Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1905 — INLAND CANALS OF EUROPE. [ARTICLE]

INLAND CANALS OF EUROPE.

Development of Water Ways Seen in Thirty-five Years. The development of internal water ways in France dates mainly from the period immediately following the Franco-Prussian war. Since then the sum spent for this class of improvements has amounted to approximately $500,000,000. The length of canals in France is said to be 3,045 miles and of rivers improved for purposes of navigation 4,665 miles. This network of water ways is practically all owned by the state and is maintained by the state without tolls. In Germany the construction of internal water ways began about the same time as in France and was part of the broad movement toward commercial growth to which the war gave a marked impetus. Railway building had caused the canal systems for a time to fall into disuse.

Railway freight rates finally drove the manufacturer and shipper to avail himself of the then existing waterways and to urge their improvement. This improvement followed with phenomenal rapidity. During the ten years from 1890 to 1899 nearly $75,000,000 was spent on internal water ways, especially on river improvement. These water ways are of vast importance to the empire and are only part of what will eventually form a great inland water system extending into practically all parts of the country. Among the new improvements now talked of is canal joining the Rhine and Weser, the canalization of the Lippe, the improvement of the Oder, the widening and deepening of the water way from Stettin to Berlin, the union of the upper Danube with the Rhine utilizing the Neckar, the further improvement of the Rhine to Basel, etc. In Austria-Hungary an expenditure of upward of $50,000,000 was authorized in 1901 for the construction of canals between the Danube and the Oder, and thence to the Elbe and the Vistula. Further schemes of - water way improvement are contemplated In the empire. Belgium has one mile of water ways to every 8.3 square miles of territory. The traffic by water in 1880 was 250,000,000 mile-tons, while in 1900 it had grown to 500,000,000 mile-tons. The Netherlands has long been threaded with artificial water ways. Russia has recently again taken up the matter of a canal connecting the Baltic and Black Seas. In Great Britain alone has canal improvement been backward, the Manchester ship eaual being the only important work of the kind in the past thirty years.