The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

MANCHESTER CANAL. An example of how essential prop- er facilities are to build up the com- merce of a port is furnished by sta- tistics just available from the records of the Manchester ship canal. These show a remarkably steady increase in receipts and traffic. During the year 1906 the receipts had arisen from £445,203 in the year 1905 to £494,- 302, whilst the tonnage passing over the waterway increased from .4,253,- 354 tons in 1905 to 4,700,924 tons in 1906. In 1894; the first. year> the canal was opened--the tonnage was 925,659 tons, and revenue £97,901. The imported commodities which showed the principal increase last year were timber, grain, fruit and provisions, whilst among the exports coal, machinery, pitch and creosote figured more largely than hitherto. The canal seems really one vast dock -thirty-six miles in length. It forms the terminal .port . for -seven of the leading railways of the United Kingdom, possesses forty locomo- tives, 1,450 railway wagons, sidings to: accommodate 9,000 wagons, with 129 miles of line--of which sixty miles are at the docks--direct rail- way access alongside of every berth in the port. Its resources are unique. The Dock Estate has nine docks and covers an area of 406%4 miles in length. The docks vary from 560 to 2,700 ft. in length and from 120 to 250 ft. in breadth, one great advan- tage being that vessels can move from one to another irrespective of tide or weather. space available for .barging, rafting, pontooning and coasters for along- 'side work is practically unlimited. There are thirteen single-floor, one two-floor, six three-floor, five four- floor and twelve five-floor transit sheds, fitted with the most modern appliances. The additional accommodation pro-. vided by the new dock' at Man- chester, which was opened by their Majesties the King and Queen in 1905, has proved very welcome both to the canal company and traders. The dock is 2,700 ft. in length and along one side there is a range of four fleored ferro-concrete transit sheds equipped with electric cranes and every facility' for the handling» improving steerage service and con- of traffic. Although the canal has up to the present been of little direct benefit as a dividend earner to its promoters, the prospects of a dividend are now very much brighter than they were and meantime the canal has been and is of enormous use to the trade and industry of the north of England The smooth water. "'TAE Marine. REVIEW and to distant producers and foreign markets. It has vigorously encour- aged exports of every kind--of coal, , manufactured iron and _ steel, textile and other machinery, electric. traction equipment and appliances, and all sorts of Manchester goods--for di- rectly owing to the policy of the ship canal company the railway com- panies have been, obliged to. ease their carriage charges and the Mer- sey board. have been impelled, 'in their own interests, to reduce their dock and harbor dues. It has also given an enormous fillip to imports, bringing raw cotton from America, Egypt. and British fields to -- the threshold of the lancashire mills, 'and grain, timber, iron ore, pig iron, lead, oil, fruit, flour, foodstuffs, sugar, . meat and cattle in abundance from 'foreign ports, to many of which there are now regular steamship lines, with owners and agents in Manchester. Owing to the reduced cost and handling of traffic, Manchester now secures a large proportion of the immense shipments of leather from Boston and other North American ports.. A good deal of the leather is sent forward direct from ship to the Northampton and Leicester dis- tricts, whilst large stocks are retained at the Manchester docks, several of the largest importing merchants hav- ing. centralized the whole of their leather stocks at Manchester in pref- erence to other: ports, and serving from thence not only the Midlands, but also Glasgow, Bristol and other - coastal ports. Hides, extracts and other raw materials connected with the tanning industry are brought to Manchester by. the steamers arriving from Australia, River Plate, North America, Bordeaux, Jamaica and other ports. > IMMIGRATION HEAD TAX. The immigrant faces an increase in steerage rates from Europe six weeks when the United States law increasing the head tax from $2 to $4 for.every alien entering the country goes into effect. While the steamship companies have always added the head tax to the cost of transportation they have avoided crit- icism and complaint by materially humble ditions, so that today the new-comer from other shores travels -- in no mean style and comfort below decks of the big Attantic. steamships. 'The giant White Star liner Adriatic, recently in port from her maiden voyage, has a smoking saloon, recreation room for women and chil- within 15 dren and promenade steerage passengers. . With the steerage, which has taken place with- in the last few years, many compan- ies have dropped the name steerage and now designate it as the "third class,' which today compares with the second class of a decade ago. Travel to Europe has greatly increased in the steerage because of these im- proved conditions. The manager of the third class department in one of' the large trans- Atlantic lines said yesterday that the change in the steerage had benefited companies because it had increased travel. Formerly steerage passengers were herded below decks like cattle. Large rooms wére set apart for the -- sexes and miarried couples, and as many as forty and fifty persons slept in one room. The companies fur- nished only the bare berth and food and each passenger had to purchase a straw mattress, a tin dish, cup and -- knife and fork before leaving the docks. The. mattress was thrown overboard at the end of the trip. When meal 'time came a large caul- dron was brought into the dining room and the hungry immigrants turned in and- helped Hunks of bread were thrown down beside the cauldron, and in the scram- ble for food there were frequent des- perate fights between the passengers. But competition between the Eng- lish and German lines for the immi- grant trade gradually brought about deck all for improvement in. the. themselves. . better . conditions. in the steer- age, and __ trans-Atlantic steam-. ships today give comfortable berths and bedding to each steerage passenger. Married couples are given a room and in. no case are more than six persons housed in one room. Meals are well-cooked, whole- some food is served at long tables covered with .clean linen and the companies provide all table utensils. - Some of the steamships have re- volving chairs in the steerage dining room, Bathrooms are provided and there are recreation rooms for women and children, where may be found newspapers and magazines. A pro- menade deck and covered deck for stormy weather give the steerage pas- - sengers ample opportunity to get the "air and stewards wait. on steerage passengers at their meals. The steer- age passengers have a different menu trip. ; Another marked reform is that first * for their meals each day during the and second class passengers are no longer permitted to roam through the steerage and gaze curiously -at the ene : si? oe i