I will not spend any more time on that, except to call attention to it and to say it is very important that they should have this relief. The United States Chamber of Commerce, through its section on transportation, has been working on the question of transportation improvement for about eight months, and recently they called a conference here, which was called in the name of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and which was referred to as the national transportation conference.

At that meeting the waterway committee of that organization presented a report favoring the development of interior waterways, and particularly calling for the continuation of this barge line operation for another five years in order to demonstrate what could be done in the way of establishing permanent internal-waterway transportation.

About the same time there was a meeting in Washington of the executive committee of the National Industrial Traffic League, which is an organization of about 1,000 shippers from coast to coast of this country. That meeting was on January 8, and they approved a report which was favorable to the continuation of the barge line. I just mention those facts to show you that those two organizations have gone on record in favor of that development going ahead. A study of these traffic matters, comparing the possibilities here with what other countries have done, shows that it is entirely feasible to continue this development and that it can be made a brilliant

success.

Mr. KINDRED. That is, the barge line?

Mr. RIPPIN. I mean the operation on this river to Chicago and the development of the line to Pittsburgh, St. Paul, and Kansas City. Of course, this particular bill refers to Chicago. We want to develop a trunk-line system of waterways, and this is one of the connecting lines. It also will furnish the means of an exchange of commodities between the lake cities and the other territory reached by means of the river system.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you in that connection studied the question of the present rates on the barge line as compared with the rates on the Great Lakes?

Mr. RIPPIN. Yes; the rates at present on the barge line, generally, are higher than the Great Lakes rates. They have not gotten down yet to a compact basis of operation. The line has not been organized on a compact basis, with sufficient volume so that it can be compared with the business on the Great Lakes.

The CHAIRMAN. The question that is passed here by the Lake Carriers' Association is the endangering of what they claim is the largest volume of transportation business in the world, amounting to 120,000,000 tons.

It is important in considering that to compare the rates on the Great Lakes with the rates on the barge line. I mean in considering this bill.

The average rate of transportation on the Great Lakes is 1 mill per ton-mile. I do not know what the rate on the barge line is. Mr. RIPPIN. I think the barge line operation has a rate of betwen 2 and 3 mills at present. That is my recollection. But those statistics are available from Colonel Ashburn, who is in charge of the actual operation. He can give you all those figures. I did not attempt

to secure them to furnish them to you because I expected he would be here to do that. He has been in charge of that operation for two years.

I think I have covered the principal things I desired to say. There are about half a dozen members of the committee I referred to a while ago who are present, and I believe you have arranged to give them an opportunity to say a few words on their own account, as they desire to present some special features to you..

Mr. PEAVEY. Supposing it should be found by the committee at a later time that the engineers, after obtaining sufficient engineering data and authority, would fix the volume of water at, say, 1,000 cubic feet per second at Chicago as being sufficient to sustain the barge line; would that not meet your interest in this bill?

Mr. RIPPIN. We are shiping wheat from St. Louis to New Orleans, 75,000 bushels to a barge drawing 7 feet of water. That is a pretty heavy load, and it is about as much as the grain carriers on the Great Lakes carry. I think 75,000 bushels is the average load.

Mr. PEAVEY. Let me put my question in a little different way. You are directly interested in the amount of diversion that occurs at Chicago?

Mr. RIPPIN. As a traffic committee we would be interested in trying to get transportation. We want to ship our goods on the best possible basis.

Mr. PEAVEY. My first question was directed to this point: Suppose the engineers would find that 1,000 cubic feet of water per second would be sufficient to support a barge line; would that meet all your objections?

Mr. RIPPIN. I do not know about the diversion matter; I am talking from the transportation point of view. If that depth of water would be sufficient for barges, we would make use of it.

Mr. PEAVEY. You are not interested in the amount of diversion. The CHAIRMAN. I think perhaps the question has been answered because he says that they carry their heaviest load with 7 feet, and I think the report to which you refer is one that says 8 feet would be furnished by the amount you specify.

Mr. MORGAN. The grain you ship by barges from St. Louis and other points is very largely for export, is it not?

Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, sir; it has been up to this time.

Mr. MORGAN. May I inquire as to what the difference is in rates. at the harbor for export between the barge line and the railroads?

Mr. RIPPIN. The base rail rate from St. Louis to New Orleans is 18 by rail and 11 by the barge line, a difference of 6 per hundred in favor of the barge line. I would like to add that I have observed that when there is active bidding for grain for export the price is enhanced and the man in the country gets a better price because the grain can be sent to the ports on a cheaper basis.

Mr. MORGAN. That is what I wanted to get at. That would be applicable to all products shipped for export, would it not? Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, to the agricultural products.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me understand this. Really, you are talking about bidding for shipments in Chicago or St. Paul? Mr. RIPPIN. I was talking about our market.

The CHAIRMAN. At St. Louis?

Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, sir. Does not that answer your question? The CHAIRMAN. In Chicago, of course, at 2 to 3 mills per ton, you could not compete with the Great Lakes at 1 mill per ton.

Mr. RIPPIN. Of course, we have a shorter haul from St. Louis to New Orleans than from Chicago to Montreal, thence all water

route.

The CHAIRMAN. You have not carried any grain because you have not had any channel to carry it on from Chicago.

Mr. RIPPIN. From St. Louis by water?

The CHAIRMAN. Chicago.

Mr. RIPPIN. No, not from Chicago.

Mr. MORGAN. What would apply to St. Louis would be applicable to Chicago?

The CHAIRMAN. That would depend entirely on this that if the Great Lakes carrier bid 1 mill and your present rate is 2 to 3 mills, you would not expect to get the traffic on that competitive bidding, would you?

Mr. RIPPIN. It would have to be on a competitive basis.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. Let me answer that. The majority of the grain raised would not go to Chicago. It would be diverted along the Lakes and the Mississippi River. In that way you would save the freight rate from a destination like Des Moines, which would not go to Chicago but would go straight to the Mississippi River, thus saving that expense.

The CHAIRMAN. That would not be involved in this question at all. We are talking exclusively here about the waterway from Chicago to the Mississippi. We are not talking about the Mississippi proper.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. I will answer that by saying first, that you can not have the Mississippi proposition conducted without this. You get the water to carry the Mississippi traffic through this river and through Lake Michigan, if you put in 10,000 cubic feet to get that water and increase the available flow down the Mississippi River, that makes your canal.

Mr. MORGAN. Is it not a fact that if this waterway is developed through the great bread basket of the United States, where the great volume of grain is produced, that the shipment would go by way of the river to New Orleans?

Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, sir; it would certainly use the water haul as much as it could.

Mr. MORGAN. Did I understand you to say that you carried 72,000 bushels of grain from St. Louis to New Orleans by barge? Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. MORGAN. In a 7-foot channel?

Mr. RIPPIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. STRONG. Did I understand you to say in a barge or a fleet of barges?

Mr. RIPPIN. One barge load. There are times when they can be loaded that much, and at that time the river was in condition to take it.

Mr. MORGAN. How much water is required to take that much? Mr. RIPPIN. When you draw 7 feet. you have to have more depth than that. You have to have some play between 7 feet and the bottom. That would mean at least 8 feet depth there.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. To show you this proposition, Mr. Morgan, starting at Chicago, through the Illinois River, thence the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri, you make a channel of 9 feet in depth and 200 feet in width, and that is necessary to carry on a barge line?

Mr. RIPPIN. The deeper it is the better the operation. You can put heavier loads on it.

Mr. PEAVEY. Is it your position, Mr. Hull, that 10,000 cubic feet per second is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of a project like this barge line?

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. I can answer it in this way: That the 10,000 cubic-feet flow, which gives you a satisfactory channel, not only does that but it decreases the expense of building the canal almost five times. In other words, if you would try to make the flow without any flow from Lake Michigan, then the expense would be enormous, and I do not believe that you could have the channel satisfactory to carry those barge lines. With the 10,000 cubic-feet flow you get everything you want as far as making this channel a success is concerned.

Mr. PEAVEY. In other words, you are going to reduce the cost of the construction of the barge canal at the expense of those on the Great Lakes?

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. I would not say that, because I do not think it would affect the Great Lakes. It has not so far, and it has been going through for 10 years.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the flow from Lake Erie into the barge canal in New York? That is 12 feet in depth?

Mr. MACY (department of State engineering, New York). I can answer that question. About 1,200 cubic feet per second. It varies from that up to as high as 1,700.

The CHAIRMAN. I was just comparing the discharge into the barge canal of the State of New York.

Mr. MORGAN. What is the width and depth?

The CHAIRMAN. The barge canal is 12 feet deep. What is the width at the top?

Mr. MACY. The lock section is 94 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Just above the locks the average width is 125 feet at the top; about 1,200 to 1,400 square feet.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. The Erie Canal is fed by water from the Lakes, is it?

Mr. MACY. It is fed by water from the Great Lakes, from Lake Erie and the Niagara River.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. How much is the flow?

Mr. MACY. Eastward to Rochester?

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. How much is the flow from the Lakes into the canal?

Mr. MACY. It is 1,200 second-feet.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. More than we are asking in this? It is not one-tenth.

Mr. MACY. It is 1,200.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. For a canal 12 feet deep?

Mr. MACY. The United States engineer has been making recent measurements as to that flow.

Mr. WILLIAM E. HULL. That is a canal where you only use one barge at a time, a single barge? Do you load them together?

Mr. MACY. They are towed in tows.

Mr. O'CONNOR. Did I understand you to say the flow varies from 1,200 to 1,700 feet?

Mr. MACY. It has varied within those limits.

Mr. O'CONNOR. What would be the average flow?

Mr. MACY. The requirement is one of obtaining a level in the section extending east of Lockport, and the hydraulic functions of that portion of the channel are such that they require about 1,200 cubic feet per second flow east from Lockport. There are variations in the demand influenced by the amount of traffic carried. Some water is wasted necessarily because it can not be gauged exactly. In addition to that requirement, there has been permitted by the Government to be diverted 500 feet per second of an allowance made under the Burton treaty for power development at Lockport. That is in addition. to the navigation use.

STATEMENT OF MR. J. P. HAYNES, TRAFFIC DIRECTOR, CHICAGO ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE, CHICAGO, ILL.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. J. P. Haynes.

Mr. HAYNES. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is J. P. Haynes; I am traffic director of the Chicago Association of Commerce, appearing here in behalf of manufacturers, shippers, and commercial organizations throughout the State. What I will have to say will deal with commerce and transportation only.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me make a suggestion, if you will. I do not intend to limit you at all, but I am going to leave you to choose your own way. I would say that, generally speaking, this committee, I believe, to a man is in favor of water transportation, so you do not need to say anything to us about that. We hear that from the beginning to the end of the year, and we are convinced of it. Now, as I understand the technical situation here, we can not consider anything except an 8-foot channel. That is all we have a report on. There are two sides involved here, as I understand it. One is an 8-foot channel in the Illinois River and the other is the sanitary district. If you would direct your remarks to how much water we need for the 8-foot channel, that is one subject, and the other is how much water you need for sanitation. I take it that you would cover the two subjects that the committee really has before it. That is all there it to it, as I understand it. Mr. HAYNES. I am not an engineer.

STATEMENT OF MR. F. J. QUINN, REPRESENTING ASSOCIATION OF COMMERCE, PEORIA, ILL.

Mr. QUINN. I represent the Association of Commerce of Peoria, and incidentally I am interested in this subject, if we are to be limited to the discussion

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). I am not going to limit you. I am making that as a suggestion, not a limitation.

Mr. QUINN. If we are to discuss these disadvantages between the 8-foot and 9-foot channels, I take it that we are not prepared to do it. The CHAIRMAN. No; you are not to discuss that at all. That is not the suggestion. You have a report in favor of the 8-foot