The Waimate Advertiser. PUBLISHED MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY EVENINGS. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1912. CANALS AND COMMERCE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XV, Issue 230, 22 November 1912, Page 2

The Waimate Advertiser. PUBLISHED MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY EVENINGS.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1912. CANALS AND COMMERCE.

"Multum in Parvo.'

The Panama Canal, though not an enterprise of such world-wide importance as the Suez Canal was when it was first cut through from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, is for the time being enjoying almost a monopoly of the world’s attention. Uncle Sam points to the Culebra Cut as the triumph of Yankee pluck and engineering capability,. . Such minor 'propositions as the ChristchurchSuraner Canal and the ManakaiiAuckland Canal, two of New Zealand’s engineering fancies, are quite eclipsed. Not so, however, the great enterprise that is going forward in Germany, viz,, the canalisation of the inland waterways. The completion of this work is expected to greatly ashist German commerce by cneanemng ireigms. According to me- report; or the British, Cousuluenerai at Dusseidori. me ’Govejnmont proposes'to deepen the bed or me Rhine as Tar as Cologne, so as to enaoie larger sea-gomg vessels to reach the clfy the great Cathedra] i It is turther - proposed to buna a transcontinental canal due east beyona Dortmund. Air then■vors running .iw»m south to nortlf into the. Baltic and North Sea - are to. i bq joined together by.... &• large „ candl running Irani east rtb west, sthvls bijnginje the, • east and- soutifc via* ■ the Rhine-Betae-"

and-the enlargement of the Berlin Stettin Canal have already beent* ken in hand. The river Ruhr, 9 | Essen* in Westphalia, is to be ened and widened. At the Rhine, the dangerous Lock is to he made more easily naT -j igablc. Th» ' ,Ehino itself, so far is only navigable for la r g 4 J ships as far as Strasburg, is to made navigable a.s far as Basel,? The Mosel and Saaiv E-ioutarv vers of the Rhine, are to lie cued and canalised as wi’.l. p,y means the industrial districts 0 y Alsace-Lorraine and Luxemburg uj|j, gain immensely. All three provinces have been developing their industries by leaps and bounds dinv iug ilie last ten years, and a fresh impetus by getting i-Lr-ipof canal freights. After reading a .

bout those projects, one is 1 to confess that Germany's internal mercantile marine is being !'aeilj(. ated and*assisted m a inoasn.v n ot less material than her >eag.,iu„ ships. The latter, as wo know, have increased enormously in number ain] tonnage during the last 2') year, entailing the construction of a 1^

navy as a national insurance against

molestation by any foreign |iuv, n -