tection of
the valley we should have at New Orleans armament mounted on floating
platforms which will hold the enemy beyond the point where his shells
may not reach their objective, and in this operation the canal,
affording means of rapid transport, will render invaluable and
essential service."

A country's ports are its watergates. Their local importance is
comparatively small. They are important or not according to whether
they are on trade routes, and easily accessible. An infinitesimal part
of the trade that flows through New Orleans originates or terminates
there. The back country gets the bulk of the business. The development
of the harbor is for the service of the interior. It is essentially
national.

From every point of view, therefore, it is the duty of the national
government to take over the Navigation Canal and release the monies of
the state so they may be devoted to the improvement of the waterway
with wharves and other works in aid of the nation's commerce.

[Illustration: S. S. NEW ORLEANS
First Ship Launched by Doullut & Williams Shipbuilding Co.]

[Illustration: S. S. GAUCHY
First Ship Launched on Canal]

ECONOMIC ASPECT OF CANAL.

Tied to the Mississippi Valley by nearly 14,000 miles of navigable
waterways, and the largest port on the gulf coast and the most
centrally situated with respect to the Latin-American and Oriental
trade, New Orleans is naturally a market of deposit. The development of
the river service, in which the government set the pace in 1918, is
restoring the north and south flow of commerce, after a generation of
forced haul east and west, along the lines of greatest resistance; and
New Orleans has become the nation's second port. Its import and export
business in 1920 amounted to a billion dollars.

Ninety per cent of the nation's wealth is produced in the Valley, of
which New Orleans is the maritime capital. It is the source of supply
of wheat, corn, sugar, lumber, meat, iron, coal, cotton oil,
agricultural implements, and many other products. It is a market for
the products of Latin-America and the Orient.

With the co-ordination of river, rail and maritime facilities, and
sufficient space for development, it is inevitable that New Orleans
should become a mighty manufacturing district. Such enterprises as coke
ovens, coal by-product plants, flour mills, iron furnaces, industrial
chemical works, iron and steel rolling mills, shipbuilding and repair
pla