CHAPTER XVIII. SOME ACCOUNT OF PROGRESS. HE progress of commerce on the lakes, shown in the law, politics and traffic, and in other ways, is worthy of consideration. Courts of admiralty are no longer closed to suitors who seek enforcement of rights connection with navigation on the lakes. A half a century ago doubts existed in the minds of some statesmen as to the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce carried on by railroads. Now it is settled that even the telegraph, flashing "ideas, wishes, orders and intelligence" across the continent, is an instrument of commerce and subject to such regulation.1 It was about fifty years ago that Stephen A. Douglass, in the Senate of the United States, uttered his warning note to the great Democratic party, that negative fighting would not answer, that the navigating interest of the country was too important, too large, to receive nothing but hostility from the government, and that "if you put yourselves in the position of hostility to the navigating interests you will never succeed."2 Years rolled by, and in the platform of that party adopted at Chicago in 1884 is to be found a declaration that the federal Government should care for and improve the Mississippi river and other great waterways of the republic so as to secure for the interior states easy and cheap transporta tion to tide water. A little less than fifty years ago Cornelius Vanderbilt, in July, 1856, invited members of the Senate and House of Representatives to visit and inspect his ocean steamer, the Vanderbilt, anchored off Greenleaf's Point, having a capacity of 5,400 tons, adding with pardonable pride that it was "the largest steamer that has ever yet floated on the Atlantic Ocean." To-day, passing through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, are steamships whose capacity exceeds 10,000 tons, and upon the Pacific are the twin ships 'W. U. Tel. Co. vs. Pendleton, 122 U. S., 347. Minnesota and Dakota, of 21,000 gross tons, constructed by the Great Northern Steamship Company for direct trade with Asia.1 The first year, 1856, that the locks were open the full season from May 4th to November 28th, the total net tons of freight passing through was 33,817, and the total net registered tonnage of the vessels was 101,458. The statistics for the season of 1904, of all the locks, American and Canadian, show that the total net tons of freight reported by the vessels was 31,546,106 tons, and the total net registered tonnage was 24,364,138. Improvements have been made in the methods of taking out iron ore and transporting the same to the lake ports, channels have been deepened in the River St. Mary and St. Clair Flats, and an eminent writer has remarked that: "By every foot that this depth has been increased the distance between Duluth and Cleveland has been virtually shortened by 100 miles, so that in the forty years in which the depth of water on St. Clair Flats has been doubled and a navigable depth of twenty feet has been established in the St. Mary's Falls Canal, the cost of transporting a ton of ore on the lakes has come down from four mills to six-tenths of a mill per ton mile.”2 'Report of Com. of Navigation, for 1903. "The Great Lakes and our Commercial Supremacy." John Foord. North Am. Review, Vol. 167, p. 155. Commerce of the Great Lakes in 1905 BY RALPH D. WILLIAMS EDITOR OF THE MARINE REVIEW HE commerce of the great lakes during 1905 was the real wonder of the world, for if one were to add the combined tonnages of New York, London, Liverpool and Hamburg, it would not equal the traffic of the great lakes during the brief season in which it is possible for the vessels to operate. There is a very reliable gauge of the commerce of the great lakes, and that is the statistics kept by the superintendents of the government canals at Sault Ste. These canals, of course, measure only the commerce of Lake Superior, but the commerce of this mighty lake may safely be regarded as encompassing more than half the total commerce of the chain of waters. Last year there passed through the Sault Ste. Marie canals 44,270,680 tons of freight, which was carried by 21,679 ships, of which 17,197 were steamers, 3,263 sailing vessels or tow barges and 1,219 unregistered craft. The net registered tonnage of these vessels was 36,617,699 tons. This amazing commerce represented an increase of 40 per cent. over the traffic of 1904. Marie. There is no absolute register of the commerce of the Detroit River, owing to the fact that there is no congressional enactment directing that it be taken; nor is there any appropriation allowed for its compilation. However, the Department of Commerce and Labor, through its Bureau of Statistics, has endeavored to approximate the commerce by a compilation of figures furnished by masters of vessels to the collector of customs. During 1905 an earnest effort was made to get these figures as completely as possible, with the result that the total commerce of the Detroit River is given as 53,639,086 tons, of which 39,991,085 tons was south bound commerce and 13,648,001 tons was north bound commerce. The commerce of the river reaches its maximum in August, as is shown by the monthly statement as follows: |