Golden Age, March 16, 1921

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VotXlin 2 EASIER NUMBER, 1921 NtTMBEM 3» 4TO W

CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

LABOB AND ECONOMIC*

Labor T!>o Colt of Value 33* Standards Galore 358 st—t standard* ------3M Larf «< Vaina

«T»»t Value — 111 An C whanging Standard 35»

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

chriaHaa artllxatim - X3* Emma*—As OMeeOan

FINANCE—COMMEBC8—TRANSPORTATION By Watw or By HaH

Great Lake* Watnrvar*

Nev Terk'i Barra Canal

Vellaad-St. 1 a a rami a Highway

Panama Canal

Seaboard Casale

Nlmnguan fltmwee

A ProUtn at Terminal*

Fcueo-Geman Wai'rv'y* HI Lew IDaaiampM Waterway

Mleeeurt Hirer Watwaay M2 OUe Ittrer Watanvay

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN Th* Irish Question, Part L *47 Abase of the to— **» I'aMM Judicial npiaVia

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Pndnee Infmfla Eg* ,. 353 The Bobla* ud the Wra* 343 . SCIENCE AND INVENTION

A Tear at EaraunraltHi *3!W» Electricity ta Berta

Earth’* Blag* __________Ml Earth Brtng Tied* J*

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANT *

Faith, Hope, Lett______332 Snakes and Seneata

Turned on Street* af Troth_________.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY '

Carter

“At That Day"__;

Besurreetioa ot th*

Saint*_______

to—I— Certain tn Succeed

Ionel'* Fall Feretodd

The Double _______ .....372

Doable Begin* to End.

Bertin Treaty 1878_____-. ..373

Zianiam ..............—___...373

Came tor Zionism...

Development of zlealr™. .374 Fnrpooe of Zionism

Win Zionism Succeed?.

The Event of Jewish His

tory ------------------------

For the Oppressed

Fulfilled Prophecy _.-.377

They shall Build Houaea 377

Money a Factoe_______^378 ,

More Trouble Abend—— 378“

Spirit of the Lord Needed 378

Messiah and the New Cov-etiafic__—

Life Promised.________379

Resurrection 3H»

Restoration --

The Jubilee _____

Messiah the King InrM-He

Juvenile Bible Study

A Golden Star i portal—38* Ue World'* Unhappiness

<posa) —.......................383

nd* 1* the Hope (poem) 333

<rtcGoldeiiAge

Volume II Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 16 and 30, 192J Numbers 39 and 40

By Water or by^ Rail?

HOW shall we have the goods shipped, by water or by rail ! is a question they do not need to ask in China; for there the rail routes are few and the water routes are many, so many that in canals and canalized rivers China has more miles of improved waterways than the United States has of railways. But the question is a pertinent one here in the United States, and is attracting a great amount of attention.

?The Government has to* date spent nearly a billion dollars in river and harbor improvements, and the States themselves’Tiave spent a third of a billion more, and have hardly made a start toward satisfying those who want to see the United States as fully canalized as is China. But our canals are not used.

Fifty years ago the canals of the United States were a great factor in its transportation system. Gradually they have been losing in favor; and in spite of a desperate battle to hold and extend their usefulness, it is' found that there are real, not imaginary, difficulties associated with the question of inland water transportation that are not generally known. Charles Whiting Baker has presented many of these facts in a series of articles in the Engineering News Record. A number of items from his exhaustive and illuminating study of the subject are found in this review, together with a considerable amount of matter from other sources.

One of the stock arguments for increased expenditures on artificial waterways is that the railroads have^pejiods when they are so congested that they cannot handle the traffic. But a study of water transportation indicates that irregularities in rail shipments and deliveries have their corresponding difficulties in water transportation. Because it could no longer stand up under competition with the railways the Clyde Steamship Company has been compelled to abandon lines running to Mobile, Tampa, Wilmington, Georgetown and Norfolk, some of whist have been established as long as fifty years, . *

.-Railroad, trains are made up of small units which cag»be easily and inexpensively assembled into trains- susceptible of long hauls; and the units of that train can be switched from one rail?0a<T to another, until finally the units are separated from one another and the freight is at the door of the factory or the warehouse for which it started. -

If boats could always count on promptly, getting full loads, if they could be dispatched on schedule time, if they could discharge as easily as many freight cars' are now designed to disgorge their loads, and if the discharging of the cargo could take place right at the door of the place whither the goods are bound, then the problem of shipping by water ■tyould not be so complicated. And to this problem must be added the important consideration that navigation does not always open and close just when one could wish, but that Jack Frost and summer droughts have ways of their own in such matters.

In order to show a saving over rail transportation the water carriers must handle a great volume of business. They must maintain regular and expensive organizations, winter and summer. If they do not advertise regular service they cannot get patronage; and if they -do advertise regular service the boats must depart on schedule time, whether they have profitable cargoes or not? Moreover, they must take all the cargo offered. If any is left on the dock, the next shipment goes by rail, and ever after. So the water carrier may have a succession of feasts and famines in the way of cargo, at one time not enough to pay, and at another more than can be conveniently carried.

The only reaso'n.fbr advocating waterways is to provide cheaper transportation, and wherever the cost of water transportation is greater than rail transportation, the publie is the loser if the water route is ever abandoned, and the long-time investor loses if it is a long time before the total receipts equal the expenditures. Barges wear out, the same as railroad cars; and during their respective lives the railway car makes an average annual mileage of at least two to four times that of the barge. This has a bearing upon the matter. To build two railways where only one is needed, or to maintain a railway and a waterway where one of them alone can do all the work, is a waste of capital and labor which, in the end, must be paid for by the public.

A Problem of Terminals

IT IS calculated that on a long haul the expense of the actual transportation of goods per hundred miles is about one-half by river what it is by rail. The Interstate .Commerce Commission has furnished figures showing that, exclusive of terminal expenses, interest on the investment, and taxes, the cost of moving a ton of freight one mile by rail in the United States in 1918 was a little less than one-fifth of a eent By water it is about one-tenth of a cent. This is one reason why the water routes must carry such an enormous amount of traffic if they are to pay; for under the most favorable conditions there could not be an actual saving of more than ten cents for transporting a ton of freight one hundred miles. -

If the waterways could get that class of business in sufficient quantities, their best chance to operate profitably would be in the handling of general merchandise shipments, upon which the railroad rates are frequently several times as high as the commodity rates fixed' for ore, coal, ice and such other things as are generally regarded as suitable freight for waterborne commerce.

The problem of making waterways profitable is not so much one of the waterway itself as it is of how to get the freight on and off the boats inexpensively; and that is a problem of terminal facilities. Obviously the best chance that a waterway has to be a success financially is where its terminals are' in natural and populous harbors. In such harbors it can receive and deliver freight direct to steamers and waterfront manufacturing plants.

Even then, the boat system of freight delivery is fundamentally expensive and wasteful as . compared with much of the railway-car delivery, i ' The cargo of a boat always has to be hoisted out J from below the water level; and although many very efficient systems have been devised for s unloading ore, coal and such other materials, ’ yet none of these can compare in efficiency with the system by which the entire contents of a ' car may be dumped in a moment just where it is wanted.'

The arrangements for dumping coal into boats at Oswego, and many other points, are so perfect that in a few minutes an entire trainload of coal can be placed aboard a vessel. But it is safe to assume that when the vessel arrives at its destination no such perfect means of unloading exist. An idle boat is an expensive proposition. The daily expense of a 5,500-*-on ocean steamer is estimated at $924 when running and $674 when idle.

Here, then, is the kernel of this question of ~ transportation. It is the matter of loading and unloading that is the key to the problem. Most large business houses have their own switches, and prefer to load all their freight on cars placed on those switches and to receive all their freight in the same way. Not many of the have private wharves; and even if they did. it ' is handier to unload from a car which carries its load high in the air than from a boat which carries its load below water level. In short, the shipper must have equal terminal facilities or he will continue the superior terminal facilities which he does have; and the water carrier, on the other hand, vrill not invest in expensive t^r-minals without advance assurance of permanent business.

In order to compete satisfactorily with mil carriers, experience has demonstrated that the water carrier must be prepared to receive cargo from cars and deliver cargo to cars, so that the cars may be placed on switches wherever desired. This makes it necessary that there should be cooperation between rail carriers and water carriers if the latter are to render satisfactory *■ service; and no such cooperation exists, except in New England.

In fact, there is the reverse of cooperation between rail and water carriers ;~and even the « rates are against the water carriers, for the reason that terminal costs of railway delivery in natural ports are much higher than the rates indicate. Rates to and from ports are fixed as though the costs of transportation were no greater than between inland points..

Indeed, in many instances the ports have specially low rates, supposedly a favor to them, but actually working against them because working against the interests of the water transportation which is their outstanding natural advantage. Rates should be so adjusted as to require rail carriers to charge adequately for the terminal facilities which they provide, thus giving the water carriers an equal opportunity.

That the adjustment of rates to and from _ ports requires close attention is evident from the fact that there is now no profit in coastwise transportation; and the statement that water transportation has inherent weaknesses, due to unsatisfactory channels and terminal facilities, is borne out by the fact that the only attempts which have been made in recent years to revive long distance inland water transportation have —- been complete failures.

Franco-German Waterways

STUDENTS of the relative economies of rail and water transportation have been misled by the unusual conditions prevailing with respect to the Rhine and the Seine rivers. Many such students do not know that, as a general rule, the waterways of France and Germany are as unprofitable as the waterways of America, and that the costs of freight borne on these waters are in most cases higher than American railway rates on low grade freights hauled an equal distance.

The Seine river, from Paris to the sea, is navigable for barges of 1,100 tons, and is favor-' ably located to handle profitably, and does handle profitably, an immense traffic in coal from Wales and in grain from America and the Argentine.

The Rhine is unique. It is a -wide, deep river, extending four hundred miles through the most densely populated region on- the globe. Fed by Alpine glaciers in the summer it maintains a constant level the year around, and is navigable most of the distance for 2,000-ton barges. Such conditions are found nowhere else.

France has an elaborate system of water-t ways, maintained at a cost to the tax payers of $19,000,000 per year, almost the whole of which is an absolute waste. The canals charge no tolls, and their rates are fixed by law at three-fourths the railroad rates, so that the railroads may not compete. If allowed to compete, the railroads could take all the canal business in France, except that of the Seine, and carry it much more cheaply than it is now carried.

Of the total traffic on all the German waterways 43 percent is on the Rhine. Of the remaining twenty canals and canalized rivers in the empire only two or three had ever, up to 1914, paid the state as much as 3 percent on their cost, despite the fact that their rates are arbitrarily so fixed that the profitably-operated state railways may not take away their business. Figures compiled for the Dortmund-Ems canal, one of the most important of German inland waterways, showed that in 1905 the railway could handle traffic between the two terminal points at a cost of 1 cent per ton mile, as against a cost of 1.4 cents per ton mile by canal.

In reviewing the subject of French interest in canals we take note of the fact that France still owns a controlling interest in the Suez canal. Many suppose that this canal is a British possession, but such is not the case. The United States owns a small interest, and Great Britain a large interest, in this great highway to India, the Philippines and the East.

Lower Mississippi Waterway

WHY is water transportation a success on the Seine, the Rhine and the Hudson, but a complete failure on the Father of Waters ? The Seine and the Hudson are tidewater streams, traversing a densely populated country. The Rhine is a deep rock-bottomed stream free from drifting mud. The Mississippi is none of these. It has a swift current, innumerable bends, ami a movable bottom of silt and sand that is constantly throwing up new impediments to navigation.

The attempt was made in 1916 to reestablish a line of boats between St. Louis and New Orleans. The boats were specially designed for economical loading and propulsion; yet they were unable to obtain full loads and there was an average loss per round trip, counting drayage, switching, stevedoring, operation and administration expenses, amounting to nine thousand dollars.

After nineteen round trips the company ceased operation. 'It collected some valuable statistics, however; it learned that the boats could not get half a cargo of freight, that thirty percent of the boats’ time was spent lying at wharves, and'that the average rate of receiving and discharging cargo was only ten tons per hour, despite the fact that the vessel was specially equipped to do this work quickly.

It has cost the Government one hundred thousand dollars per mile for a thousand miles to get the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans in such condition that this unprofitable experiment could be made. There is a very considerable potential business in sight, carrying tropical fruits and products up the river and bringing northern grains and manufactures down, hut it takes a company with much capital and great courage to make it a reality.

The prospect of making such a line pay would lie better if the region along the river were more densely populated. As it is, the distance between St. Louis and New Orleans is approximately 1,000 miles, and Memphis is the only city of any size along the route. It takes two - weeks-to tow a string of barges from St. Louis to New Orleans, and four weeks to bring them back.

The Upper Mississippi, from St. Louis to St. Paul, flows through a more densely populated country than does the Lower Mississippi: but neither of these cities is a deep-sea port, and the products are not such in either district as to cause a great amount of traffic with the other. The.water is frequently too low for safe navigation, and the time required to make the trip is about forty-five days, an unseemly length of time to cover approximately 800 miles.

It is hopeless to think of the Mississippi as ever being made usable for boats which are suitable for ocean traffic, and this fact alone kills the waterway as a commercial proposition in these days of swift movement of freight and close margins of profit. As an avenue of commerce the Mississippi is dead and will remain so, despite all the great hopes of St. Louis to the contrary. The steamboat commerce of St. Louis during the whole year of 1918 did not equal its commerce by railway for one-half of one day.

Missouri River Waterway

THE Missouri river contains great numbers of jagged rocks, set up edgewise, and consequently has been considered a particularly

treacherous stream. It was abandoned years ago as a highway of commerce, but a renewed attempt was made during the years 1913, 1914 and 1915 to operate between Kansas City and St. Louis. The problem was carefully studied by the promoters, and it was. claimed at the time the project was inaugurated that it was the most thorough effort ever made to provide river transportation at a low cost. '

In order to maintain a six-foot channel between Kansas City and St. Louis the annual expense to the Government is about $2,600,000. The river freight rate between the two points was fixed at eighty percent of the rail rate. On .... this basis the river shippers saved in 1913 the sum of $10,000. But not much wisdom is required to see that it does not pay to expend $2,600,000 a year in order that a few fortunate shippers may collectively save a total of $10,000 —members of the chamber of commerce crowd that controls the St. Louis and Kansas City ' newspapers which keep the public misinformed on this subject.

The managers of this line made great efforts to give good service, and they did manage to reduce their costs considerably during the latter part of the existence of the line. The operating company, however, never got to the place where its receipts from freight were as much as its expenses; and it was a lucky thing for the company when, in 1917, the Government as a war measure took over its boats and thus enabled it to retire from business.

Since then the Government has been trying to _ operate these same boats profitably on the Lower Mississippi and on the Warrior river of Alabama, but without success. The mere fact that boats can be hauled between two places does not mean that they can be hauled profitably, even though there may be plenty of freight in one direction.

The State of Illinois politicians are still ‘•nourishing” the will-o-the-wisp project of a Lakes-to-the-Gulf deep waterway. At an ex- 4 ]>ense of $20,000,000 they are improving the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers between Lockport and Utica, so as to give Chicago direct barge communication with St. Louis, St. Paul, Kan- < sas City, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Memphis and New Orleans. It all has a grand sound, and that is all it will ever have. It looks nice on paper, but it will never pay. One fea-

tore of the project may justify the expense, however, and that is the water power generated, which it is estimated will yield an income of a million dollars a year. .

Ohio River Waterway

IT IS not so long since the Ohio river was one of the busy avenues of commerce of the world. Its trade consisted largely of coal from the banks of the Monongahela river, carried in barges to New Orleans and other down-stream points,. Now the Monongahela coals are no longer obtainable at the river bank, but come from points further back; and when once loaded - on the cars it is about as profitable to let the cars carry the coal through to destination as to dump it into barges and let it remain deteriorating for months, eating up interest on the capital invested, while it slowly wends its way to market.

A considerable percentage of the barges formerly used in this traffic was lost through the barges being sunk or crushed, and the sinking of a barge of coal means something now-a-days. Moreover, the market is largely gone. Alabama coals are taking the place of Pittsburgh coals in the New Orleans market; and oil as a fuel also has a large place.

Under the old plan a fleet of twenty-five or more barges was towed to New Orleans by one towboat, sometimes involving the carriage down the Ohio river of fifty thousand tons of coal at one time. On arrival at New Orleans the barges were broken up and sold for firewood; their cost being only about $1 per ton of coal carried. There was no return freight, and to tow the barges back would render it impossible to make more than two round trips in a year, and sometimes but one.

In the 970 miles of the Ohio river between Pittsburgh and Cairo, where it enters the Mississippi, there is a fall of 470 feet. The Ohio, it is claimed, is the most unsteady in its flow of any river on the globe. Between high water and low water the range .is frequently forty feet and sometimes as much as seventy feet.

To tame such a stream is a herculean task. In the hope that it would sometime pay, because it runs through a rich and populous territory, Uncle Sam has spent $74,000,000 planning to give it a navigable depth of nine feet at all seasons of the year, and expects to spend $25,-000,000 to finish the job, There will be 53 locks, all told, with operating expenses of $810,000 per year. On the Ohio, at present, are 1561 barges and vessels of all kinds. Its future as a waterway is questionable, however, though it will always be a valuable auxiliary to the interchange of products between the great mills in the district about Pittsburgh.

Great Lakes Waterways

ATURE has placed the richest portion of the North American continent upon the shores of the largest fresh water seas on the globe, or within easy reach of them. The territory tributary to the Lake ports furnishes three hundred million bushels of the four hundred million bushels of grain which the United States has to export. About three-fourths of the traffic on the Lakes is in ore and coal, the machinery for the quick and economical handling of which is the finest in the world. -

Originally the Soo canal, connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron, was a fourteen-foot channel. Now there are four of these channels; one of them has a depth of twenty-two feet, and the locks pay their original cost in every six weeks of operation during the summer by saving more than that sum on the freight going through the locks as compared with the rail haul around. Carriage by the Great Lakes goes at an average of about one-eighth of a cent per ton mile, while the rail rates average about six-eights of a cent per ton mile.

In July, 1918, a vessel passed through the Detroit river, on an average, every ten and one-half minutes, each vessel carrying 3,300 tons of freight. Water transportation on these lakes is second only to that of the ocean itself. During the navigation season the boats on the lakes carry about ninety million tons of commerce.

An interesting item in connection ■with the Great Lakes waterways is the estimate of engineers that each inch of loss of draft in the channels of the lakes makes a total net loss of a quarter of a million dollars a year. It appears that when in full operation, in a dry season, the Chicago Drainage canal, which washes the sewage of Chicago down the Mississippi river, has the power to reduce the level of Lake Erie by 5| inches. The Erie and Welland canals reduce the level of Lake Erie by one inch. The Niagara Water Power system can reduce the level of Lake Erie by 34 inches; and the Niagara river itself, if unrestrained, could reduce the level of Lake Erie 23 inches, making a total reduction of 33 inches, with a resultant loss of $8,250,000 in traffic in each such dry year.

A plan has now been devised to maintain Lake Erie at a fixed height by a removable dam at the head of the Niagara river. Such a dam, it is calculated, will maintain an average of ten inches better draft than is secured by nature, and the effect will reach all the way back to Chicago and the Sault Ste. Marie locks. The dam's estimated cost is $1,224,000, with a cost of operation and maintenance approximating $40,000 a year. Copies of reports on this project may be had from George M. Wisner, Chief Engineer, the Sanitary District, Karpen Building, Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. '

■ f

New York's Barge Canal

THE old Erie Canal, built across New York state, from Buffalo at the foot of Lake Erie to Albany at the head of the Hudson river, was formerly a great factor in transportation in the United States.. Begun in 1817 it had repaid its original cost, with all expenses of operation, down to 1880; but since that time it has been declining in importance, although in order to help it the tolls were eliminated in that year.

The original draft of the canal was four feet, subsequently enlarged in the new barge canal to a nominal 12 feet and an actual 84 feet. In the last twenty years the freight carried on the canal has fallen off to one-third what it was. Although $150,000,000 were spent in enlarging and deepening the canal there is only one transportation company doing a regular business on it; and that company uses boats of the old size, such as it used before the canal was enlarged, because it has found from experience that it can withdraw such boats to New York harbor during the winter and use them there in lighterage service, at an even greater profit than their summer use on the canaL

The barge canal could have been made a success if it had been built in such a way that ocean steamers could use it, but before it was begun it was ruined by interests in New York and Buffalo which wished to bring about the storage and transfer of grain at those cities instead of having it merely pass through. It is this very matter of handling goods back and forth that is the great handicap of all inland waterways.

This barge canal, built as a cost of $300,000 per mile, and as yet almost unused, is a sore subject to touch upon in New York city or in New York state. The state has been pretty well gold-bricked by ignorant politicians on the inland waterways that were to bring such great prosperity. The total outlay on the canals of the state from 1817 to June 30, 1918, was $561,738,242 and the total canal revenues $163,328,450, a net cost to the taxpayers of $398,409,792, with an annual cost of maintenance of about $2,000,000. If the canal is to be a paying investment it must do an enormous business.

In the year 1918 the loss in operating the barge canal was $500,000. In 1919 this was reduced to $140,000. The state is completing its investment-by building grain elevators in New York and Oswego. At present Buffalo has twenty grain elevators and New York but three. New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore together have only ten grain elevators for loading grain upon steamers, where Chicago alone has twenty-two, Duluth thirteen, Ft. William twenty-four.

Welland—St Lawrence Highway

HE people of fifteen western states, and the

Canadian people, are determined to have a deep-water route all the way to the sea, so that Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo, Hamilton and Toronto can send ships direct to Liverpool, London, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Marseilles, Hamburg, Naples, Alexandria, Yokohama, Hongkong, Sydney and everywhere else in the world, not forgetting New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Galveston, San Francisco and Seattle.

Rochester is nearer to Liverpool, London, the northern French ports and all the ports of Holland, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Northern Russia than is New York. All points on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are 250 miles farther from Liverpool via New York than via Montreal. New York and Montreal are not enthusiastic, however, thinking, ill-advis-edly, that the loading and unloading of vessels at their ports is the basis of their prosperity.

The Welland Canal now allows only fourteen-foot barges to pass; but the work of enlarging it so that the locks will be eight hundred feet long, eighty feet wide, and thirty feet deep, has

been started and one-third of the work has been done. The job will cost $65,000,000. The de* scent of 327 feet from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario will be accomplished by seven locks. -

After the Welland Canal is completed there remain the rapids of the St. Lawrence River between the foot of Lake Ontario and Montreal. Sixty-eight miles of this distance, with a total drop of 129 feet, is entirely within Canadian territory; and 115 miles of the river, with 91 feet of the drop, serves as the international boundary between New York state and the - province of Ontario. A difficulty, from an engineering standpoint, is that there are no seasons of low water and the mighty volume of the stream cannot be diverted while the work of construction is in progress.

When these rapids of the St. Lawrence have been turned into pools, and locks have been built — at their edges to carry the vessels from one level to another, there will be but sixty miles of restricted navigation between Duluth and the world-wide seas, a distance by water of about ' nineteen hundred miles. This distance of sixty ■miles is less than that of the canal which unites the River Elbe with the great port of Hamburg, and not much greater than the artificial channel which connects the inland city of Manchester with the port of Liverpool. The Manchester canal handles five million tons of shipping yearly.

Advantages in the St. Lawrence route are that the St. Lawrence has a rock bottom and a discharge which is nearly uniform throughout the year. The building of the dams would save millions of tons of coal per year and supply power for electric current for most -of the factories of New York and New England, valued at $18,000,000 per year. The opening of such a waterway would stimulate the production of wheat in the areas tributary to the Great Lakes, would take a great burden of coal and grain haulage off from the overloaded railways, and f would enable all the vessels on the Great Lakes, thirty-six million tons of shipping now idle all winter, to come out at the end of the season and engage in ocean traffic during the winter.

F An objection offered is that, in the main, the Beason of crop-moving is so late that the St. Lawrence is closed to it because of fogs and ice. By the time the bulk of the crops reach Buffalo the river is closed. Probably this movement could be accelerated and coordinated with the ships coming out for the season.

Years ago private interests wanted to dam the St. Lawrence merely for power purposes, but the consent of two Governments had to be secured, there were complications and the scheme was dropped. Now a joint commission of the two Governments is considering the whole project.

This commission, one of the most important in American history, met in New York; and the New York papers at first passed the proceedings up in silence, in the hope to kill the project. This is a favorite way of waging war in these days. New York would certainly be hard hit by such a canal; for it would be a confession that the barge canal is a failure, and it is. Moreover, New York would have to pay one-third to one-quarter of the United States’ expense of such a canal, because of its great taxable wealth.

It would go hard with New Yorkers; but no amount of objection on this score or any other will prevent for long the building of these works if they will do what their advocates claim. The canalization of the St. Lawrence would cost less than New York’s barge canal has cost; and the ability to send ships through from the lakes to the ocean without change of burden it is estimated will result in a saving of not less than ten cents a bushel on wheat, and a proportionate amount on other cargo. In the end the canal would be a great benefit to Montreal, to New York and to the whole United States.

Panama Canal

THE Panama Canal is a great success. About three thousand vessels per year are passing through it, paying in tolls about nine million dollars, or $2,500,000 more than the annual cost of operation, and .maintenance. An attempt is to be made shortly to exempt American ships from payment of tolls when engaged in traffic between home ports, one of the rights given away during the war. Night operation has not yet been undertaken, but all is ready whenever it is necessary. Colon has already become one of the world’s great transfer points, and the canal is carrying so much traffic that a time is foreseen when an.additional canal will be necessary. It takes about seven hours to go through from ocean to ocean. The locks work with per-

feet smoothness. Everything is well-timed, and a great ship is lifted thirty-two feet from one , level to another in nine minutes. In a dry season the Chagres river provides barely enough wafer to enable the canal to operate at full capacity. Plans have been made for placing eighteen-inch guns at each end of the canal.

Seaboard Canals

CANALS are projected all along the Atlantic seaboard, from Boston to the interior of Florida (and indeed vessels drawing less than five feet of water can already make the journey). Many Links in the chain came as a gift from the hand of God. There are Massachusetts Bay, Buzzard’s Bay, Long Island Sound, New York Bay, Raritan Bay, Delaware River, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound, and below that a succession of little bays and sounds to the St. John river, which traverses the best portions of Florida from south to north.

The Cape Cod canal, thirteen miles long, constructed at an expense of a million dollars per mile, connects Massachusetts Bay and Buzzard’s Bay, and together with Long Island Sound, makes a complete protected route from Boston to New York . In 1918 this canal passed 3,800,000 tons of shipping. The canal is 200 feet wide at surface, 100 feet wide at bottom and 25 feet deep. It is a success, moreover, despite the fact that it has twice been blocked by coal-laden steamers, once for twelve days and . once for three months.

Boats have a way of getting out of the water and upon the land that is disconcerting, and some of the old sea captains have no doubt dodged the canal and taken the stormy outside route who could have used the canal to advantage if they had been able to overcome their predilection for wanting to have as much water as they could around their crafts all the time.

Between the Raritan bay and the Delaware river there is now a little seven-foot canal which still continues to do considerable business. But a ship canal is planned, from Morgan on *the Raritan bay to Bordentown on the Delaware river, a distance of 34 miles, which will reduce the water route between New York and Philadelphia from 274 miles to 87 miles, and the time from 21 hours to 8| hours.

From Delaware Bay to Chesapeake Bay there is the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, twelve miles long, passing vessels of nine feet draft, which will be changed into a ship canal able to take boats of thirty feet draft; and there are canals south from Norfolk to the North Carolina sounds.

The New York Chamber of Commerce has ap- :« proved the New Jersey ship canal, and there seems reason to think that it will be a success.

There is a great traffic in soft coal along the Atlantic seaboard, and it is believed that the opening of this canal would at once reduce the price of coal $1 per ton in New York.

With this series of canals completed it would be possible to tow barges all the way from Beaufort, North Carolina, to Boston, Massachusetts, eight hundred miles, without leaving United States waters, or even, if it were necessary or profitable, to take them all the way from Boston or Beaufort to Chicago or Duluth. For reasons already stated these coast canals seem to have a better chance of success than the inland canals and canalized rivers so often advocated.

A considerable amount of the clamor for improvements of interior waterways comes from those who do not know the relative failure of European waterways, the difficulties of the terminal problem and the cheapness of railway transportation. Perhaps, too, there are some whose lands are benefited by canalization of adjoining rivers that have more to say on the subject than they would if those lands were farther removed.

The people as a whole are gradually getting to know more of the problem, and are demanding a wiser use of the moneys which in many instances have been literally wasted by the millions in waterway projects which had not a particle of merit in them and which have never been used.

Modern legislators are going about these problems more carefully, and making the construction of waterways a subject of close scrutiny by engineers, to determine whether or not the investments are justified. But it cannot be said that the forces which controlled the design of the New York Barge Canal were of that * stamp. Short-sighted men endeavored to make the world pay tribute to Buffalo and New York and have injured, not benefited, those cities, and wasted $150,000,000 of the people’s money.

The Irish Question Fai^ner,

FROM time to time references to Ireland, and to the Irish Question, have appeared in the columns of The Golden Age. It may prove of interest to the readers of this journal to hear a voice from that country. It is not the object of the writer of this article to discuss the Irish problem in great detail, but rather to touch upon a number of its salient features. ‘

The subject is one of great complication and can be viewed from many standpoints. It has many pros and cons. There are but few people .who can think clearly, logically and dispassionately, on a matter such, as the one now before us. Bigotry and ignorance h&ve always stood as gigantic obstacles in the way of human progress. In Ireland they have so far proved insurmountable. Accordingly, it should not be a cause of surprise, that, despite repeated efforts, extending over many years, the Irish Question still remains unsolved. It has tested the mettle of most of England’s renowned statesmen. .

Sinn Fein is now the predominant factor in Irish politics. It represents three-fourths of Ireland. The avowed object of the movement is to obtain, by all means at its disposal, the recognition of an Irish Republic. The once active constitutional movement towards Dominion

Home Rule has been killed. Nothing less than complete separation from Great Britain will, at present, satisfy the aspirations of the majority of the Irish people. These facts must be recognized; they are incontrovertible.

Sinn Fein is playing a dual role. It has two policies; one is constructive, the other is destructive. On the one hand, it is endeavoring to maintain law and order; on the other hand, secret societies, in its midst, are carrying on a campaign of ruthless assassination. Sinn Fein has its courts, its police, its soldiers, its parliament. Whole districts in the south and west of

Ireland are governed by Dail Eireann, and the only law there recognized is that of the Irish Parliament.

It is the'definite policy of the British Government to exterminate Sinn Fein. The Premier, Mr. David Lloyd George, is reported as having said: ‘‘If it is a question of setting up an independent Irish Republic in this small group of islands, that is a thing we could accept only if we were absolutely beaten to the ground. Lincoln faced a million casualties and a five years’ war rather than acknowledge the independence of the Southern States. We should do the same thing.”

As a result of this policy a large army occupies the" country. Virtually, a state of war exists between extreme Sinn Fein and the military and police forces of the Crown. A determined effort is being made to suppress the Republican movement. According to a statement made recently in the House of Commons, the military expenditure in Ireland amounts to £1,150,000 per month.

The country has passed rapidly into the grip of what is closely akin to anarchy. Heavy casualties are being sustained by both of the opposing forces. Human life is no longer considered sacred. Property is being systematically destroyed. The Irish Office, in London, recently issued the following list of outrages which have been committed in Ireland during the year 1920, up to November 27:

Policemen killed:

Policemen wounded 230

Soldiers killed__;-

Soldiers wounded________________________;

Civilians killed 41

Civilians wounded 101

4 __________

Total 6?3

B. I. C. vacated barracks destroyed.

B. I. C. vacated barracks damaged

B. I. C. occupied barracks destroyed

B. I. C. occupied barracks damaged---------

Courthouses destroyed 67

Baids on mails_____________7

Baids on coastguard stations and lighthouses—

Baids for arms.......................:

Total 3838

These figures speak for themselves. Many others have been killed and wounded since the issue of this list. On Sunday, 28th November, a party of Royal Irish Constabulary officer auxiliaries were ambushed near Macroon, Co. Cork, and 16 were mortally wounded. Hardly a day passes without its list of killed.

The reign of violence may 1)e dated from the Sinn Fein Insurrection of Easter, 1916. Since then the condition of the country has become worse and worse. On Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, Sinn Fein Volunteers seized the General Post Office in Dublin, and other points of vantage in the city. The insurgents issued a proclamation establishing “The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic”. Martial law was proclaimed, and troops at once got into .touch with the rebels. Serious fighting took place in the streets of Dublin. A large force of troops were at once despatched from England under the command of General Sir John Maxwell. A cordon was drawn around the center of the city, and some very hard fighting then took place. Eventually, on. the 30th of April, 1916, six days after the outbreak, 700 of the insurgents surrendered to the military forces. A. day later, all the rebel commanders in Dublin surrendered unconditionally. During the fighting the buildings in the heart of the city took fire and were completely destroyed. The estimated damage is stated to have been between £2,500,000 and £3,000,000.

The casualties during the rebellion are reported as follows:

Military and Constabulary killed__1__124

Wounded 397

Civilians killed 180 Wounded 614

Total____________—1315

Of the rebels, 15 were sentenced to death and 79 to various terms of imprisonment, and sev-. eral hundreds were deported to England and placed in internment camps. By an amnesty these prisoners were afterwards set at liberty.

Perhaps the most startling event of recent Irish'History, next to that of the Insurrection of 1916, is the desperate attempt, which was made on the 21st of December, 1919, to assassinate the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—Field Marshal Viscount French, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force to France during the years 1914-1916. It was unsuccessful through a slight miscarriage of the attackers’ plans. They were driven off by the military escort which accompanied the Viceroy, one of their number being killed. From that time onwards a considerable number of carefully organized assassinations have taken place.

The population of Ireland, according to the last census (1911 )js 4,382,000. The country is allowed 105 members in the Imperial Parliament. The last general election took place in December, 1918, when Sinn Fein swept the country. No Sinn Fein Member of Parliament, then elected, has taken his seat in the English House of Commons. The following list of Irish Members of Parliament gives a good idea of the relative strength of the Sinn Fein movement to that of the Unionists and Nationalists. ' _

Irish Unionists__25 members

Irish Nationalists 7 members

Sinn Fein 73 members

• ’ 105

Three possible solutions of the Irish Problem have been entertained from time to time. They are:

(1) The maintenance of the Act of Union of 1800;

. (2) The granting of some sort of Dominion Home Rule; "

(3) The formal recognition by the English people of the self-styled Irish Republic.

(1) The maintenance of the Act of Union was at one time earnestly desired by Irish Protestants. Many, however, now admit that this is no longer practicable. It would be unacceptable to the mass of the people.

(2) The granting of Dominion Home Rule, with ample and well-defined safeguards for the interests of Protestants, who are in the minority, would be welcomed by the majority of Irish Protestants and by a fair number of moderate Irish Catholics. A Bill of this nature is at present under the consideration of the British Government and may soon become law. But Sinn Fein scorns this solution; and since Sinn Fein represents the major portion of the people, a minority, only, are in favor of this scheme.

(3) Britain positively refuses to entertain the thought of an Irish Republic. Irish Protestants are bitterly opposed to it; and if, by any means, it should become a reality they threaten to resist it by force. They have- their own military organization in the Ulster Volunteers. Most of them are trained soldiers, having seen service in France and elsewhere. Considerable supplies of arms and- ammunition are believed to be in their possession.

It must be remembered, also, that the Irish Question is one of religion as well as one of politics. The religious aspect of the question was brought prominently to notice during the summer of 1920, when, on several occasions, what was practically civil war burst out in the North of Ireland. Armed parties of Catholics and Protestants came into violent conflict in the streets of Belfast and Londonderry. In the former city 62 people were killed; in the latter 20 people lost their lives. The majority of Catholics in Ulster have now espoused thecause of Sinn Fein. The Protestants, with few exceptions, are Unionists.

What, then, is the true solution of the much-talked-of Irish Question! We are convinced that none of the afore-mentioned suggestions, if carried into effect, can, or will, ever solve this, the greatest domestic problem of the British Empire. The spirit of Sinn Fein pervades the world. It appears in different countries and in different communities in a different guise. It is the striving of a misguided mankind for something better than their present lot. The desires in the heart of man are, to an extent, good, but the methods for their gratification are wrong. The solution of the Irish difficulty—political and religious—is the pana-, cea for all-the difficulties of the poor world; and-it has many. What can that be 7

We are convinced that The Golden Age is correct in its contention that we are, today, standing on the threshold of a new era. That this is so is a fact clearly demonstrated in the conditions abroad in the earth. They corrobor

ate the testimony of many prophecies contained in God’s Word. Christians of all denominations have long prayed: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven ”. The -time when Jehovah’s will shall be done on earth, as it is done in heaven, is not far distant. When that time arrives, then all wrongs will be made right; all difficulties will be solved; the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will have become firmly and fully established. The work of that kingdom is the blessing of mankind. Christ and His gospel church, in the glory of the divine nature, will then, as the long-promised composite seed of Abraham, offer the blessing of eternal life, on,a perfect earth, under the terms of the New Covenant, to whosoever will of mankind, the living and the resurrected dead. See Genesis 12:1 - 3; Galatians 3:8,16,29; 2 Peter 1:4; Bomans 6:23; Acts 3:19-21; Jeremiah 31:31 - 33; Revelation 22:17. .

This is a grand message to pass on to others. It means that we are now living-in the end of the old age and in the dawn of the new. It means, furthermore, that according to divine prophecy there are millions now living on earth who will never die. How blessed it is to have this precious gem of knowledge! What a hop*2 for the shattered world! What a balm of Gilead for sorrowing hearts! We are glad that we can recognize that present world troubles, and the ones yet to come, are but the birth pangs of the glorious Golden Age of which all God’s holy prophets have spoken, since the world began.— Acts 3:19-21.

Abuse of the Insane b, eu&bo^(Num)

A LITTLE investigation will surely help the poor patients of Insane Asylums, many of whom have been locked away from friends for years, shut up in dark, cold halls, sleeping at night on hard shuck beds, not allowed to communicate with family or friends who would gladly release them if they knew how well they are. .

Many do more work for the nurses, who get the pay, than they would as private servants in families or when working for wages in stores or factories.

All the time they are thus trying to please their nurses or doctors, they are being subjected to every kind of abuse, such as vulgar threats, whippings, obscene epithets; and in several cases to which the writer was witness, angry attendants pulled patients off beds, thus dislocating an arm or a leg.

If any patient dared report such an occurrence to the physician in charge, she herself suffered imprisonment in a wild ward. "Keep such things covered up!” seemed to be the watchword of the niatron in charge.

One kind-hearted nurse in the State of Tennessee wrote to the governor about the horrible abuses, but he only laughed. Conditions continued to grow worse; and when I left that hospital co take a similar position in Ohio, some of the more sane inmates, those able to be out making tneir living in easier work, plead with me to put tneir cause before the public.

Spiritism, degeneracy and a fixed belief in “hell” as taught them from childhood serve to keep their weak minds polluted with poison. Yet the doctors in one asylum denied that there is such a thing as spiritism and said positively that there is no such church as a Spiritualist church. This was told to a lady whose husband had placed her in close confinement in the asylum, because she had been attending spiritistic meetings and wanted to be a “medium”.

If these same doctors had examined any of the city newspapers they could have found advertisements of these churches and hired halls; for recently I saw twelve different places of meeting during the Convention of the American Legion in Cleveland.

Many of the patients saw “spirits”, and would describe them to me. One little lady was forcibly fed three times daily because the “spirits” told her not to eat. Although she suffered from the rough feeding method, she obeyed the “voices” in preference to the nurses.

Cowardice and fear of the “great hereafter” •with its “hell” of fire and brimstone, causes many minds to weaken. But the great number who suffer from the sins of their parents visited upon them is beyond belief..

Some patients mistreat and abuse other patients to win the approval of their nurses, who will then take food sent other patients and give it to these big strong women who will help them in whipping, smothering and pummeling.

Food sent by friends, special provisions for pellagra and tuberculosis patients, food bought by working patients, are confiscated by the nurses and used on their own tables. -

One patient who had some lemons sent her from home because she was dying of tuberculosis, begged me piteously for some lemonade. I had to tell her that the nurses had eaten them. The next day she died, with her last simple request ungranted. This lady had worked enough embroidery to earn herself ample food to eat, but she was never given a cent. Her father, a Baptist minister, never came to see her during the five years of her stay.

One patient, who had been illegally placed in this hospital and put in confinement in a wild ward because she reported the nurses for stealing, tried to get in communication with a lawyer or with friends, but her letters were torn up by the matron. It was only by my finally forwarding one of these letters to her brother, that she was released. Many others are confined in the Tennessee asylum under similar circumstances.

Many of the women and men do more work than they would if they were working for wages as private servants, in factories, stores or public places. No doubt every asylum has this system, though Ohio has much more humane laws and the inmates are allowed more freedom than those states where barbarous and old-time methods of punishment are used.

And all this time that patients are suffering and their lives made miserable by cruel treatment, they have no hope before them! Only eternal torment, punishment everlasting, fire and brimstone! Dozens of deluded victims of this theology have confided their fears to me.

Thanks to the teachings of Pastor- Russell’s Seven Volumes of Scbiptube Studies, which I had in my possession, a few of them came to see God as a giver of good gifts instead of forever seeking vengeance on innocent sufferers.

Thank God for The Golden Age, through the columns of which many wrongs may be righted, many false teachings forever shaken loose. From now on may the glorious news of Christ’s righteous reign, His just and merciful kingdom, be made known to these sufferers.

A Year of Earthquakes

^pO BE startled out of sound sleep with the * legs of the bed twisted and broken off beneath one might sound like a nightmare tale, but it was the literal experience of the people in a considerable section of South America, While the leg-twisting earthquake was going on, whole mountains dropped a hundred feet or much more, houses bounced up, and off their foundations, solid stone foundations slipped out of an age-long alignment, rivers changed their course or disappeared, the earth roared, and the mountains cannonaded and lit up the heavens with volcanic fires.

It is nice to see jelly sparkling and quivering, but it is hideous to feel Mother Earth shivering under foot and threatening vast convulsions. From such a locality people flee, stripped of belongings, desolated and bereft of wits, without food or clothing, in dreadful fear of terrors of Nature which they can neither understand nor appreciate. -

When such happenings come in settled countries the early reports of the death toll is only the beginning of the truth, but in Chili the Christinas earthquake shook up a sparsely populated region and only a few hundred paid the great price of life. In Albania, near Greece, .whole cities were cast to the ground in heaps by a lesser tremor of the globe, whereas whole populations might-have perished if the South American catastrophe had occurred in Albania.

Mother Earth has certain fairly well-defined earthquake zones. As shown by the accompanying map the western edge of the Americas, including the Caribbean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the eastern edge of Asia, with some of the undersea Pacific mountain ranges peeping up here and there as islands, have recently shown seismic activity. The quakes have been unusually severe. It is as though sleepy old Earth were stretching, ready to awaken for the incoming day.

Shakings of the social order—the symbolic earth—presage a brighter day. The American Revolution ushered on the scene earth’s greatest republic. Red revolution in France was a preliminary to the French Republic. Brazil, Cuba, China, England, and Germany quaked and shook as they entered more progressive times. .Whole continents are shaking now in preparation for something—none know what, except those that see the Golden Age.

For the dawn of the best time man has ever known was destined to be begun with earthquakes. Whether the things written signify literal earthquakes time alone can tell, but the literal earth is shaking here and there with unusual force, and revolutions are seen which dearly tell mankind that these are days of change and transition. In the Bible it says that just before the Lord’s prayer—"Thy kingdom come”—is answered, "there shall be earthquakes in divers places”. (Matthew 24:7) In symbolic words it is written, of the period immediately preceding the better times, "There was a great earthquake” (Revelation 6:12), and “There was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great”. (Revelation 16:18) As little earthquakes — symbolic — have preceded small improvements in human conditions, how vast must be the change for the better that will succeed so tremendous a convulsion of the social order!

It is noteworthy that the Lord’s prediction about things to happen at the end of the “world”— this wornout social order — included many earthquakes in many places, and that this .is directly fulfilled in the many earthquakes of 1920, the wide area covered by them, and the fact that there was not a month of the year without a serious earthquake. It seems reasonable to regard these terrifying earth-tremors as fulfillments of Christ’s prophecy. If they are, it may be expected that there will be more and greater quakes in the next few years remaining for the old "world”—the old order of things. Whatever may come, no matter how serious, if this view is correct, the darkest events from now on are like storm clouds with bright silver linings; for this is the last great storm period for humanity, and in the near future, just beyond the clouds of the time of trouble of 1914 to date, is the sunshine of the Golden Age.

Brazilians Appreciate Truth

By Mn. B. Frrguion (Brazil) Mb Editor: I wish I knew who wrote that article on "Brazil, the New United States,” which recently appeared in The Golden Age. It is so true, as we know it, that the writer must have been an eye-witness. My grandson is translating it to be published here.

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Faith, Hope, Love

THE inspired Apostle Paul tells us that Faith, Hope and Love are abiding, basic qualities. Faith in a given promise will cease to fix itself on that promise when it is fulfilled; but faith as a quality, a belief in the integrity of God and of all His perfect creatures, will no more pass away than will the justice on which faith is built. Faith always remains true blue. Objectively, it is the foundation of things hoped for; subjectively, it is the conviction of things not seen.

, Likewise hope, or avid' expectation for the fulfillment of a given promise, will cease to function when that thing is attained: "for what a man hath, why doth he yet hope for it /” But the hopeful quality of the perfect character will embrace some other unaccomplished phase of God’s design, always buoyant, always expectant. Hope in the Christian is traceable to the presence of heavenly wisdom. Without this holy discernment and discretion, without this ability to compare the sufferings of this present time with the glory that shall be revealed in ns, the poor follower of Christ is forever plashing around in the slough of despond.

FA/TH

HOPE

£OYE-

Love is the motive principle of divine character, the distinguishing principle in Jehovah’s dealings with -he church. Because love as a motive for action is so rare in human affairs, it is set before the mind as being the thing, to strive for—“the greatest of these”. It is the greatest because it is the starter. Faith itself works by love, a love of the dependable qualities we recognize in God. Furthermore, love is a possibility now; even with imperfect brains it is possible to wish others well, and to admire such excellencies as they may have.

Power is not mentioned in this grouping given by the Apostle, probably for the reason that now is not the time for power. We cannot be trusted with power until we have justice, wisdom and love in perfection. The world’s long experience in striving for and usurping power is one sad commentary on man’s inability to exercise power without the proper balance wheels. Now we (whether high or low) are not fit to be trusted with power.

Produce Infertile Eggs Bj he.Coffer

THE burden of the high cost of living is causing us all deep concern as we seek its cause and the remedy. Many are continually on the alert for cheaper and better foods. During the summer months eggs are produced in abundance and are one of the cheapest and best foods. But the egg must be eaten fresh. This is because most eggs which are put on the market are fertile. Such eggs are by the laws of nature intended to produce chicks. Thus, development of the embryo chick begins at the time at which the egg is fertilized in the oviduct of the hen. This growth begins by simple cell division in the living portion of the egg called the germ spot and continues until the egg is laid. ' .

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