Lobby Logic

For over a decade, American railroad and seaport lobbies have effectively bottled Congressional action on the Saint Lawrence Seaway plan. Their motives are sample enough: they will lose trade if the Great Lakes are opened up to ocean ships. But now, they are desperate. The Canadian Government unceremoniously uncorked the bottle by announcing its intention to start begging up the Saint Lawrence in the spring, whether the U.S. joins it or not.

In a final gasp of opposition, the railway and seaport lobbies are hinting that Canada really cannot afford to build the Seaway by itself at all, and that its announcement is intended to dupe Congress into co-sponsoring the project.

But Canada is not bluffing. Twenty-five years ago, Canada's national income was only one-quarter of what it is now. Yet the Canadians built the 114 million dollar Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Canada did this despite the fact that the real value of the Welland could never be realized without the Seaway. Surely, with its present industrial boom, Canada can build a 250 million dollar all-Canadian Seaway, especially since it will pay for itself through toll charges.

The bulk of these tolls will come from American steel companies, shipping iron ore from Labrador to inland American mills. Since the Mesabi iron deposits are running out while the United States' need for steel climbs, the Labrador deposits are becoming more important. The railroad and port lobbies, of course, believe that steel producers--if they need Labrador ore--shall pay for shipping it, rather than charge this cost up to the American tax-payer.

This seemingly just proposition ignores the fact that steel prices set the price for most durable and semi-durable commodities. If iron ore transportation prices rose, as they would if Canada set its own Seaway toll charges, the price of steel would rise accordingly. Thus, the American public would, in the long run, finance the Seaway--either as taxpayers footing the higher cost of steel bought by the Government, or as consumers, buying durable goods.

We do not deny that the Saint Lawrence Seaway is, as the lobbies claim, a sectional issue. But it is sectional only in its harmful effects: it will hurt the coastal ports and the railroads that service them. It's benefits, however, would be national, not sectional. One has only to look at past "sectional" projects--the TVA, the Panama Canal, the Grand Coulee Dam--all of which, though they hurt local interests, benefitted the whole nation.

Faced with the steel requirements for defense, and the plain fact that Canada has grown tired of waiting, Congress should join Canada on the Saint Lawrence Seaway project.