St. Mary's Canal so far as it related to vessels owned by the subjects of the government so discriminating against the citizens, ports or vessels of the United States or to any cargoes, portions of cargoes or passengers in transit to the ports of the government making such discrimination, whether carried in vessels of the United States or of other nations, and in case and during such suspension, tolls should be levied, collected and paid upon freight not to exceed two dollars per ton, and upon passengers not to exceed five dollars cash, as should be determined by the President.

"Provided, That no tolls shall be charged or collected upon freight or passengers carried to and landed at Ogdensburg, or any port west of Ogdensburg and south of a line drawn from the northern boundary of the State of New York through the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, and their connecting channels to the northern boundary of the State of Minnesota.”

Some time elapsed before the President issued his proclamation, evidently hoping for a discontinuance of the discrimination, but when the Secretary of State, John W. Foster, was notified that grave difficulties presented themselves to an alteration of the tolls during the season of 1892 because contracts and engagements had been entered into based on the continuance of the tariff during the whole season, he replied that the act required the President to establish tolls to run concurrently. Discussion as to future action, he shrewdly remarked, could then proceed under "parity of conditions."1

President Harrison, on the 18th day of August, 1892, issued his proclamation, reciting the orders in council, and directed that from and after September 1, 1892, until further notice, a toll of twenty cents per ton should be levied, collected and paid on all freight of whatever kind or description passing through the St. Mary's Falls Canal in transit to any port in the Dominion of Canada, whether carried in vessels of the United States or of other nations, and to that extent he suspended the right of free passage through St. Mary's Canal, of any and all cargoes or portions of cargoes in transit to Canadian ports.

The execution of the proclamation by the imposition of tolls upon freight passing through the canal bound for Canadian ports was after several months quite effective, for on the 21st day of February, 1893, the President issued another proclamation, suspending the provisions of the act of August, 1892, wherein he recited an order in council, dated February 13, 1893, whereby the Governor General of the Dominion of Canada directed that for the season of 1893 the canal tolls for the passage of the following food products, wheat, Indian corn, pease, barley, rye, oats, flaxseed and buckwheat, for passage eastward through the Welland Canal be ten cents per ton, and for passage westward through the St. Lawrence canals

""Foreign Relations," 1892.

only ten cents per ton; payment of said toll of ten cents per ton for passage through the Welland Canal to entitle those products to free passage through the St. Lawrence canals; and announced that he had received satisfactory assurance that the order revoked, during the season of 1893, the discriminating tolls and secured to citizens of the United States equality with British subjects as regards the use of the canals.

Said a Canadian barrister writing in 1893: "The need of the Canadian ship canal has been very specially felt on two memorable occasions. The first of these was when the United States government refused to allow Sir Garnet Wolseley to go through the Michigan canal with the Canadian troops on their way to quell the first Riel rebellion. The other was during the canal toll excitement of last year1." The excitement arising from the action of the United States in reference to the Chicora was not lasting. The Governor General of Canada, in February, 1881, gave permission to the "Spaulding Guards" of Buffalo, armed and equipped, to pass over the Canada Southern Railway from Buffalo to Detroit and early in 1895 when the Canadian canal was approaching completion a suggestion of General Superintendent Wheeler of the St. Mary's Falls Canal regarding an interchange of statistics was approved by Daniel S. Lamont, Secretary of War, and in due course of diplomatic action was authorized by the committee of the Privy Council and since the opening of the Canadian Canal, captain's and watchmen's reports have been interchanged daily whereby the respective canal officials obtain statistics and are enabled to determine the number of vessels that are above or have passed below the locks and their whereabouts.

Another subject relating to the canal of an international character was that of rendering aid and assistance to vessels wrecked and disabled in the waters of the United States contiguous to the Dominion of Canada or in the waters of Canada contiguous to the United States.

May 24, 1890, Congress passed an act permitting Canadian vessels and wrecking appliances to render such aid in the waters of the United States, including the waters of the canal, which was, however, not to take effect until the President made proclamation that reciprocal privileges had been extended American vessels and wrecking appliances in Canadian waters, including the Welland Canal. Considerable diplomatic correspondence passed between the Secretary of State and the British Legation relative to this topic, and it was not until July 17, 1893, that President Cleveland proclaimed that the government of the Dominion of Canada had extended the necessary recriprocal privileges by an order in council taking effect June 1, 18933.

'Canadian Magazine, Vol. I, p. 590, article by J. J. Kehoe. "Wharton International Law Digest, Vol. I, Sec. 13. Richardson's Messages, Vol. IX, p. 396.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE POE LOCK OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-SIX.

HE lock opened to commerce September 1, 1881, had been in operation but a short time when General Weitzel, in a special report dated January 14, 1882, recommended the immediate construction of a larger lock. General Orlando M. Poe took charge of the improvements on St. Mary's River on August. 10, 1883. He concurred with General Weitzel in advising the construction of a new lock. The annual increase in tonnage had been quite uniform for the preceding fifteen years, averaging 107,313 tons per year, and if the same rate of increase continued for eight years the then existing lockage would be entirely inadequate.

General Superintendent E. S. Wheeler, in his report of February 9, 1884, showed that the whole amount of freight in 1883 in vessels drawing 11.5 feet or less was 294,444 tons; that only 11 per cent of the freight business could have been done through the old locks, and that only 1.5 per cent was actually done. It was his opinion that in ten years the lock of 1881 would be as inadequate as the old locks were in 1880.

General Poe, in his report of July 28, 1884, renewed the suggestion of a new lock in the place of the locks of 1855, and early in January, 1885, he submitted to General John Newton, Chief of Engineers, a comparative statement of the commerce through the canal for the seasons of 1883 and 1884, whereby it appeared that the increase in registered tonnage was 47 per cent, and in grain the increase for 1884 was 87 per cent; in flour 82 per cent, and in iron 43 per cent, and that the increase in 1884 was equal to the entire commerce through the canal during the first five years it was open to navigation.

Commercial interest soon was awakened to the advocacy of another lock. A convention of the businessmen of the Upper Peninsula was held at Marquette, Mich., on June 2 and 3, 18851. Hon. Henry W. Seymour, of Sault Ste. Marie, presided, and resolutions were adopted for presentation to Congress. The convention asked for liberal appropriations for a new lock and other improvements. Congress, in the River and Harbor

'Marquette Mining Journal of June 3rd, 1885.

Act of August 5, 1886, appropriated $250,000 for the new lock and approaches.

A general project for the work was adopted, based upon a navigation of twenty feet in depth. It provided for a single lock 800 feet long between gates, uniformly 100 feet wide, with twenty-one feet of water on the miter-sills and a single lift of a little less than 18 feet, that being the mean fall of the rapids. The location was the site of the locks of 1855, and it also included the deepening of the canal prism.

Contracts were let on December 22, 1886, for the construction of the coffer-dam, fifteen hundred feet wide to enclose the site of the new lock, and operations began May 4, 1887.

The possibility of a serious injury to the Weitzel lock, occurring during the building of the new lock, aroused the attention of those concerned in Lake commerce. The Chamber of Commerce of Duluth, early in 1887, adopted measures looking toward larger appropriations by Congress, for the improvements necessary to the unobstructed navigation of the St. Mary's River. These resolutions were sent to commercial bodies interested in the navigation of the northern lakes, and fifteen leading commercial organizations issued a call for a convention to be held at Sault Ste. Marie, to consider the situation of affairs relating to the improvement of the canal and locks.

The convention assembled on the 20th of July, 1887, and William F. Phelps, of Duluth, was elected temporary chairman. Thomas W. Palmer, United States Senator, of Detroit, was made permanent president of the convention, William F. Phelps, secretary, and Bruce Goodfellow, of Detroit, and F. J. Marsh, of Duluth, assistant secretaries. The States of New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were represented in the convention. Governor S. P. Gray, of Indiana, sent a strong letter of encouragement. Ex-Senator O. P. Stearns, and Congressmen Nelson and Lind, of Minnesota; Congressmen Farquhar, of Buffalo; Moffat, of Michigan, and Romeis, of Ohio, were present. Sault Ste. Marie was represented by several delegates from the Citizens' Improvement Association, among the delegates taking an active part in the convention being Hon. Henry W. Seymour, Hon. R. N. Adams, Hon. Otto Fowle and Mr. George A. Cady.

Mr. George H. Ely, of the committee on resolutions, reported at memorial to Congress, which was adopted by the convention. It set forth the inadequacy of the appropriations for the improvement of the St. Mary's River and the Hay Lake channel and the new lock; and showed by statistics of canal business the necessity for the speedy completion of the works. Congress, on August 11, 1888, appropriated one million dollars for the new lock.

The contract for building a pier along the river front of Fort Brady