Items of Interest December 9, 1916 Issue

Items of Interest

A question of interest all along the Great Lakes is whether the drainage canal at Chicago, in diverting water from Lake Michigan to carry Chicago's sewage down the Des Plaines River and thence to the Mississippi, is actually lowering the level of the Great Lakes so as to interface with commerce. There is litigation now in the Federal courts between Chicago and the United States Government involving this point. The issue in the Government suit is the proposed reduction of the canal capacity of 840,000 cubic feet a minute to 250,000 feet a minute. It is running now 450,000 feet a minute.

Chicago holds that when the canal was built at such a huge cost the Government said nothing about the regulation of the flow in regard to lake levels; and since the stipulations regarding Federal control were expressly named and have been complied with, therefore the Government cannot now step in and regulate the canal in such a way as to destroy its usefulness. As for alleged breaking of treaty obligations with Great Britain, Chicago declares that Canada cannot now, with good grace, question the effects of the canal, because when the treaty of 1909 with reference to boundary waters was adopted, compensation was made to Canada for diversion of water at Chicago by allowing the Dominion an excess of diversion at Niagara Falls.

It is expected that the United States Department of Justice during the next four years will find a lessening necessity for prosecuting combines to bring about their dissolution. New combinations are no longer being formed, and many of the old ones have already been dissolved or suits are now under way against them. The Federal Trade Commission, under its large powers, will do much to eliminate unfair business practices which before the com mission's creation might have had to be attacked under the Sherman law, if at all.

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