Mr. HULBURD. If one of my colleagues had been here he would have offered an amendment that would remove that difficulty, taking it away from any State and giving its construction and its control exclusively to the General Government. I wish to answer one other objection, and that is, that if this commerce finds its way in large vessels into Lake Ontario, it will go away from NewYork on down and out to sea through the Gulf of StLawrence. Sir, those who are acquainted with the obsta cles in that pathway to the ocean obstacles that no time or expenditureof money or inducements of drawbacks can, in my judgment, ever surmount would laugh to scorn the utter absurdity of a serious apprehension from that quarter. Canada has expended millions in constructing the 7 canals around the rap ids in the StLawrence river between Ogdens burg and Montreal. In thus canalling and locking 32 and a half miles only 160 of the 236 feet of the elevation of Lake Ontario above Montreal has been overcome, leaving a tidal and channel current of 70 feet fal to be surmounted by the steam and sail of inland or ii ward going vessels. She has expended millions upon magnificent docks and wharves to accommodate trade and commerce at Montreal; but thus far they have attracted there no forest of shipping. At a vast expense she has dredged the channel of that river to a depth of 20 feet and to a width of 300 feet, miles and miles below that city, yet does “that way out” remain difficult and danger ous, and comparatively unfrequented, and forever will, in consequence of bad shores, sunken reefs, and perpetuiil fogs. The perils of this untoward thoroughfare most strikin Iy appear in one item of the recent past. Int lelast few years the Montreal Atlantic Steamship company have lost 7, if not 8, of their fine, new, and well appointed steam packets in the intricacies of the Gulf of StLawrence. What fact more patent and potent of the perils of this dreaded rival route? There remains one other significant business item, illustrating the disfavor with which this route is viewed by shippers and insurance men. For ten years, between 1845 55, the charge for freight from Montreal to Liverpool averaged twice the charge from NewYork to the same port. Of the river and Canadian ports properthis may be said: less than one 8th of the lake freight went down to Montreal, notwithstanding drawbacks and reciprocity. During the 1st 6 years of the operation of the reciprocity treaty only 12,000 tons, in 40 vessels, found their way to the lower StLawrence, and none of these, it is said, stemmed the upward current by returning to the waters where they were built and loaded. In 1863 but a single vessel cleared and entered American ports, through this channel, from foreign countries. In the words of Secretary Chase, notwithstandin “ the careful and inviting legislation of Cana a in regard to tolls and tonnage duties, " “the united e orts of the twoGovernments have proved of little effect in opening a clianncl preferable to that made up of the lakes, the canals, and railroads of the U.S. ” The idea that this can become a rival route, ice locked as it is nearl 7 months of the year, in addition to all its other disadvantages, in opposition to our open sea board, is too preposterous to be serious y considered. ButHere the hammer fcll.]