"Two considerations should, above all others, be kept in mind in determination of the feasibility of any project: first, the very positive limitations to the efficiency of rivers and canals as transportation agencies because of their lack of flexibility and the natural disabilities under which they suffer; and secondly, that water transportation is not necessarily cheap simply because the Government constructs and maintains the channels. Nothing could be more delusive than the assertion so frequently made, which is found in the opening pages of the report of the New York Committee on Canals of 1899, that water transportation is inherently cheaper than rail transportation. Such an assertion is true only of ocean transportation, and possibly also of large bodies of water like the lakes, although this last is doubtful. "By all means let us have our waterways developed when such development is economically justifiable. What is justifiable must be a matter of judgment, and possibly to some extent of experimentation, but the burden of proof rests on its advocates. Such projects should be carried out by the localities interested and the burden should be borne by those who are to derive the benefit. Only in large undertakings of national concern should the General Government be called upon for aid. "But I protest most vigorously against the deluge of schemes poured in upon Congress at every session by reckless advocates who, disregarding altogether the cost of their crazy measures in the increased burden of general taxation, argue for the inherent cheapness of water transportation, and urge the construction at public expense of works whose traffic will never cover the cost of maintenance." CHAPTER IX ENGLISH CONDITIONS I have already spoken in Chapter VII. of some of the chief differences between Continental and English conditions, but I revert to the latter because it is essential that, before approving of any scheme of canal restoration here, the British public should thoroughly understand the nature of the task that would thus be undertaken. The sections of actual canal routes, given opposite page 98, will convey some idea of the difficulties which faced the original builders of our artificial waterways. The wonder is that, since water has not yet been induced to flow up-hill, canals were ever constructed over such surfaces at all. Most probably the majority of them would not have been attempted if railways had come into vogue half a century earlier than they did. Looking at these diagrams, one can imagine how the locomotive--which does not disdain hill-climbing, and can easily be provided with cuttings, bridges, viaducts, and tunnels--could follow the canal; but one can hardly imagine that in England, at least, the canal would have followed the railway.