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a thorough for which official board of trade sta- tistics are obtainable. The' five principal estuaries of Eng- land--the Mersey, Humber, Wash, Thames and Severn--are connected by 19° through: canal ~-routess: ONine of these through routes reach Severn ports, 9: have' London: < termini, 10 reach Liverpool and 5 terminate at Hull. The traffic is most active on the canals in central and northern Eng- land. The 642 miles of waterways in this highly developed industrial dis- trict moved 23,500,000 tons of freight in 1898. The canals reaching Birm- ingham had 7,750,000 tons of traffic. There is a widespread sentiment in the United Kingdom that the country has made a mistake in permitting its waterways to pass largely into the control of the railroads. Somewhat over two years since a 'royal commis- sion on canals was appointed to make investigation of 'the land waterways. of the country and their uses for navigation and other purposes. This body has gone about {i "its work with the thoroughness char- actetistic Or british foyal 'coOmmis- sions, and a comprehensive report will soon be issued. France.--France has developed her inland waterways more systematically and completely than has any other of the larger European countries. There are 3,062 miles of canals nowin opera- tion and 4,500 miles of rivers--large- ly as the result of canalization--are used for navigation. Prior to 1880, the greater portion of the freight bus- iness of: the country was handled on the waterways. Since then the devel- opment of the railroads has naturally enabled them toexceed the waterways in tonnage; but the waterways have, none the less, transported a steadily increasing tonnage. During the 20 years from 1885 to 1905 the freight tonnage rose from 19,573,000 to 34,- 030,000 metric tons. The ton-mileage of the water-borne traffic amounted to 3,178,000,000 in 1905 and was more than double the total for 1885. All the waterways of the country, with the exception of 160 miles (75 of which are owned by the city of Paris), are public ways improved and maintained by the state. Their use is free, toll having been abolished in 1880. Germany.--The policy of Germany in the development of her inland wat- erways is peculiarly instructive. The canals and navigable rivers of that empire, not including the tidal por- tions of the rivers navigated by sea- going vessels, have a total length of about 7,600 miles, of which about "TAE Marine. REVIEW 6,250 miles may be considéred to be commercially important. "Three-tenths of the 6,250 miles consist' of canals and slack-water river navigation, and seven-tenths of river courses improved without the construction of dams and locks. The railway mileage of the country is 34,000, somewhat over six times the length of the waterways actively used for commerce. The tonnage of the shipments and receipts of freight transported on the German waterways in 1875 was 20,800,000 metric tons. The figures for 1905 were 103,400,000 metric tons, there having been an increase of nearly 400 per cent. The ton-mileage of this water-borne commerce in 1875 was 1,812,500,000, and in 1905, 9,375,- 000,000--a gain of over 400 per cent. The ton-mileage of the railroad freight traffic in 1875 was 6,812,500,000, and in 1905 the total was 27,875,000,000. The gain in the railroad traffic was far greater absolutely; but the percentage of increase in water traffic was larger, although the length of the waterways in 1905 was not much greater than than in 1875, whereas the railway mileage had more than doubled during that period. _ The density of traffic on the Ger- man waterways much exceeds that on the railroads. The number of tons carried one mile per mile of waterway rose from 290,000 in 1875 to 1,500,000 in 1905; the corresponding figures for the railways were 410,000 tons car- ried one mile per mile of line in 1875 and 820,000 in 1905. The relative im- portance of the traffic of the railways -and waterways in Germany is shown by: the fact that 25. per cent of the total ton-mileage of rail and water traffic in 1905 was water-borne, and 75 per cent moved upon rails. Thirty years earlier the waterways had 21 per cent and the railroads had 79 per cent of the combined ton-mileage. The primary reason for the decline in the use of American canals of such small dimensions and river channels so shallow as to permit the use only of craft capable of transporting 100 to 200 tons of cargo, is to be found in the very success which the railways of the United States have had in providing cheap transportation for heavy and bulky commodities. In no other country of the world have rail transportation costs been reduced to such a low figure. The ability of our railroads to handle this class of traffic has resulted largely from the fact that by far the greater share of the tonnage of American railroads con- sists of such bulky commodities as coal, iron ore, lumber and _ grain, in the Indeed, there can be little doubt that 29 which' can be hahdled not only in car- load lots 'but'im train loads'ahd which, from the very size of our country, must be moved long distances in or- der to reach the manufacturing cen- ers of the United States and the pri- mary markets within and without our borders. ; In many other countries it has been found more economical to do the heavier transportation work by mak- ing large use of waterways, and to develop the railway traffic more par- ticularly with reference to the speedy movement and schedule. delivery' of parcels, packages and general com- modity freight. This organization of the transportation service by rail is_ possible where there is a division of the transportation work between the railroads and waterways, and it re- sults in the close co-ordination of rail- road freight traffic with :the wholesale and retail trade. It enables merchants and manufacturers to reduce capital costs and warehousing expenses to a minimum. It meets the needs of densely populated and highly devel- oped industrial countries, such as. France and Germany, and especially of. such a country as Great Britain, for, although the inland waterways of Great Britain are, as a whole, less carefully developed than are those of France and Germany, a large. share of the domestic commerce of the United Kingdom is carried by water. The navigation services which most countries can secure only by means of inland waterways, the island of Great Britain, with its 3,900 miles of tidal. coast, obtains from the sur- rounding ocean, the best of all high- ways. ped Such an organization of the busi- ness of transportation as has been worked out in the three European countries just mentioned, does not result in as low average freight rates by: rathcasie! prevail: in «the. United States; but the costs of wholesale and retail distribution and of many manu- facturing activities are undoubtedly less than they would be were the peo- ple of Europe served almost entirely by railroads and not by railroads and waterways. Our dependence upon railroads, almost exclusively, for the movement of bulky commodities long distances even at low average rates, while we at the same time neglect the development and use of our in- land waterways, does not necessarily mean that we have organized our work of production and _ distribution most economical manner. (Continued on page 32.)