In Ohio the legislature authorized the survey of a canal from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. In 1825 an act was passed providing for the construction of the Ohio Canal and a number of feeders. In 1831 the canal was in operation from Cleveland to Newark, a distance of 176 miles, and the whole system was finished in 1833.
The State of Illinois completed in 1848 the Illinois and Michigan Canal, connecting Chicago with La Salle on the Illinois River. This canal is 102 miles long, 60 feet wide and six feet deep. The construction by the general government of the Hennepin Ship Canal, connecting the Mississippi with Lake Michigan, has long been agitated in the Northwest. Such a canal would be one of the most important channels of commerce in the country, and it is to be hoped that this great project will be completed at no distant day.
We have besides in the United States a large number of canals that were constructed, and are still operated, by private companies, as the Delaware and Hudson in New York and Pennsylvania, the Schuylkill, Lehigh and Union canals in Pennsylvania, the Morris Canal in New Jersey, the Chesapeake and Ohio and Maryland, etc. A large number of canals, some public and others private property, have since the construction of railroads been abandoned. Thus in New York 356 miles of canals, costing $10,235,000; in Pennsylvania 477 miles, costing $12,745,000; in Ohio 205 miles, costing $3,000,000; in Indiana 379 miles, costing $6,325,000, are no longer in use. All the canals that were ever built in New England have likewise been abandoned for commercial purposes.
Nor was Canada slow in realizing the advantages which a system of canals connecting the great lakes with the Atlantic Ocean promised to give her. The construction of the Welland and St. Lawrence canals made it possible for vessels to clear from Chicago direct for Liverpool, and this has to a considerable extent diverted grain shipments to Montreal, giving the Canadian dealers a decided advantage in this traffic.
It is a strange fact that, at least in this country, the zenith of the canal-building era is found in the decade following the invention of the steam railroad. For many years it was not believed that under ordinary circumstances the iron horse could ever compete with the canal boat in rates. The most sagacious business men had unlimited faith in the destiny of the canal as a prime commercial factor and invested largely in canal stocks. To many these investments proved a disappointment. The marvelous improvements in locomotives and other rolling stock, the unprecedented reductions in the prices of iron and steel, and above all the fact that in our climate canal carriage is unavailable during five months of the year, gave the railroads a decided advantage in their competition with canal transportation. There can be no doubt, however, that the presence of this competition was one of the chief causes of the great reduction of railroad rates on through routes. In this respect alone the canals have accomplished a very important mission. In the transportation of many of the raw products of the soil and the mine canals still compete successfully with the railroads, and it is still an open question whether future inventions may not enable them to regain lost ground in the carriage of other goods. It would certainly be a short-sighted policy for our people to discourage the construction of new canals.
For the improvement of navigable rivers, appropriations have been made by Congress ever since the establishment of our national government, and these appropriations now amount to millions of dollars annually. Since the introduction of railroads the usefulness of these national highways of commerce has ceased to depend upon the tonnage carried upon them, but the influence which they exert upon the cost of transportation is so great that it is not likely that the policy of making annual appropriations for the improvement of these water ways will be abandoned by the American people for many years to come.
There has recently been a strong agitation in some portions of the United States in favor of extending government aid to the Nicaragua Ship Canal, and there seem to be indeed many arguments in favor of such a policy. President Harrison said in his annual message to Congress in December, 1891:
"The annual report of the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua shows that much costly and necessary preparatory work has been done during the past year in the construction of shops, railroad tracks and harbor piers and breakwaters, and that the work of canal construction has made some progress. I deem it to be a matter of the highest concern to the United States that this canal, connecting the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and giving to us a short water communication between our ports upon those two great seas, should be speedily constructed, and at the smallest practical limit of cost. The gain in freights to the people and the direct saving to the government of the United States in the use of its naval vessels would pay the entire cost of the work within a short series of years. The report of the Secretary of the Navy shows the saving in our naval expenditures which would result. The Senator from Alabama, Mr. Morgan, in his argument upon this subject before the Senate of the last session, did not overestimate the importance of the work when he said that 'The canal is the most important subject now connected with the commercial growth and progress of the United States.'"
And in his message of 1892 that:
"It is impossible to overestimate the value from every standpoint of this great enterprise, and I hope that there will be time, even in this Congress, to give it an impetus that will insure the early completion of the canal and secure to the United States its proper relation to it when completed."