Next, at the request of a large number of members, a Committee of five was appointed, with authority to invite offers of property for our use, within certain prescribed limits. This Committee have looked into the whole subject very carefully, and have made their report to the Board,* by whose direction copies have been sent to all our members, with a view to its consideration at this meeting, and I shall be very glad if the members will, at this time, give such an expression of their views on this all-important subject as shall enable our immediate successors to deal with it in an intelligent and satisfactory manner.

Another important subject that has had considerable attention from your Board has been the endeavor to bring into general use throughout our country the hundred pound, or "cental," as a uniform standard of weight for all large transactions in produce. If this were adopted here and in Great Britain, it would serve to simplify all the operations of buying and selling, insurance, commission and transportation, by making the hundred pounds avoirdupois the unit, thereby doing away with the several denominations of bushel, quarter, hundred weight of 112 pounds, and ton of 2,240 pounds.

The bushel itself is to-day an anomaly in our own country, so far as grain transactions are concerned, for while we speak of a "bushel" of wheat, we really mean 60 pounds of wheat, and so there are nearly as many different bushels as there are kinds of grain. A "bushel" of oats in New York city means 32 pounds, while across the North River, not two miles away, it means 30 pounds. The farmer who measures his grain from his bin into his bags by his halfbushel measure finds when he gets to the mill that it has to be weighed, and that he is to be paid, not by its volume, but by the pound.

A merchant is dealing in wheat between Chicago and Great Britain. He buys his wheat by the "bushel," and pays charges accordingly; he ships it to New York by rail and pays freight by the "hundred" pounds; he transships

* See page 89.

it by ocean vessel and pays freight by the "bushel;" if it goes to Liverpool it is sold by the "cental;" if it goes to London it is sold by the "quarter" of 480 pounds; if to Hull or Newcastle, by the "quarter" of 504 pounds; if to Dundee and some other places, by the "quarter" of 496 pounds.

The provision merchant buys his cut meats in Chicago and ships them to the seaboard by the hundred pounds avoirdupois; he pays freight to Great Britain by the ton of 2,240 pounds, and sells them by the hundred weight of 112 pounds.

The desirability of having the Cental System in general use throughout the country has long had the emphatic endorsement of all our leading Boards of Trade, and recent correspondence had by your Committee on Trade with the various Exchanges of the country shows us that they are almost uniformly ready to unite with this Exchange in naming some early day on which the system should be put in operation on our respective Boards of Trade. The fact that the same movement is taking definite shape in Great Britain, orders in council having been issued legalizing the use of the Cental or "New Hundred Weight" (100 pounds avoirdupois) throughout the Kingdom, encourages the belief that concerted action here would aid materially in bringing about corresponding action there.

The question whether this Exchange is in favor of such a movement has recently been submitted to your vote, and the expression, so far as given, was very emphatic in its favor. It will remain for our successors in office to give the matter practical shape, in which, we trust, they will have your hearty co-operation.

CANALS.

The members of this Exchange have at all times taken a deep interest in all matters touching the prosperity of the State Canals, and have in recent years watched with increasing apprehensions the efforts of their enemies to close them to commerce. Within the past few days our apprehensions have ripened into positive alarm and almost into the

conviction that their efforts are to prevail at no distant day. No public works were ever more persistently abused by those who have derived inestimable benefits from them, and of all the misrepresentations made by partizans seeking the suffrages of the people in the country districts of the State, none are so shameful, and so prejudicial to the best interests of all the people, as those which misrepresent the benefits accruing from the Canals.

I am convinced that the great majority of the people of the State do not understand the value of these water-ways, and that men who do understand and appreciate their importance dare not advocate their cause before the people, for fear of injury to party or individual political prospects. The average legislator will inform you that he himself is a staunch canal man, and in favor of a liberal canal policy; that his pockets are filled with statistics which clearly show that such a policy is essential to the existence of the canals, and that the canals are necessary to the commercial life of the State, but that he would not dare to face his constituents after voting in favor of it. This fear of constituencies extends to some of those who have, in one way or another, reached positions of authority in the Legislature. The Speaker of the Assembly, and the Chairman of the Canal Committee of the Senate, both residents of a city situated on the banks of the Erie Canal, which owes all its importance to benefits arising therefrom, have within a few days informed a delegation from this Exchange that if it ever comes to a question as to whether the canals shall be abandoned or be supported by taxation they will be abandoned.

On the 3d of November, 1874, the people of the State approved by ballot the following amendment to Section 6, Article 7, of the Constitution, viz.: "Hereafter the expen"ditures for collections, superintendence, ordinary and ex"traordinary repairs on the Canals named in this section "shall not exceed in any year the gross receipts of the "previous year."

This enactment was doubtless made in the expectation that it would save the Canal revenues from thieves who had

managed to steal them in previous years, and while it may have accomplished that result, it has at the same time placed the Canals in such a position that they may be closed at the option of the railway lines, and the time seems now to have arrived when they choose to close them.

The benefits to the State arising from these great waterways are and have been for fifty years almost incalculable. During the season of navigation in 1878 there was carried upon them 67,500,000 bushels of grain alone, which directly benefited the people of the State more than ten millions of of dollars, while the indirect benefits to the State and the United States were immeasurably greater, for they were and still are the regulators of freight rates between the West and the seaboard, and as such their value to the States of the West and Northwest, as well as to the State of New York, can hardly be overestimated.

This fact is clearly illustrated in the comparison of rail freights from the West to the seaboard, previous to and after opening the Erie Canal to navigation this year.

The difference is more radical than has been shown in former years of warfare against the canals, being fully 50 per cent, and equal to six cents per bushel on wheat from Chicago to New York, a reduction which, it is fair to assume, would not have been made except through the influence of the canals, and which evinces a determination on the part of the railways to wipe out this "last ditch" between themselves and absolute control of the carrying trade, by carrying grain and other freight at such rates as will leave the canals with insufficient business, and consequently with insufficient revenues to support them the coming year.

The importance of this reduction in rates for transportation, and the beneficent influences exerted by the Erie Canal upon the industries of the Northern and Western States of the Union, are more clearly illustrated by the following facts.

The estimated production of wheat and corn in that portion of the United States which may be called tributary to the great lakes, the Erie Canal and the Railway lines leading to the

Atlantic seaboard, was last year 1,000 millions bushels of corn and 200 millions bushels of wheat, the surplus of which must reach Atlantic seaports by way of the great lakes and the Erie Canal or by the trunk railroad lines. Now, if through the influence of the lakes and canals the rate of transportation is reduced one cent per bushel, there is added to the value of a crop of wheat and corn equal to that of last year an aggregate of twelve millions of dollars, whether actually carried or not; besides which the people of the State of New York derive direct benefits amounting to not less than ten cents per bushel upon every bushel carried over our canals; and the indirect benefits augment the aggregate annual value of this traffic to a sum which will be appreciated only when it ceases to flow in upon us.

There is greater need now than ever that the merchants of this Exchange, and the friends of the canals throughout the State, should bestir themselves in behalf of these great public works. They should be not only preserved and maintained, but their usefulness should be increased by judicious deepening of the water-way, so that the Erie and Oswego canals shall carry fully ten feet of water throughout their entire length.

I append hereto an interesting communication addressed to me by a civil engineer, Mr. T. C. Ruggles,* whose familiarity with the condition and requirements of the Canals is well known to us, and whose recommendations and opinions relative to them possess unusual interest at this time.

In this great work there is no organization within the State which can accomplish more than can this Exchange, if we use the strength and influence which we possess. Therefore, I respectfully urge that you will, at the proper time, instruct our successors in office to put forth all the strength of the Exchange to preserve, maintain and increase the usefulness of the State canals.

It must not be inferred that we are enemies of the railways because we advocate the cause of the canals; the contrary is the fact. I believe we fully recognize the great

* See page 68.