"When I was in the West the question of water transportation down the Mississippi was frequently remarked upon. The Mississippi is navigable from St Paul to New Orleans. In the early days the towns along the Mississippi, especially those from St Paul to St Louis, depended upon, and had their growth through, the river traffic. It was a common remark among our railroad people that 'we could lick the river.' The traffic down the Mississippi, especially from St Paul to St Louis (I can only speak of the territory with which I am well acquainted) perceptibly declined in competition with the railroads, and the river towns have been revived by, and now depend more for their growth on, the railroads than on the river.... Figures do not prove anything. If the Erie Canal and the Mississippi River traffic had increased, doubled, trebled, or quadrupled in the past years, instead of actually dwindling by tonnage figures, it would prove nothing as against the tremendous tonnage hauled by the trunk line railroads. The Erie Railroad Company, New York to Chicago, last year carried 32,000,000 tons of revenue freights. It would take a pretty good canal to handle that amount of traffic; and the Erie is only one of many lines between New York and Chicago. "A canal, paralleling great railroads, to some extent injures them on through traffic. The tendency of all railroads is in the line of progress. As the tonnage increases the equipment becomes larger, and the general tendency of railroad rates is downwards; in other words, the public in the end gets from the railroad all that can be expected from a canal, and much more. The railroad can expand right and left, and reach industries by side tracks; with canals every manufacturer must locate on the banks of the canal. Canals for internal commerce, in my mind, are out of date; they belong to the 'slow.' Nor do I believe that the traffic management of canals by the State has the same conception of traffic measures which is adopted by the modern managers of railroads. "Canals affect rates on heavy commodities, and play a part mostly injurious, to my mind, to the proper development of railroads, especially on the Continent of Europe. They may do local business, but the railroad is the real handmaid of commerce." By way of concluding this brief sketch of American conditions, I cannot do better than adopt the final sentences in Professor Dixon's paper at the St Louis Railway Club to which I have already referred:--