joining with the South in closer relations and efficiency, and lower rates if possible.

Mr. SMALL. Mr. Chairman, I would like to call attention to the fact that in this House Document 391, Sixty-second Congress, second session, on page 497, is a comparative statement of barge rates by water and rail rates from numerous points in the South to numerous points of the North, on various staple articles, showing greatly reduced rates by water all through those intracoastal waters.

The CHAIRMAN. When some one is before us who understands the matter, I want to ask some questions about through business by barge from the South to northern points.

Mr. MOORE. We can give you that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. EDWARDS. Who owns this Chesapeake & Delaware Canal?
Mr. MOORE. The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal Co.

Mr. EDWARDS. The Government owns over $400,000 of that stock, I understand?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. EDWARDS. By whom is the greatest amount of this stock owned? I understand part of it, or nearly all is owned by the railroad company. Is that true?

Mr. MOORE. I do not know that. I want to be frank, and say that because of the desire to get something done here I have never sought the association of anybody connected with this canal.

Mr. EDWARDS. Can you give an idea of where to arrive at the information I am seeking?

Mr. MOORE. As to whether there is a railroad control?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes.

Mr. MOORE. We may be able to help.

Mr. SCULLY. Yes, they could get it right out of the report of the Commissioner of Corporations.

Mr. EDWARDS. It is privately owned?

Mr. MOORE. Oh, it is a privately owned canal.

Mr. EDWARDS. I want to know about the stock.

Mr. MOORE. My information is that the bonds as well as the stockI believe the stock sells at a nominal figure-are owned by individuals. Some of the oldest families have held this stock and kept these bonds from the days of the completion of the canal. It was once a source of revenue, before the days of the railroad, but there was a great defalcation some years ago, resulting in a loss of some $800,000 or thereabouts, and since that time business has not been so profitable.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Moore, have you someone here who can tell us as to the ownership of that stock?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir; I expect to present that.

The CHAIRMAN. I suppose we could get it from the Commissioner of Corporations. Just one other question; you have some one also who can give us definite information as to the cost and as to the value, and so on, outside of what we find in the reports here and recent earnings. We have nothing in the record beyond 1906-the reports show nothing?

Mr. MOORE. I think we shall present one of the very best posted men on that subject when the time comes. There is a letter here, however, which may go into the record at this time, from the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, dated June 14, 1912, which gives us actual facts about the Government's participation in the construction and

ownership of this canal. It is very brief and might be read now. Shall I read it?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. MOORE. This is from Mr. A. Piatt Andrew, one of the Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, dated June 14, 1912. It says:

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 11th instant, requesting information concerning the interest of the United States in the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, and to advise you that the United States is the holder of 14,625 shares of stock of the canal company (par value $50), amounting to $731,250.

This stock was acquired by the payment of $450,000 under the acts of March 3, 1825, and March 2, 1829, and through the acceptance by the United States of shares in lieu of cash dividends.

Fourteen cash dividends were paid to the United States between 1853 and 1872, amounting to $259,875.

The cash dividends of 1873, 1875, and 1877, due the United States, and amounting to $51,187.50, were embezzled by the treasurer of the company.

A suit is now pending in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware for the recovery of the unpaid dividends.

Joint resolution No. 37, approved June 28, 1906 (34 Stat., 835), provided for the appointment by the President of a commission to appraise the value of the works of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, and the report thereon was transmitted by the Secretary of War to the President on January 12, 1907, and is printed as Senate Document No. 215, Fifty-ninth Congress, second session.

The conclusions of the commission are stated on page 2 of the report, and an appraisement of the works and franchises of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal will be found in Appendix B (pp. 17–32).

This department possesses no later information bearing upon the financial status of the company.

Respectfully,

A. PIATT ANDREW,
Assistant Secretary.

I will ask Gov. Charles R. Miller, of Delaware, who is very much interested in the development of waterways, to make a statement now. STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES R. MILLER, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE.

Gov. MILLER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Rivers and Harbors Committee, Mr. Thomas F. Bayard, of Wilmington, was to have presented the remarks of the Delaware delegation, but he is not here, and I shall make a few very brief remarks to you upon the question.

The representatives of the State of Delaware here present to-day are in full accord and are working in full cooperation with all other sections of the Atlantic seaboard, and we would respectfully urge upon you gentlemen to have passed through Congress as promptly as possible a bill for the purchase and improvement of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. There is no sentiment associated with this matter, gentlemen. It is simply a business proposition of the utmost importance. It is far-reaching in its effect. It concerns the material welfare of commercial and industrial interests of many millions of people along the Atlantic seaboard.

This subject has been under consideration for a very long period of time. It has been reported upon favorably and indorsed by the United States engineers, and it is the one project in the Atlantic

intracoastal waterways system which is absolutely essential for the construction of inland waterways from Maine to Florida. This canal, I would call your attention to the fact, gentlemen, connects the two largest bodies of inland seaboard waters in the United States-the upper Chesapeake and the lower Delaware which are practically rendered useless by the inefficiency of this canal as a manner of intracoastal cummunication. It is the center link in the chain of the proposed inland waterways along the entire Atlantic seaboard. Without the acquisition and the improvement of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal it is absolutely impossible to carry into effect the completion of the proposed line of intracoastal waterways along the Atlantic seaboard.

I would call your attention, gentlemen, to the fact that between. the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia, and other cities lying along the Delaware River, with an aggregate population of 2,500,000, the distance is shortened almost 200 miles. I would call attention to the fact that this canal, gentlemen, would provide transportation for a low class of freight which is always long in delivery by rail. Germany has solved that proposition very largely by her system of international canals. England has done the same. It may be perhaps presumptuous for me to call the attention of you gentlemen, who know very much more about river and harbor matters than I do, to these facts, but I would remind you that the Delaware & Chesapeake Canal bears the same relation to millions of people along the Atlantic seaboard that these continental canals do to the people of continental Europe. The people of the entire Atlantic seaboard are behind this proposition as a unit, and if Congress delays or postpones continually this proposition it will only intensify our efforts and stimulate our determination to work more energetically until the object is accomplished.

Now, I would just say one word on the subject, which I think is quite germane to the improvement of this canal by the National Government, and that is the one of national defense. I saw in the paper the other day, when this idea was advanced, that if the United States was not able by her naval force to protect our coast, it certainly would not be of any benefit to have a canal for naval purposes. But Congress has provided quite liberally the Navy with small-draft boats, and if you had a canal controlled by the National Government which would permit small-draft boats of the various types of the Navy to pass backward and forward without having a convoy of battleships, there is not one of us in this room to-day that can foresee what results might turn on the protection offered by these small boats. Now, gentlemen, I am not going to present you any statistics. I believe that this committee desires to give this question the utmost and most careful consideration. You have no doubt before you an enormous amount of data, and I believe that you will consult this data, and therefore I do not want to take your time in repeating that which you perhaps already know or will read at your leisure and absorb for yourselves. Therefore, gentlemen, in concluding I would say that our deep concern for you is that you may dispose of this question with a fair degree of promptness by approving this proposition and backing it by your favorable recommendation.

I thank you, gentlemen. [Applause.]

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, we will now present Mr. Guy Webb, president of the Board of Trade of Norfolk, Va.

STATEMENT OF MR. GUY WEBB, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE OF NORFOLK, VA.

Mr. WEBB. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, we of Norfolk stand in the position that we have ours and only have to have it improved. I think that we have had, possibly, more experience with canals and barges than most of the cities, with the exception of Baltimore and the bay along the coast. We are heartily in favor of the proposition as a whole of an inland waterway canal 12 feet deep, 125 feet wide at the bottom, from one end of the Atlantic coast to the other from Maine to the end of Florida. We have felt its effect in freight rates. The CHAIRMAN. What depth did you say

Mr. WEBB. Twelve feet.

?

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Will you let me interrupt you for a question? That statement you made, that you want this canal from one end of the coast to the other you mean by that that you want these water courses connected?

Mr. WEBB. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. Now, the reason I suggested that is this: We have a map which unfortunately somebody has made and here it is [indicating. You see, there is a blue mark down here [indicating] ? Mr. WEBB. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. And there are thousands of people, and quite a number in Congress, who look at that map and have the notion that what you are really after is to have a canal built as indicated by that line from Cape Cod all the way down the coast. That, of course, is not what you want; you want the water courses connected by a few canals?

Mr. WEBB. We want a canal, but we will not require all of that. Mr. SMALL. There are only seven links from Boston to Florida. Mr. HUMPHREYS. Exactly; and a great many people are opposed to this project because they think it means the digging of a canal from one end of the coast to the other.

Mr. WEBB. Yes. The whole coast line on the Atlantic, along our coast, is made up of these little bays and rivers. While I am from Norfolk, I had the honor to be born in Mr. Small's State, and am very familiar with the North Carolina coast.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. You left that State just as soon as you were able to leave?

Mr. WEBB. I did not intend to explain why I left.

Mr. SMALL. We have sent him from Savannah to Norfolk, you know?

Mr. WEBB. I have studied this a great deal, personally, and happen to know it requires very little digging for the canal along the North Carolina coast, and Virginia has, naturally, Chesapeake Bay. Mr. BOOHER. Mr. Webb, you say it requires only a little digging? Will you give us those statistics?

Mr. WEBB. Mr. Moore has those.

Mr. BOOHER. Now, will you give us the amount of dredging that has to be done to connect up these waterways?

Mr. WEBB. We have all of them in the engineers' reports.

Mr. TREADWAY. May I ask this question: Mr. Small says there gre seven links required to complete this canal from this Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. What is north of that?

Mr. SMALL. There is Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River.
Mr. TREADWAY. That is this one under consideration?

Mr. SMALL. Yes. From Delaware River across New Jersey to Raritan Bay, and thence to New York Bay, and then along Long Island Sound to Fishers Island, thence a small cut from Fishers Island over to Narragansett, and then from Narragansett to Cape Cod. So that, beginning at Boston, it would run from Boston Bay to Narragansett Bay; from Narragansett Bay a short distance over to Fishers Island and along Long Island Sound; from Raritan Bay across New Jersey to the Delaware River; from the Delaware River to the Chesapeake Bay; from Elizabeth River, on which Norfolk is situated, to the inland sounds on the coast of North Carolina, which only involves 10 miles of excavation; from Beaufort, N. C., to Cape Fear River; from Cape Fear River to Winyah Bay, on the coast of South Carolina; from Winyah Bay there is a natural waterway along the Atlantic coast to St. Johns River, Fla. So that you have got only those seven short links of solid excavation of the bed of the canal in order to connect up a continuous waterway from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to say, Mr. Small, that Winyah Bay to Florida would require a good deal of dredging.

Mr. SMALL. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And the expenditure of quite a large sum of money?

Mr. SMALL. But there is a natural inside waterway, and it would be very small in proportion to any excavation through solid land. Mr. BOOHER. What is the character of the country through which the waterways are to be connected up after you get down around Galveston and down there?

Mr. SMALL. I can not give the various links across the Gulf. Of course one is contemplated from Florida across the Gulf to the Mississippi River.

Mr. HUMPHREYS. From here on [indicating on map] it is pretty well completed now.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Mr. Webb.

Mr. WEBB. The one feature of the canal about which I have heard very little said, and which appeals to me most from a practical standpoint, is the fact that it will absolutely do away with the control by railroads of steamship lines, which have been practically commonly owned. Any man with a few thousand dollars can buy a tugboat and a barge or two, and if he has the canal to use them on he necessarily can compete with any transportation company, no matter how large. The CHAIRMAN. Did you ever hear of a towboat trust?

Mr. WEBB. Yes; but there are just as many independents in Norfolk and in that territory where we have that canal. Now, there has been proposed, as illustrative of that, a cotton-mill trust in the South; but they have never been able to bring about that condition because the cotton manufactory could be started on small capital, and while it could not compete with the larger factories, still it could do business and make money, and it is so great a thing that they could not be combined. But I believe the barge traffic along the Atlantic will be such that a barge trust could not exist, because any man with a few thousand dollars could jump in and in this way go to a port and make contracts and make his trip at any time, because he does not have to