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460 During the past ten years the water route tonnage has_ been nearly doubled. The available dock property has practically reached a point where. new and at the same time ample docking will be impossible. Many miles of strips of land lying along the rivers and at the same time front- ing business streets are practically lost to the water shipping interests because their street fronts have be- come too valuable for commercial purposes. The mills of justice grind slowly but it sometimes seems that local legislative bodies are even more se- riously afflicted with procrastination. This is largely due to the many- sided demands upon them for funds and the difficulty to decide between several laudable public projects. The public sentiment which has been aroused in the direction of harbor improvements is likely to in- duce the present administration to accept all the recommendations made by the harbor commission. A com- mittee of one hundred citizens ap- pointed by the Merchants' and Man- ufacturers' Association, made up of representatives of the various com- mercial and civic associations will back the commission and bring pres- sure to bear upon Mayor Bading and the city council, who are friendly to the project, to provide the necessary appropriations in next year's budget. With the improvements contem- plated Milwaukee will have one of the best harbors on the Great Lakes. It will not only enable larger crafts to traverse rivers and slips, but will practically double. the capacity for water route traffic and at the same time permit greater convenience in entrances and clearances of all sizes of vessels. The New Barge Canal By E. W. Douglas, Director New York, as 4 state, is taking a keener interest in waterway transpor- tation than ever before in its history. The construction of a system of ca- nals for barge navigation undertaken by the state, the deepening of the Hudson river, the project of the At- lantic Deeper Waterways Association for a protected intra-coastal water- way from New England to Florida, now well under way, the improve- ment of the great harbor of New York and other harbors and water- ways of the state by the federal gov- ernment, have combined to produce this and to create a new vision con- cerning the possibilities of trade ex- pansion in this section of the east. In proportion to its population and THE MARINE REVIEW resources, the building of the new barge canal by the people of New York state is a far greater achieve- ment than the building of the Panama canal by the United States. Our im- mediate duty is to make this canal commercially profitable to the people of the state who contributed every penny of the $127,800,000 expended in its building. Owing to its geographical location, what is known as the Capital District of the Empire State (the region which embraces Troy, Albany, Cohoes, Wa- tervliet and several other adjacent cities and towns) is destined, upon . the completion of these various water- 'ways, to multiply its already impor- tant commercial advantages many hundred fold. , Its Commercial Importance Commercial importance 'of -- this capital district can be readily under-- stood when it is stated that within a radius of 16 miles we have the most thickly populated district outside of New York and Buffalo, while within 200 miles encircling the capital dis- trict there is a population of over 25,000,000 of people. A great terminal is about to result, for here opposite the city of Troy the two great canals and the Hudson river converge. To the north a short cut via the Champlain canal to Mon- treal offers tthe Canadian provinces and the great Canadian Northwest a new route to New York, the Atlantic seaboard and Europe, a tremendous Saving in time as opposed to the St. Lawrence outlet. Westward the main artery of the barge. canal leads on to Buffalo, the Great Lakes and the vast commerce of the middle west and our own great northwest. To the south of us, a distance of 150 miles, is New Nork Marbor.- With a depth: of 30 feet the major part of its length and the construction of a deeper channel now already under way in the Hud- son river between Hudson and Troy to meet the requirements of the barge canal system and the further deep- ening of the upper Hudson which must come in the near future, an in- terchange of rail, barge and ocean- going freights will inevitably occur at this point, and Troy at the head of tidewater and navigation, Albany and the entire district will become a vast assembling point and distributing section, extending trade in every di- rection as well as facilitating business via the Panama canal. Troy is essentially a manufacturing and industrial community with a name known around the world for a score of products each the best of its type December, 1913 produced in America. Its accessibil- ity and its avenues of commerce have lead many manufacturers to come to it, and in view of the increased ad- vantages to be secured in the near fu- ture, this cannot but continue. As the gateway of the north, it is an important center for all classes of transportation. Goods destined for the seaboard, the west or the south, from Canada, Vermont, Northern New York and parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts have to pass through Troy. It is a com- mercial center at present with a ter- ritory of half a million population. The area over which Troy could do business on waterways transportation (with its attending saving of freight rates) will be enormously increased upon the completion of the waterways of the state and the Atlantic Intra- coastal canal,and which the Hudson in turn will feed, and as other connec- tions are made and the whole terri- tory east of the Rocky mountains is covered with a network of waterways, such as is being advocated and worked out by the National Rivers and Har- hors Congress and numerous auxiliary associations, it will be difficult to overestimate the benefits which will come to points all along the line, in- cluding the cities on the Hudson river. " In view of the initiative taken by New § York state, in: providing: the barge canal. a right of appeal to the federal government for liberal appro- priations in furtherance of its inter- ests has been well established. * However slow or unsuccessful we may have been in the past in press- ing our claims for national recogni- tion, an altogether pull for a fair share of waterways funds is now being made by the state which con- tributes more to the revenue of Uncle Same than any state in the Union, the Empire State of New York. The annual report of the Panama Railroad & Steamship Co. for the year ended June 30, 1913, shows net earnings of $2,179,175. The steamship company which is operated in con- junction with the Panama railroad shows net earnings of $221,000, as against a deficit of $201,000 for the previous year. The steamship line enjoyed very good patronage during the year. The H. W. Johns-Manville Co. have established their Baltimore office. at No. 207-13 E. Saratoga street, occu- pying the whole of a six-story build- ing. a aca ah Naa Leal