The Panama Canal cost over 21⁄2 times as much, the Welland Ship Canal cost 22 times as much, the Chicago drainage canal cost about four times as much.

Now all these remarks that I am making, I am making based on a 27-foot channel, because it is my understanding that a new agreement will have to be effected with Canada if a seaway is built with more than a 27-foot channel. Therefore I would prefer to have my remarks based on that depth at this time.

Now the Panama Canal has a depth of 40 feet. That handles on a 12month basis 28.1 million tons in 1950. This seaway will have a 27-foot depth, be open to traffic 7 or 8 months of the year, and yet it will have to handle at least twice as much paying tonnage as the Panama Canal to be self-liquidating.

Now this is the point that I would like to emphasize to the committee. A 27-foot depth canal would only permit fully loaded 6.6 percent of the active merchant fleet of the United States to go through it, 8.3 percent of the reserve fleet, and of the 57 United States merchant vessels now under construction, not a single one would be able to go through a 27-foot channel.

Now the Senator from Wisconsin in his testimony yesterday brought up, I think the facts were, that 99.5 percent of clearances in and out of Boston are vessels under 24 feet depth. Actually, those figures include the ferryboats, and so on. Actually of the 131,000 clearances, only 1,884 were in the foreign trade.

CONNECTING CHANNELS AND GREAT LAKES HARBORS

Another question of cost is the connecting channels and the Great Lakes harbors. I have charts here of every harbor in the Great Lakes. There is not a single harbor now in the Great Lakes that will take a vessel that is 27 feet deep. There is not a single pier, as I understand it, that an ocean-going steamer can tie up to.

Now, the Great Lakes channel would cost $88 million and on present costs $110 million. And then there are the channels and turning basins which are going to increase that cost enormously.

I would call attention, and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that you will take the opportunity to look through some of these figures and some of this discussion that I have made-to the fact that in 1929 the Brookings Institution, a reliable institution, on page 97 of its report on the seaway states that to improve harbor and port facilities on the Great Lakes will cost an estimated $250 million. If you take those on 1929 figures, what will it cost today? I don't know.

I bring that out because that shows the tremendous variance between the Army engineers in 1948 and the Brookings Institution in 1929. You have got not only the seaway to build but you have got the port depth and the channel depth into the various ports.

I would also like to call attention to the fact that as I have said a boat drawing over 25 feet cannot go up a 27-foot seaway, and of all the ships now operating in the United States merchant marine, there are only 6.6 percent of the ships that can go up, and not a single one of the new 57 that are being built.

ATTITUDE OF STEAMSHIP COMPANIES

Now I have discussed this question with the presidents of at least 12 American steamship companies, and I have yet to find a single one who will send ships, or expeect to send ships up to this canal. Recently there has been great publicity given to the Flying Enterprise of which Captain Carlsen performed such heroic deeds. The president of that company, Mr. Ísbrandtsen, says:

To sum up, I think the chief effort should be on this coast first before giving way to abandonment (or partial abandonment) of existing facilities. Certainly a modern, efficient export port here available at all times and under all conceivable conditions would be far and away preferable to a half-time proposition such as the seaway would perforce be.

That was the conclusion of his statement to me. Now I would point out that a modern ship must be under way as much as possible if it is going to be economically used. Between 30 and 50 percent of a ship's time is spent in port. If the port facilities are efficient, then the boat will be more efficiently run.

EFFICIENT PORT FACILITIES

To get an efficient port facility today you should have, if possible for these big oceangoing steamers, at least a double-deck pier with a finger pier as opposed to a pier parallel to the watercourse. Modern piers cost money, and they cost a great deal of money, and that is not estimated in this situation at all.

Now the present 14-foot channel on the St. Lawrence, just to sum up that testimony in a sentence, was used by 40 ships with a hundred round trips. That 14-foot canal can be used by a ship with a gross tonnage of 2,000 tons. The average American merchant marine vessel is between eight and ten thousand tons.

LABRADOR IRON-ORE TRAFFIC

Now Mr. Humphrey of the Hanna Co. testified about the iron ore in Labrador. We all agree that if this seaway is to be effective it has got to get a major portion of its revenue from this iron ore in Labrador. I would call this fact to your attention, Mr. Chairman. The estimates of revenue in the engineers' report to Senator Wiley call for, I think, a minimum of $36 million to $49 million annually from tolls, of which $15 million would come from iron ore. Now that is based on 30 million tons of iron ore.

Mr. Humphrey testified there will only be 10 million tons up to 1960 and then maybe 20 million tons after that.

I would also call your attention, Mr. Chairman, to this fact: That on page 14 of the report to Senator Wiley it gave the Canadian traffic. Of iron ore, it gave the traffic moving down the seaway as 9 million tons. If there is going to be 10 million tons come out of Labrador, why should 9 million tons move down the seaway and 10 million tons move up the seaway?

If you are going to have iron ore from Canada, as we expect to have and need to have, why not have the Great Lakes iron ore go into the Midwest mills and the 10 million from Labrador be used down the coast!

Otherwise if these figures or estimates are correct, you have got 9 million tons moving down and 10 million tons moving up. The question is argued to us that we should go in on this thing with Canadà. I would simply call this to your attention, Mr. Chairman, in the very few minutes allotted to me. Canada this year will have a fiscal surplus, we are told, of over $1 billion. We are going to have a fiscal deficit of $14 billion.

RELATIONS WITH CANADA

Now isn't it time, some time is going to come when we are going to welcome the plans of another nation that will help us finance improvements that will help jointly ourselves and that nation. It does not seem to me that if Canada does develop this seaway that we here in the United States are going to suffer in our relations with Canada in any way, and under the treaty, as I understand it of 1871 and any extension of that treaty, we are going to get the same rights as Canada for any seaway that is built by whoever it is built.

SECURITY

I call your attention, sir, in the minute remaining to me, to this about security. I remember very well in the Appropriations Committee, I think it was, in World War I about the Panama Canal. It was stressed to us then that a canal without locks was better than a canal with locks, but that if we had a canal with locks, its value from the point of view of security because of bombing would be very inadequate.

ESTIMATED GUESSES

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to read my conclusion to you. I have tried to summarize in 9 minutes now by the clock memoranda that I took several weeks to prepare and which I hoped I would be permitted to give at length.

Mr. Chairman, let us not be led astray by estimated guesses. Mind you, the engineers' estimates to Senator Wiley in 1949 were estimated guesses in their own language.

Let us not be led astray with the thought that the best estimated guesses will not be greatly exceeded. First, because they are only guesses, and, second, because we all know costs have gone up enormously.

Let us not be led astray with the idea that only we in the United State of America can supply the money and credit to build such projects.

Let us not be led astray by sentiment or emotion as to our fine relations with our sister nation to the north of us. Those relations will not be helped or hurt in my opinion by our going into or failure to go into this project.

I know, Mr. Chairman, that your committee will give this problem the same thoughtful consideration it gives all the matters that come before it.

I am talking with a great deal of humility and some trepidation because of my knowledge. I am coming here this afternoon because I think that this matter has been considered from the spirit of emotion rather than factual economic reason.

I trust you will not report this resolution favorably until you are convinced that you have the satisfactory factual answers to the vital questions that I have raised in this brief statement, and Mr. Chairman, I respectfully ask you to listen to these questions if you will.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER IN REGARD TO SEAWAY

Each of these questions is basic; each of them deserves, I feel, the most thoughtful and thorough consideration by the committee and by all persons elsewhere concerned with this proposal. Let me repeat here certain of the questions that, to my mind, illustrate this point:

1. At a time when we are spending billions for national security and survival, is this the time to build at such a tremendous expense a seaway that is frozen approximately 4 to 5 months of each year?

2. Is this the time to build a seaway that cannot accommodate fully loaded more than 6.6 percent of the active merchant fleet of the United States and only 8.3 percent of the reserve fleet?

3. Is this the time to build a seaway that could not accommodate a single one of the 57 United States merchant vessels which are now under construction in United States yards?

4. Is this the time to undertake-as would be necessary if such a seaway were constructed-the construction of effective modern pier facilities to accommodate oceangoing vessels that could not go through a 27-foot seaway which would cost many millions of more dollars to make the seaway of practical use?

5. Are we undertaking a project which at best would be extremely vulnerable to atomic attack?

6. Are we prepared to undertake the extraordinary and perhaps continuous depending and maintenance of all connecting channels and Great Lakes harbors which must be an integral part of any such seaway if it were to be practical?

7. What assurance have we that any United States shipping companies will be interested in using this seaway if and as completed?

8. To what extent are we certain, in view of the conflicting testimony to date from a variety of sources, that construction of the Seaway is vital to the proper distribution of iron ore admittedly essential as that ore is in our economy?

9. Are we quite certain that it is necessary for America always to take the lead and to take the maximum expenses of such gigantic projects today?

Mr. Chairman, I want to consider this question on a national basis and not only from a New England basis, but it seem to me that these questions or questions of a similar character have got to be answered and have got to be answered factually and satisfactorily if we are not going to go forward on this enterprise, this vast enterprise, which is going to be a very large one and large in expenditures, on an emotional basis, and the thing that appeals to me, for the last 5 years that I have been discussing this project and working on it, is that there has been very little study of the economic facts involved in it. Emotionally we

want it.

Of course, we want a seaway through this country, but factually is it going to be economically feasible? Factually, is it economically practical, particularly in these times of great cost? Those are the

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questions, sir, I would like to leave before you, with you and the acting chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to speak just 14 minutes. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

EFFECT OF SEAWAY ON BOSTON HARBOR

Senator WILEY. I have just a couple of questions. Do you think if the seaway is constructed that it will result in depleting any of the business of the Boston Harbor?

Senator SALTONSTALL. We are told that it will, Senator Wiley, but the fact that I have tried to base this-I have said nothing about Boston, New York, or the Atlantic seaboard. I have tried to base my arguments on a national basis.

I could bring out statement pro and con on the Boston seaboard. I presume it will hurt it to a certain extent, but I don't base my questions or my statements here on that.

Senator WILEY. I did not mean that you did. I wanted to know, in view of the fact you are talking of facts

Senator SALTONSTALL. Yes; I think it will hurt Boston Harbor. Senator WILEY. How much traffic? Have you any idea, if the seaway were put into effect, how much tonnage would it affect in Boston Harbor?

Senator SALTONSTALL. I think it would affect it some. I would not want to tell you the exact tonnage. I don't think it would affect it in tonnage very much. It would affect it some.

Senator WILEY. And if Canada should construct it and we did not, do you think it would affect the tonnage in Boston Harbor?

Senator SALTONSTALL. I don't think there would be any difference, because if I read the agreement of 1871 correctly, which I understand is in effect in perpetuity as to the St. Lawrence River, we have the same rights as Canada has.

From the St. Lawrence through the Great Lakes I understand there is a new agreement now in negotiation which would have to grant in perpetuity equal rights on the Great Lakes channels in any event if this seaway is built.

Senator WILEY. You know that the Governor of your State has a different idea of the value of the seaway, don't you?

Senator SALTON STALL. I was told when I came in here that the Governor sent a representative to testify. He has a right to his opinion, Senator, and I have a right to mine, and I have worked on this for 6 or 8 years. I believe I know something about it. I do not question that he does, too.

I would also call your attention to the fact that the Boston Port Authority, which is a Massachusetts authority, is specifically opposed to the building of this seaway.

Senator WILEY. That would confirm your other conclusion that it might be a little damaged in tonnage to the Boston Harbor.

Senator SALTONSTALL. Yes, sir. I want to speak factually and I can't tell you the exact tonnage, and I don't want to leave you with the impression that I am appearing here purely from a Massachusetts and Boston point of view.