Seaway Revived

Canada watched the U.S. Congress with more than usual interest this week. The St. Lawrence Seaway project was up for consideration again.

Americans and Canadians have talked for years about deepening and damming the 1,900-mile St. Lawrence Waterway, thus providing "maritime coastlines" for their Midwests and cheap hydroelectric power. Nothing ever happened. In 1934, the U.S. Senate failed to produce the two-thirds vote necessary to ratify a treaty that had been signed in 1932.

But now a new situation has caused renewed interest: the project could provide postwar jobs. In Washington, Republican Senator George David Aiken of Vermont said he would offer the plan as an amendment to either the Flood Control Bill or the Rivers & Harbors Bill, both due for debate. He insisted that a treaty is not necessary. By executive decree the U.S. traded 50 destroyers to Great Britain in exchange for air bases. The Seaway project might be realized the same way.

Ontarians, particularly, hoped it would be. They are short of power. Given a surplus, they could envision a vast new industrial area sprouting at the power sites.

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