Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1895 — IN AID OF COMMERCE. [ARTICLE]

IN AID OF COMMERCE.

Navigation Topics Carefully Considered at the Cleveland Conference. The International Deep Water Association, which met at Cleveland, proved a large success in the number of attendants. The real test of its practical importance may not come for a long time .yet. It is certainly encouraging to have this evidence of interest. The relative importance of water-ways has greatly decreased, it is true, since the days of De Witt Clinton and the Erie Canal, but from a positive point of view their importance has greatly increased. At the opening of the session a partial report of the Committee on Credentials was submitted, indicating the presence of 330 delegates from fifteen States and Provinces. President Howland said that he had received a communication from Sir Mackenzie Bowell, Premier of Canada, designating an eminent engineer, Mr. Munro, to represent the Canadian Government at the convention. Mr. Howland then invited Lieut. George P. Blow, who came to the convention as a representative of the United States Government, and Mr. Munro to take seats on the platform. He said the action of the two Governments in sending representatives to the convention did not in any way commit them to the policy of the convention. After adopting a rule limiting speeches .to ten minutes, discussion was declared in order, and Mr. Richard Ri Dobell, of Quebec, and Mr. A. L. Crocker, president of the Minneapolis Board of Trade, gave abstracts of the papers which they had prepared on “Export Lumber anil Timber Trade.” Mr. Dobell in closing cordially invited the convention to meet next year in Quebec. Alexander 11. Smith, secretary of the Executive Canal Committee of New York, read a paper upon the subject of “An Improved Erie Canal Offered to Lake Commerce as a Substitute for a Ship Canal.” Mr. Smith said thfit the people of New York were intensely interested in cheap transportation and the commerce of the great lakes. He detailed at length the proposed plans for improving the Erie Canal and expressed the belief that when the work of deepening that waterway had been completed the canal would easily accommodate the lake traffic to the sea. Prof. Emory R. Johnson, of the University of Pennsylvania read a paper on the “Effect of Deep Water Between the Great Lakes and the Sea Upon Railway Traffic and Profits.”