FOR CANAL IMPROVEMENT.

FOR CANAL IMPROVEMENT.

质量meeting-non-political-with溢出ing besides—was held in Cooper Union on Tuesday night under the presidency of Mayor Strong, to agitate in favor of spending $9,000,000 on building a waterway from Lake Erie to Albany, N. Y., and for the improvement of the State canals. The meeting was under the auspices of the Produce Exchange, the Board of Trade and Transportation, and the Maritime Association. Besides Mayor Strong wore present Mayor Schieren, of Brooklyn, cxMayors Hewitt and Kdsou, and letters of approval were read from ex-Mayor Grant, Frank R. Hawley. Seth Low, presidentof Columbia College, ex-mayor of Brooklyn,Gen. D. Butterfield and others. Mayor Strong earnestly indorsed the idea and the call for the meeting, which stated that the canals to be adequate to their original purpose need to be enlarged and that the money so spent, divided among the tax-payers of the state, will amount to but little annually to each, and will every year be repaid seven fold to each.

Mr. Simon 8tern proved the truth of the claim put forward that to the State canals, more than to anything else, New York owes its supremacy as the Empire State. They have made our city the metropolis of America, and extinguished the rivalry of Philadelphia, Boston, and Salem in that direction. He said that the efficiency of the canal had been decreased, and that in the mean time the effleiciency of the railroad had been largely increased. “ But the canal,” he said, “has been the great regulator of the charges that the railway could make. It has kept them down. England and France 1% awakened to the 1m. portance of developing their canals, and it is high time that the State of New Yorkfshould awaken to that fact. The state has lagged behind.” Mr. Stern related the history of the Erie canal and showed how it bad paid for itself and added many millions to the w ealth of the state. To it he ascribed much of the wealth of this city, and he urged the immediate necessity of making the improvements proposed if we didn’t want to be outstripped in our commercial interests by other cities.