Special Message to the Congress Urging Action on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

To the Congress of the United States:

I wish to call to the attention of the Congress the immediate urgency of action on legislation to authorize the construction of the St. Lawrence seaway and power project.

As the result of events that have taken place since the first session of the Eighty-second Congress, we confront an entirely new situation in dealing with this public improvement--a project recommended by every United States President and Canadian Prime Minister since World War I.

For eleven years, since 1941, there has been before the Congress for approval an Agreement between the Canadian and United States Governments providing for joint construction of the St. Lawrence project. The Congress has not yet approved this Agreement. Now the Canadian Government has officially proposed, if the Congress does not approve the 1941 Agreement at an early date, to construct the seaway as a solely Canadian undertaking, simultaneously with the construction of the power phase of the project by the Province of Ontario in association with an appropriate agency in the United States.

Prime Minister St. Laurent of Canada visited Washington last September in order to lay this proposal before the United States Government. At that meeting, we found ourselves in complete agreement on the vital importance to the security and the economies of both Canada and the United States of proceeding as rapidly as possible with both the seaway and the power phases of the projects. We agreed completely that the best way to proceed was through joint construction under the 1941 Agreement. We also agreed that the Canadian alternative proposal for constructing the seaway by the Canadian Government is feasible, and that if an early commencement of joint development under the 1941 Agreement is not authorized, the seaway and power works should proceed as the Canadians suggest.

Subsequently, on December 21, 1951, the Canadian Parliament authorized the establishment of a St. Lawrence Seaway Authority empowered to cooperate with the United States in constructing the seaway under the 1941 Agreement. Thus, the Canadians are prepared to proceed immediately with the seaway if the Congress approves that Agreement.

Furthermore, in the event the United States does not elect to proceed with joint completion of the seaway under the 1941 Agreement, Canada's Seaway Authority is empowered to construct all the navigation works required to complete the seaway from Lake Erie to Montreal, at present the head of deep-draft ocean navigation on the St. Lawrence River.

Under the 1941 Agreement, certain locks and canals would be built on the United States side of the St. Lawrence River. If Canada builds the seaway by itself, all locks and canals would, of course, be built on the Canadian side.

Another Act passed by the Canadian Parliament in December provides for the development of power in the International Rapids section of the St. Lawrence River, to be undertaken by the Province of Ontario in association with an appropriate agency in the United States. Thus the Canadians are prepared to proceed immediately with the power works also, either under the 1941 Agreement--a clearly preferable method-or as part of the Canadian alternative proposal.

Under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, an International Joint Commission, composed of three members each from the United States and Canada, was established to review and approve water resource development projects which materially affect the level or flow of boundary waters, when such projects are not otherwise provided for by special agreement. In a note from the Canadian Ambassador to the Secretary of State on January 11, 1952, the Canadian Government officially informed our Government of the recent Canadian legislation, and requested our cooperation in preparing appropriate applications to the International Joint Commission.

In response to this note, the Secretary of State informed the Canadian Ambassador that the United States Government hopes that the Congress will soon approve the 1941 Agreement. At the same time, in order that there may be a minimum of delay in the construction of the project in the event the Congress does not approve the 1941 Agreement at an early date, we agreed to cooperate with the Canadians in advance preparations for presenting the matter to the International Joint Commission.

Copies of these notes are attached to this message for the information of the Congress.

This is the situation as it now stands. It is a very different situation from that which the Congress has previously considered. Through all the years that the St. Lawrence project has been a public issue in this country and in Canada--those years now numbering about 50--the principal arguments have revolved around the question of whether the seaway part of the project should be constructed. This question is no longer at issue. The Canadian note of January 11 states, "The Canadian Government is prepared to proceed with the construction of the seaway as soon as appropriate arrangements can be made for the construction of the power phases of the St. Lawrence project as well."

The question before the Congress, therefore, no longer is whether the St. Lawrence seaway should be built. The question before the Congress now is whether the United States shall participate in its construction, and thus maintain joint operation and control over this development which is so important to our security and our economic progress.

I strongly believe that the United States should join as a full partner with Canada in building the seaway. We should not be content to be merely a customer of Canada's for the use of the seaway after it is built.

We should join in constructing the seaway, first, because it is important to our national security.

Exhaustive Congressional hearings have been held on the 1941 Agreement. Reports recommending the St. Lawrence project as one of exceptional and direct value to our security--and to Canada's--are on record before the Congress from the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Defense Mobilization, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Resources Board, the United States-Canadian Permanent Joint Board on Defense, and other responsible agencies. The security value of the project has been recognized in the Barkley Resolution offered in the Seventy-ninth Congress, in the Vandenberg Resolution of the Eightieth Congress, and in the Resolutions to implement the 1941 Agreement introduced under bipartisan sponsorship by 26 Senators, and several Members of the House, during the first session of the Eighty-second Congress. Each of these measures has proposed Federal construction of the United States share of the works as the best means of safeguarding their potential benefits to the people of the United States.

Competent and unbiased experts have always come to the conclusion that the construction of a deep water channel connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of St. Lawrence will be of great importance to the strong and expanding transportation network and industrial capacity which are fundamental to our national security. It has been shown over and over again that the cost of the relatively small amount of materials and manpower needed for this project will be fully repaid in tolls and power receipts; and, in addition, the project will yield savings and returns in transportation and power benefits far surpassing its cost.

In recent years, a new and very important consideration has been added. The United States steel industry is now building toward an annual production of 120 million tons. At the same time, our supplies of high grade iron ore, available from open pit mining which can be readily expanded in an emergency, are being rapidly depleted. Such ore will shortly be available in large quantities from new discoveries in the Labrador-Quebec area of Canada. The importance of a relatively safe inland waterway to bring this ore economically to the steel centers around the Great Lakes increases every year.

Second, we should join in constructing the St. Lawrence seaway because it will be of very large significance to the commerce and the industry of our country. The seaway will be self-liquidating through the collection of tolls. The great bulk of the traffic will be bound to or from the United States, but if Canada builds the seaway, Canada will set the tolls. The Canadian legislation provides that toils shall be set high enough to repay the cost of the seaway; and, of course, Canada could keep on charging tolls even after the seaway is paid for.

Under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909, the tolls must be set so that Canadian and United States shippers pay the same amounts for the same kinds of cargo. Nevertheless, since different kinds of cargo will be of different importance to the two countries, it is obviously of great significance for us to have an equal voice with Canada in establishing the schedules of tolls on the seaway.

This is no mere matter of academic interest. For example, millions of tons of iron ore will move through the seaway every year to the great steel manufacturing and fabricating plants on or near the Great Lakes. The level of tolls for that ore will be of vital importance to the economic stability and growth of our basic steel industry in the Midwest, and to the hundreds of companies and hundreds of thousands of workers directly engaged in or connected with that industry. Aside from iron ore, large amounts of agricultural products, raw materials, and industrial products will move through the seaway in one direction or another. We can have an adequate voice in setting the tolls on all these cargoes only if we join in constructing the seaway.

We should join with Canada in building the seaway, third, because it is a project along our common boundary in which both countries have a substantial interest. The long standing record of friendship and cooperation between the United States and Canada has been a remarkable example of the way in which free countries should conduct their joint affairs. That record of friendship and cooperation is built on mutual respect and mutual responsibility. Just as the different parts of our own country should and do work together for the common welfare, so our two countries should work together in matters that will benefit us both.

In the case of the St. Lawrence project, by far the most important undertaking proposed along our common border, differences of opinion in the United States have long blocked a development that means a great deal to the growth and progress of Canada, as well as ourselves. We have already trespassed on the good will of our Canadian neighbors. And meanwhile, potential navigation has been choked off and immense amounts of potential hydroelectric power have been lost. The St. Lawrence project will greatly benefit both Canada and the United States. We should build it together.

It should be noted that the Federal Power Commission as recently as December, 1950, on consideration of an application by a State agency for a license to construct the power facilities in the International Rapids section of the St. Lawrence River jointly with a Provincial agency of Canada, found, after exhaustive investigation and extensive public hearings, that the entire seaway and power project should be constructed by the United States jointly with Canada and so recommended to the Congress.

For the reasons I have stated, I believe most strongly that it is in our national interest to participate on an equal basis with Canada in the construction, management, and control of the St. Lawrence project.

The project is of great importance to our national security and our economic growth. The materials and manpower to build it are available. The funds invested in it will be repaid with interest. And in return for making a self-liquidating investment, we will gain the inestimable advantage of having an equal voice in the management and control of this key link in our national transportation system. I do not see how anyone can fail to recognize the common sense of participating in this project.

I am fully aware that there has been strong opposition to the seaway on the part of certain railroads and port interests in our country who feel they would be adversely affected. I have always believed that this opposition overlooked the fact that economic growth and expansion in our country-which are as important to the railroads and the ports as they are to anyone else-depend on continuous development of our resources to increase our productive capacity and job opportunities. Regardless of what may have been their conclusion in the past, however, those who have previously opposed the project must now look at the matter in a new light. The project is to be built, whether or not we take part in the construction of the seaway. Those who have opposed the seaway in the past surely must realize that in these changed circumstances it is a plain matter of national self interest to join in its construction.

No great nation has ever deliberately abandoned its interest in any of the vital waterways of the world. Indeed, the record has been the opposite: nations have vied furiously, and have often fought, over control of key water gateways such as the Dardanelles, the Suez Canal, and the Straits of Gibraltar.

Even on our peaceful continent, no Congress in the history of this Nation has failed to recognize and to assert the joint interest of the United States in the boundary waters of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, whenever the question has been presented.

It seems inconceivable to me, now that this project is on the eve of accomplishment, that the Congress should allow any local or special interest to divest our country of its rightful place in the joint development of the St. Lawrence River in the interest of all the people of the United States.

I strongly recommend, therefore, that the Congress promptly enact legislation to carry out the 1941 Agreement for joint completion of the St. Lawrence seaway and power project.

HARRY S. TRUMAN