COMMERCE AN!) TRANSPORTATION. In maritime commerce New York far outranks any other State in the Union. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, 64 per cent. of the imports and 35.60 per cent. of the exports of the entire passed through the port of New York. Its traffic to and from other United States coast points is between two and three times the volume of its foreign trade. In addition it has a vast trade along the Hudson. Buffalo is the chief lake port of the State, and has an immense commerce with the West. With this commerce may be included that of Tonawanda. Oswego is the principal port on Lake Ontario. Other important shipping points are: Charlotte. Sothis Point, Fair Haven, and Cape Vincent on Lake Ontario, Ogdensburg on the Saint Lawrence River, Rouses Point, Plattsburg, and Whitehall on Lake Champlain, and Newburgh and lion lout on the Hudson River. The total traffic for the entire State can best be noted in connection with the means of inland transportation.
New York was the first State to enter aetively on the work of canal construction. In addition to the Erie Canal, opened in 1325, the State has constructed the Champlain Canal, the Oswego Canal, and several other branch canals, and en larged the Erie Canal to four times its original dimensions. The total expenditure on canal con struction has been nearly $100,000.000. In re cent years, owing to railroad competition and the neglect of the State to improve the canals, the traffic on them lias declined, most of the branch canals have been abandoned, and only on the Erie and Champlain routes is there any eonsiderable tonnage. Proposed plans fen• the enlargement of
the Erie Canal constitute a most important ques tion for the State.
The first railroad in the State was the ;Mohawk and Hudson, opened in 1831 from Albany to Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles. By 1842 there were lines extending from Albany to Buffalo. Within another decade the Erie road across the southern part of the State and the Hudson River road from New York to Albany had been completed. Since then roads have been built over every section of the State, and the different lines have been united into great sys tem. There were, in 1900. 8095 miles of road and over I 2,000 miles of track in the State. The total traffic in 1599 was 150,000.000 pas sengers. moved :3.500.000,000 passenger miles, and 170100.00u tons of freight. moved 24.000.000,000 ton-miles—being one-fourth of the passenger traffic and one-lifth of the freight traffic of the entire country. The principal railroad systems ero—ing the State are the New York Central and Iludson River. the Erie. the Lackawanna. the New York. Chicago and Saint Louis (with the West Shore). the New York. Ontario and West ern. and the Lehigh Valley. other important systems enter at the east and west. There is a State board of railroad commissioners. having general supervision of railroads and their opera tion With reference to public safety and conveni ence. The hoard is empowered to investigate and report violations of the law.