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adjust and correct evils in the aggregate; but, as the railway is artificial, so must the restraining power that adjusts the relations between through and local traffic, between competing and non-competing points, between large and small shippers, be artificial also." i

The effect of railway competition was such as to arouse deep interest in the movement to abolish tolls on canal tonnage, and it was the principal question that agitated the people for a decade prior to 1880. In the Constitutional Convention of 1867 much time was given to the consideration of tolls on canal traffic and that matter continued to receive much attention as shown in the official and unofficial proceedings, to which I have already alluded.

The Auditor's reports from year to year contained discussions of the fiscal features of the canal policy of the State and in some instances detailed statements were given of the revenues derived under tariffs of diminishing tolls. The operation of sinking funds was also considered and grave questions of public policy confronted each succeeding administration. Canal matters were still further complicated by charges of fraud in the administration of canal affairs and these led, as we have already seen, to an official investigation in 1875. Railway magnates took advantage of these conditions and succeeded in diverting a large amount of traffic to railways and in prevailing upon the Legislature to dispose of lateral canals.

The constitutional amendment adopted in 1874 permitted the sale or abandonment of all canals owned by the State excepting the Erie, the Champlain, the Oswego, the Cayuga and Seneca canals. By chapter 404, laws of 1877, the disposal and sale of the Chenango, the Chemung, the Crooked Lake and the Genesee Valley canals were authorized. Operation of the Chenango canal was discontinued on May 1, 1878, the Chemung canal at the close of navigation, 1878, the Crooked Lake canal on June 4, 1877, and the Genesee Valley canal on September 30, 1878.2 The discontinuance of the lateral canals relieved the State for the time being of

N. Y. Assembly Doc. No. 38, Jan. 22, 1880.

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the expense of their maintenance and operation, but was a great loss to the public who were thereafter made wholly dependent on railway transportation at a much greater cost.

Within the last three years, bills have been introduced in the Legislature authorizing surveys of one or more of the routes of the abandoned canals for the ultimate purpose of reopening them for commercial purposes.

In 1881 Senator Benjamin H. Williams of Buffalo stated in the Senate that "We cannot rely upon our railroads for the preservation of our trade. Our advantage over our sister states consists in the possession of a route which makes a waterway possible from the West to the seaboard."

Governor Alonzo B. Cornell, in his message to the Legislature in 1882, said: "The competition of railways, enlargement of the Canadian canals and the development of the Mississippi river route, were important considerations with reference to the future capacity of the canals to arrange the necessary revenue for maintenance."

One of the most effective speeches in the Assembly in favor of the concurrent resolution to abolish tolls was that made by Hon. Arthur W. Hickman of Buffalo on March 23, 1882, in the course of which he said:

“Our Canadian neighbors are mortgaging their entire earthly pos-sessions to put their water route in condition to meet the requirements of cheap water transportation. Minnesota, Dakota, Montana and the Northwest Territories of Canada are all great grain-producing countries, whose virgin soil has scarcely been broken by the plow. Their present and prospective products are immense. They can all be reached by water. These products will follow the established channels of trade in finding a market, and will pay magnificent tribute to the place where they find it. The natural water route leads to our door. Shall we close it, or shall we receive its freight with thanksgiving and joy? A single penny is an insignificant sum, but that one penny levied as a toll on each bushel of this immense production will drive it from us. Were there no other outlet for it, that extra penny would build one, just as it has built the Welland canal and the Mississippi improvements. But there are other outlets reaching out with eager hands to clutch the coveted prize. The Mississippi and the St. Lawrence crave the trade we spurn. They are attracting shippers to their routes and accustoming them to their

ways. They are inviting the ships of the world to leave the docks of New York, and to seek their cargoes at Montreal and New Orleans. Once establish the channel of communication through these routes and you may find it difficult or impossible to restore it to your own. An oppressive toll drove the west-bound freight from the canal, and we have seen in the experience of the last year how hard it is to woo it back again from the course it has fallen into, even though the tolls have been removed. That it will come back, we believe, but it may come slowly.

“Mr. Chairman, it does not seem possible that it should be necessary to take time to convince any member of this House that it is desirable that this great western trade should come through New York, and that within our borders it should find a market and a distributing point, and that the State would be greatly benefited thereby. We make the broad claim that the present position and condition of the State is a monument to the wisdom of those who projected and completed the Erie canal, and made the commerce of the west pass through its channel.

"It must be remembered that freight is an essential element in making up the price of every article sold. Every cent saved on freight enables the merchant to sell one cent cheaper, and the consumer is the party benefitted.

"Mr. Chairman, the history of the State speaks in favor of the passage of this resolution. The thinking men of the State favor it. The State officials charged with this branch of the government recommend it, and the people of the State need it.

"I trust that a wise, liberal policy towards the canals may prevail, and that the resolution may pass."

In 1882, ex-Governor Horatio Seymour addressed a formal communication to J. W. Higgins, chairman of the Assembly Committee on Canals, strongly in favor of the pending Constitutional amendment, and among other things said:

"Tolls are taxes of the most hurtful kind to the whole community. They are a form of special taxation that have been found so hurtful in all parts of the civilized world that they have been abolished to a great degree. They fall oppressively upon labor, industry and commerce; their exactions after they have once been paid by the carrier are transferred and thrown upon our mechanics and other classes of citizens.

"All would deride the folly of a city government which should impose a tax upon those who used their streets as thoroughfares or marts of commerce upon the ground that these avenues were expensive to maintain. Is there any more wisdom in the government of a State which imposes tolls or taxes upon those who use its avenues for the purpose of bringing to it articles needed to promote its commerce and its industries? While other sections are trying to divert traffic from our cities by making cheaper routes, is it wise for us to drive it away by taxation?"

It appears that railway managers were not only opposed to the abolition of canal tolls, but that they were suspected of resorting to a policy that would "so depress business during the navigable season as to make it too unprofitable to encourage the building of canal boats and vessels, and in that way gradually dissipate the equipment of a water route, and by systematic efforts so diminish the revenues of the canal as to prevent the possibility of maintaining them."1

On November 1, 1882, the Hon. William M. Evarts of New York addressed a meeting held at the Cooper Union hall, in the advocacy of the approval of the constitutional amendment abolishing tolls. In the course of his remarks. he said:

"These humble, laborious servants of commerce that slowly kept their way after the horses that trudged the paths, are nevertheless and have been for sixty years, as important a factor in the wealth, the prosperity and in the development of the population of the State and the City of New York, as any of the proud steamers or any of the brave railroad trains that make so much noise in the world. These patient servants of your prosperity and pride are not easily discouraged, but if you will, with all other things in this State free and progressive, determine that the canals shall be choked and the boats held fast and all made dependent upon a concurrence of expenditure and receipts, without which, equal to their wants, interruption and final closure of the canals shall take place, you will be like other people who, overlooking the humble source of their prosperity, fall finally a victim to that pride which goeth before a fall."

The constitutional amendment relating to the canals, after receiving the concurrence of the Legislature of 1881-'82, Canal Auditor's report for 1880, p. 13.

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was approved by the people at the general election in the latter year and became operative on January 1, 1883. Thereafter no tolls were levied upon canal traffic, but boatmen were subject to such regulations as might be necessary to maintain the canals in a navigable condition. There was inserted in the Constitution at that time provision that the Legislature should annually provide for the expenses of the superintendence and repairs of the canals and for the payment of the principal and interest of the canal debt by equitable taxes.1

The movement for the reduction and final abolition of tolls extended over a quarter of a century and was the result of the operation of the immutable laws of trade, which flourish most where freed from all restraints. Commerce like water flows through channels of least resistance and it was argued that the abolition of tolls would put our canals into the category of free waterways, over which much of the commerce of the world is transported.

XVII. PROMOTION OF VARIOUS CANAL INTERESTS.

The abolition of tolls was followed in 1883 by a slight increase in canal tonnage, but did not arrest the gradual decline in the volume of canal tonnage, which had been going on for some years. The abolition of tolls, however, materially checked the diversion of traffic from the canals to the railroads, but it is evident that other causes than tolls were also instrumental in the diversion of tonnage from the canals to the railroads beyond the reach of constitutional amendment or legislative enactment. Expressage, perishable and light freights, naturally seek the quickest route, while bulky tonnage seeks the less expensive although slower water transport. That has been the experience in all countries where railways are brought in competition with canal transportation. The abolition of tolls on both railways and canals was the result of the operation of economic laws due

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See Section 3 of Article 7 of the Constitution as amended Nov. 7, 1882.

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