re depended largely upon connecting
the two waterways mentioned--the river, that drains the commerce of the
Mississippi Valley, at our front door, and the lake, with its short-cut
to the sea and the commerce of the world, at the back.

When the Carondelet canal, now known as the Old Basin Canal, was begun
in 1794, the plan was to extend it to the river. It was also planned to
connect the New Basin Canal, begun in 1833, with the Mississippi. This
was, in fact, one of the big questions of the period. That the work was
not put through was due more to the lack of machinery than of
enterprise.

During the rest of the century, the proposal bobbed up at frequent
intervals, and the small Lake Borgne canal was finally shoved through
from the Mississippi to Lake Borgne, which is a bay of Lake
Pontchartrain.

The difference between these early proposals and the plan for the
Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor that was finally adopted, is that the
purpose in the former case was simply to develop a waterway for
handling freight, whereas the object of New Orleans' great facility,
now nearing completion, is to create industrial development.

Under the law of Louisiana, inherited from the Spanish and French
regimes, river frontage can not be sold or leased to private
enterprise. This law prevents port facilities being sewed up by selfish
interests and insures a fair deal for all shipping lines, new ones as
well as old, with a consequent development of foreign trade; and port
officials, at harbors that are under private monopoly, would give a
pretty if the Louisiana system could be established there.

But there is no law, however good, that meets all conditions, and a
number of private enterprises--warehouses and factories--have
undoubtedly been kept out of New Orleans because they could not secure
water frontage.

An artificial waterway, capable of indefinite expansion, on whose banks
private enterprise could buy or lease, for a long period of time, the
land for erecting its buildings and plants, without putting in jeopardy
the commercial development of the port; a waterway that would
co-ordinate river, rail and maritime facilities most economically, and
lend itself to the development of a "free port" when the United States
finally adopts that requisite to a world commerce--that was the
recognized need of New Orleans when the proposal for connecting the two
waterways came to the fore in the opening years of the present century.
T