Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries / With a description of the Panama, Suez, Manchester, Nicaraguan, and other canals.

by J. Stephen Jeans

In February, 1808, Mr. Joshua Forman, a member of the Legislature from Onondaga, and subsequently one of the efficient promoters of the canal, proposed the appointment of a joint committee “to take into consideration the propriety of exploring and causing an accurate survey to be made of the most eligible and direct route for a canal to open a communication between the tide-waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie.” On the 21st of March, 1808, Mr. Gold, of the committee, made a report, enlarging upon the importance of the proposed work, “in drawing together and preserving in political concord the distant parts of a widely extended empire,” and closed with a resolution that the Surveyor-General cause an accurate survey to be made of the rivers, streams, and waters in the usual route of communication between the Hudson river and the western waters, and such other contemplated routes as he may deem proper. For such survey the sum of 600 dollars was appropriated. The action under the resolution of Mr. Forman was the first step taken by the Legislature with a view to the construction of the Erie Canal. In 1810 commissioners were appointed to examine the route of the proposed canal. In 1811 the commission reported in favour of a canal, which, in order to produce the inclination of six inches to the mile to Schenectady was to cross the Genesee river by a viaduct 83 feet above the water, and the outlet of Cuyaga Lake at an elevation of 130 feet. In 1812 the commission made an estimate of the probable tonnage that would come upon the canal, and of the tolls that would accrue therefrom. They expressed their opinion that not improbably the canal, in twenty years from that time, would bring down 200,000 tons of traffic![110]

In 1817, the Act for the construction of the Erie Canal was finally passed. The money was to be raised on the credit of the State. In 1825 the canal with its adjuncts was completed. The latter event was signalised by a holiday, and unusual rejoicings. It was regarded as a great thing that the news of the opening of the canal was conveyed to New York from Buffalo, by a discharge of cannon, whose reverberations were repeated along a line of 513 miles in one hour and twenty minutes. The communication which the Erie Canal afforded between the vast inland seas of the United States and the Atlantic Ocean was, indeed, the greatest event in the history of transportation in that country up to the end of the first quarter of our century.

The opening of the Erie Canal was followed by the initiation of many other schemes of a similar kind. The real date of the era of canal building in the United States was 1825-30. Pennsylvania, following directly upon the heels of the Erie, constructed a work which was partly railway, and partly canal, and upon which the State expended no less a sum than 50 millions of dollars (10,000,000l.).[111] This line, however, was not successful. “The works, although of great local use and value, never became factors of any importance in the general commerce of the country.”[112]

The State which, next to New York, achieved the greatest success in the construction of canals was Ohio. In 1832 two lines were opened through that State—one from Cleveland to Portsmouth, on the Ohio, the other from Toledo to Cincinnati. Their capacity did not allow the passage of boats carrying cargoes exceeding thirty tons. At its highest point, in 1857, their traffic reached 1,635,744 tons. The line which separated the tonnage going north to the lakes, and that going south to the river, passed east and west very near the centre of the State—the tendency of breadstuffs, on the whole, being toward the lakes, to seek their outlet through the Erie Canal; and of provisions of all kinds to the river, to seek their outlet through New Orleans. Of the exports of beef from Cincinnati in 1851, the year of the opening of the Erie railroad, and twenty-seven years after the opening of the Erie Canal, 97 per cent., went down the river to New Orleans, and only 2 per cent. northward to the lake. Of Indian corn, 96 per cent. went down the river, and only 3 per cent. to the lake. Of flour, 97 per cent. went down the river, only 1 per cent. to the lake. Of lard, 83 per cent. went down the river, and 9 per cent. to the lake. Of pork and bacon, 79 per cent. went down the river, and 5 per cent. to the lake. A very small amount of these articles went up the river to Pittsburgh, the first great manufacturing city that grew up off the line of the seaboard. Taking the whole State, two-thirds of its wheat went north, seeking an outlet by the way of the Erie Canal. Of corn and provisions, nineteen-twentieths went down the river to New Orleans. One reason, probably, for the excess of the southward movement of provisions was, that the animals were slaughtered in the autumn, too late to have their products forwarded by canal. Corn was grown chiefly in the southern part of the State. Live animals were never moved, either on the Ohio or on the New York canals. The provision trade, which now forms so enormous a traffic on the railroads running to tide-water, is wholly the creation of these works. The canals of Ohio maintained a considerable traffic until the construction of competing lines of railroads, when it declined so rapidly that, in 1856, the expense of their maintenance became greater than their revenues. They have long since been practically abandoned as routes of transportation.

The State of Indiana, following the lead of Ohio, constructed, with the aid of its creditors, a canal from the junction of the Miami Canal to the city of Evansville, completing it in 1855. Only the upper portion of this work came into considerable use. The whole system was abandoned upon the construction of railroads along its line.

The State of Illinois constructed a canal from Lake Michigan to Lasalle, at the head of navigation on the Illinois river, a distance of 100 miles from Chicago. It was originally intended to make the cut deep enough to feed the line from the lake. This project was abandoned from the cost of its execution, to be subsequently carried out by the city of Chicago for sanitary purposes. The canal had at the outset a considerable traffic, which, however, was lost upon the introduction of competing lines of railroads.

The preceding works include all the great water-lines constructed by the States for the purpose of giving direction to the general commerce of the country. Several considerable private works were executed, the most important of which was the Delaware and Raritan Canal, to connect the Delaware River with the harbour of New York, a work of large capacity, which still retains an extensive traffic. Several works of the kind were constructed, chiefly in Pennsylvania, for the transportation of coal-works which, upon the construction of railroads, lost all the importance they once enjoyed. The Chesapeake and Ohio, and the James River and Kanawha Canals, upon which large sums were expended, and for which great expectations were raised, were never completed, and do not require particular remark. The canal system of the country has now become so completely subordinate, that few are aware of its magnitude previous to the construction of railroads which caused a great part of it to be abandoned. At one time there were 5000 miles of canal lines in operation, built at a cost of 150,000,000 dollars, or 30,000,000l.

The growth of the traffic on the waterways of the United States was steady for a number of years. In 1837 it was nearly 1¼ million tons; in 1847 it was nearly three millions; and in 1857 it was 3,344,000 tons. In the latter year the traffic of the canals as a whole was 772,000 tons less than in the previous year. This decline, which occurred almost for the first time in the history of the system, created considerable alarm—all the more so that it fell coincidently with a large increase in the railway traffic. Up to 1851 the railways had not had a free hand. Laws were enacted imposing canal tolls upon railroad tonnage, and prohibiting any roads from carrying freight. The State authorities looked upon the canals as a trust confided to their keeping, and protected them against the railroads. But in 1851 these laws were repealed, and from that date the railroads entered upon a career of development such as they had not previously known.

From the first the struggle was vastly unequal. The railroads not only offered a much higher rate of speed, but very low rates as well. They entered into arrangements “with lines of propellers (steamers) on the lakes, and steam and tow boats on the Hudson, forming connected lines from the seaboard to Detroit, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, and other western ports, to divert all the freight possible from the canals over their roads,” and practically “contracted to carry freight on the propeller for nothing, for the sake of getting and securing the freight of it upon their roads.”[113]

This is only a repetition of an experience that has been perfectly familiar in the transportation annals of England and other countries. But in no other country did the State take up an attitude of hostility to one interest in order that the other might be advanced. The proposal gravely made in the United States on behalf of the State was that railroad tonnage should be specially taxed, in order that it might be handicapped as against the canals. The Committee of Ways and Means did not seem to entertain any doubt that this species of tyranny was within their power. “The Legislature,” they said, “has the power to move them (the railroads) in such form, and subject them to such charges and restrictions, as it may deem it the interest of the State to require.” And then followed the astounding non sequitur that “the State has the power to prohibit them altogether from the carriage of freight!” The keen competition which had been going on between the canals and the railroads had no doubt seriously affected the trade and revenue of the canals, “and through them,” added the State engineer, “the interest of every taxpayer in the State.” This was greatly deplored, as the consequence of unnecessary rivalry. “The passenger travel belongs exclusively to the railroads, while the transport of cheap and heavy articles of freight belongs to the canals!”