter of the £300,000.000 trade between Canada and the U.S.A. is handled by the Buffalo customs district. BOON TO WHEAT PORTS The St. Lawrence waterway will assist these cities in greater expansion, but the greatest boon will be to the western ports of Canada, such as Fort William and Port Arthur. These twin cities boast the greatest wheat elevator concentration in North America, with a capacity of 92.000,000 bushels. They ship by water j over 300,000,000 bushels a year | directly through the St. Lawrence, all of which has at present to be tran- | shipped. For the west they import i manufactured produce. All this I freight is cheaper to ship by water I and the abolition of the necessity for i transhipment to and from the Ati lant.ic will be invaluable. | War expansion in Canada is expanding the importance of the Westlorn Lakehead at Fort William-Port : Arthur. The hitherto unexploited north-west of Ontario is being opened up under war pressure for lumber, wood pulp and minerals. Much of this is passing, and will pass, in increasing quantities, through the twin ports, which form the natural centres. Within the last eight years big gold-mining areas have been opened, and wood pulp for newspaper mills has been increased in nroduction. TRANSPORT AND ELECTRIC POWER j Between the Great Lakes and the ! Rockies are 2,500,000 people, and I every man, woman and child is ser-j | viced in some way by Fort William-j I Fort Arthur trade. Their grain is I handled by elevators 200 feet high; j and 1000 feet long, stretching in a I belt along the foreshore of the Twin, I Ports. To-day that wheat is taken. | 1500 miles by Lakes steamers before! | being transhipped to seawater bottoms. Forty years ago the popula-j tion of the same area was 400,000.' | Many Canadians believe that a simi-' ; lar expansion will be seen during the next generation. And the problems! J of post-war Europe will demand immense quantities of Canadian wheat.. 1 |so much of which flows through the ! Twin Ports. As the spout of the I Canadian wheat funnel, the Twin I ! Ports are intensely interested in the! ; St. Lawrence waterway, j Atlantic vessels will be able to j navigate directly to the Twin Ports,! 2500 miles from the farthest wcstl

Canadian port of Halifax. This is j ! naturally a purely summer scheme. | 'for in winter the canal system is!, I blocked by ice. but all inter-lake! shipping operates to-day on summer | schedules. INTO HEART OF CANADA j From the war point of view the j Allies will have a magnificent waterI way from the Atlantic to the heart lof Canada, along which the same | bottoms can carry goods direct to Europe. The proposed ship-building programme to build Allied seawater shipping on the Great Lakes will be made possible, isolated from the most remote fear of attack by air. The power scheme will afford immense reserves of electricity for the expanded industries of Canadian and American industrial areas centred about the Great Lakes. It is as though Alice Springs were connected with Sydney by a chain of lakes and canals. In Canadian history development followed the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes route, with their natural, if broken, water highway for trade and transport. Without the St. Lawrence Canada to-day would be a very different nation, for the cost of trade by rail right to the Atlantic would be crippling. The St. Lawrence Waterway is the latest , and the natural development in this ■ story. For both Canada and the U.S.A. its realisation is a notable i event in their common history.