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1910 October, "TAE Marine. REVIEW 399 ATLANTIC DEEPER WATERWAYS iy HE convention of the \ Atlantic 2 Dee per Waterways Associa- tion held at Provi- dence, R. 1., in Sep- tember, was very widely attended and it was estimated that altogether in the harbor there were a 'thousand 'cfatt of various kinds. Briefly, the purpose of the convention was to promote the build- ing of an inland waterway from New England to Florida. Gov. Aram J. Pothier, of Rhode Island, welcomed the delegates on behalf of the state. The response on behalf of the north was delivered by Congressman W. S. Greene, of Massachusetts, who de- clared that the construction of a wat- erway inside the dangerous shoals and currents of the Atlantic coast was far more valuable to the business inter- ests of the United States than the construction of the Panama canal. Congressman John H. Small, of North Carolina, responded on _ behalf of the south. _He said that the coast line of the South Atlantic and Gulf states extends 4 distance of 3,007 miles, while the coast line of the North Atlantic states is 888, and that of the Pacific States 1,557 miles. He pointed out that the commerce of the southern ports is growing very fast, and that Galveston today holds the position of second in value of exports. He declared the wealth of the south to be six billion more than the total wealth of the whole country in '1860. There is only one obstacle, he de- clared, in the way of mutual progress, and that is the lack of an intra-coastal waterway. A protected water route from Boston to Florida would forever emancipate commerce from the terrors of Cape Cod and Hatteras. President Moore's Address. President J. Hampton Moore, in his annual address to the association, said: "The formation of the Atlantic Association was notice not only to the 'west, but to the east and to the gov- ernment as well, that we too, upon the Atlantic seaboard, had goods to ship and contracts to keep; that! we, too, had swamp lands to drain and farms to irrigate, and timber lands to Protect; that more than this, we had crops to be carried tothe consumer, crops from Florida, for instance, that were as distant from the market and aS worthy of sale and transportation ican cities were making greater ad- ASSOCIATION as those of the great northwest; that we, too, had great transportation prob- lems and fewer railroads than our competitors; that we, too, desired an outlet by water for our farmers and merchants and manufacturers if we could not get it by rail. In short, it was a notice that we had something along the Atlantic seaboard to ee tor." Rear Admiral C. S. Sperry also made a 'brief address, saying among other things: "The great systems of canal and river transport which center in New York demand a secure outlet to the eastward by way of Long Island sound for their heavily-laden barges, and, although the Cape Cod canal is of great value, it is still very desirable to provide such a canal as has already been advocated before the Association in order that such craft may avoid the stormy seas of Point Judith and pro- ceed in safety to Massachusetts bay, distributing the benefit of their trans- port to the great industrial towns of the interior as well. The inland wat- erways of the Atlantic coast not only provide security for our great coast- ing trade from the perils of the sea and war, but they also afford the high- way for the patrol of the coast by torpedo 'boats and submarines." Addresses were also made by Com- mander Alfred Brooks Fry, chief en- gineer in the United States Treasury Service, who spoke on the subject, "Commercial Canals and Lock to Car- ry Barges of 600, 1,000 and 2,000 tons Capacity." Herbert Knox Smith, com- missioner of corporations, spoke on the subject of "Port Terminals." Congressman Goulding, of New York, read a paper prepared by Calvin Tompkins, commissioner of the De- partment of Docks and Ferries, on the subject, "Terminal Facilities Required for the Successful Co-ordination of Rail and Water Traffic." Canadian, European and South vances in terminal facilities than Amer- ican cities. ©. P. -Austin, chiet of the. Bur- eau of Statistics, Department of Com- merce and Labor, spoke:on the sub- "Atlantic Seaboard: Commerce, £; 1 Gov. Frank B. Inland and Coastwise." Weeks, of Connecticut, spoke upon "Connecticut's Wiater-borne Com- merce." 'Rocky mountains. He thought 4 Resolutions Adopted. The association adopted resolutions as follows: "The Atlantic Deep Waterways As- sociation, in convention assembled in Providence, R. I., August, 1910, speak- ing directly for a constituency of more than 30,000,000 American citizens dwell- ing and doing business upon the At- lantic seaboard, presents to the Amer- ican people generally the following statement of its purposes and of the facts upon which its cause and its de- mands are based. "First--The aim is to cut deep wat- erways through about 70 miles of ob-. structive necks of land, along a line plainly indicated by nature and _ per- fectly practicable, so that, fairly par- allel with the coast, an inland channel shall be created approximately 1,500 miles in length, reaching from Boston harbor to and including Florida and ultimately having extension to the Gulf and to New Orleans. "Second.--This. proposed channel will lie along a coast on which are situated the 'big front doors from the Atlantic to the entire country, and it will be tributary not only to all the many minor but important ports of the nation on that. coast, but to the four great cities, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the cus- toms receipts of which are four-fifths of all the, revenue of the eee from the tariff. "Third--Thus the proposed enter- prise cannot be regarded as sectional in its character. It is, indeed, certain to be productive of important and 'profitable commercial consequences to all the states affected by the influence of transportation rates east of the We heartily favor all projects approved by the United States engineers for the improvement of. inland waterways in the Mississippi alley and far west, but, lest these ild appear to have importance much "superior to that of the enterprise to which we are committed, we point. to the fact that the entire tonnage of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the year 1907 was not much more than that of the single port of Providence, Rt "Fourth--We demand the construc- tion at an early date of the deep wat- erway along the Atlantic coast as a measure imperatively required to pre- vent the strangulation of the trans-