| Year. | Total Traffic on New York Canals and Railroads. Tons. | Percentage on Canals only. Per cent. |
| 1860 | 7,155,803 | 65 |
| 1870 | 17,488,469 | 35 |
| 1880 | 29,943,633 | 21 |
| 1890 | 56,327,661 | 9.3 |
| 1900 | 84,942,988 | 4.1 |
| 1903 | 93,248,299 | 3.9 |
The falling off in the canal traffic has been greatest in just those heavy or bulky commodities that are generally assumed to be specially adapted for conveyance by water. Of the flour and grain, for instance, received at New York, less than 10 per cent. in 1899, and less than 8 per cent. in 1900, came by the Erie Canal.
The experiences of the New York canals have been fully shared by other canals in other States. Of the sum total of 5,000 miles of canals constructed, 2,000 had been abandoned by 1890 on the ground that the traffic was insufficient to cover working expenses. Since then most of the remainder have shared the same fate, one of the last of the survivors, the Delaware and Hudson, being converted into a railway a year or two ago. In fact the only canals in the United States to-day, besides those in the State of New York, whose business is sufficiently regular to warrant the inclusion of their traffic in the monthly reports of the Government are the Chesapeake and Delaware (connecting Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and having an annual traffic of about 700,000 tons, largely lumber); and the Chesapeake and Ohio (from Cumberland to Georgetown, owned by the State of Maryland, and transporting coal almost exclusively, the amount depending on the state of congestion of traffic on the railroads).
It is New York that has been most affected by this decline in American canals. When the railways began to compete severely with the Erie Canal, New York's previous supremacy over rival ports in the Eastern States was seriously threatened. Philadelphia and Baltimore, and various smaller ports also, started to make tremendous advance. Then the Gulf ports—notably New Orleans and Galveston—were able to capture a good deal of ocean traffic that might otherwise have passed through New York. Not only do the railway lines to those ports have the advantage of easy grades, so that exceptionally heavy train-loads can be handled with ease, and not only is there no fear of snow or ice blocks in winter, but the improvements effected in the ports themselves—as I had the opportunity of seeing and judging, in the winter of 1902-3, during a visit to the United States—have made these southern ports still more formidable competitors of New York. While, therefore, the trade of the United States has undergone great expansion of late years, that proportion of it which passes through the port of New York has seriously declined. "In less than ten years," says a pamphlet on "The Canal System of New York State," issued by the Canal Improvement State Committee, City of New York, "Pennsylvania or some other State may be the Empire State, which title New York has held since the time of the Erie Canal."
So a movement has been actively promoted in New York State for the resuscitation of the Erie and other canals there, with a view to assuring the continuance of New York's commercial supremacy, and giving her a better chance—if possible—of competing with rivals now flourishing at her expense. At first a ship canal between New York and Lake Erie was proposed; but this idea has been rejected as impracticable. Finally, the Legislature of the State of New York decided on spending $101,000,000 on enlarging the Erie and other canals in the State, so as to give them a depth of 12 feet, and allow of the passage of 1,000-ton barges, arrangements being also made for propulsion by electric or steam traction.
In addition to this particular scheme, "there are," says Mr F. H. Dixon, Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, in an address on "Competition between Water and Railway Transportation Lines in the United States," read by him before the St Louis Railway Club, and reported in the Engineering News (New York) of March 22, 1906, "many other proposals for canals in different sections of the country, extending all the way from projects that have some economic justification to the crazy and impracticable schemes of visionaries." But the general position in regard to canal resuscitation in the United States does not seem to be very hopeful, judging from a statement made by Mr Carnegie—once an advocate of the proposed Pittsburg-Lake Erie Canal—before the Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce in 1898.
"Such has been the progress of railway development," he said, "that if we had a canal to-day from Lake Erie through the Ohio Valley to Beaver, free of toll, we could not afford to put boats on it. It is cheaper to-day to transfer the ore to 50-ton cars, and bring it to our works at Pittsburg over our railway, than it would be to bring it by canal."
Turning from artificial to natural waterways in the United States, I find the story of the Mississippi no less instructive.
