This canal will unite the Gulf of Kiel with the mouth of the Elbe, and will run by way of Rendsburg to a point midway between Brunsbüttel and St. Margarethen, a few miles below Hamburg. It will, when completed, be 61 miles long, 196 feet broad at the water level, 85 feet broad at the bottom, and 28 feet deep, and it will have but two locks—one at each end. The canal will take in the largest warship that has been or will be constructed in Germany, and will, moreover, take her at all states of the tide and in less than eight hours it will be possible for her to proceed by it from Kiel to the Elbe, or _vice versâ_. The canal, therefore, will enable Germany to regard with some degree of indifference the possession of the mouths of the Baltic. She will always have her own entrance into that sea, and will be in a position at very short notice either to reinforce her squadrons there with ships from the North Sea, or to draw ships thence to reinforce Kiel and the Elbe. It is proposed to supplement this strategical waterway by means of a further canal, which shall traverse Hanover from Neuhaus, on the Elbe, opposite Brunsbüttel, to Bremerhaven, at the mouth of the Weser. It will then be possible for the whole voyage between Kiel and Wilhelmshaven to be performed in what are practically inland waters. This last section of canal is, indeed, necessary for the thorough completion of the scheme of coast defence; for the position of Great Britain at Heligoland renders a blockade by her of the mouths of the Elbe and Weser comparatively easy, unless provision be made for the safe concentration at will, either at Brunsbüttel or at Wilhelmshaven, of a fairly formidable fleet.
The Eyder, which divides Schleswig from Holstein, flows through territory to be regarded as permanently German into the North Sea at Tönning. From Rendsburg, to which place the Eyder is navigable, the Eyder or Schleswig-Holstein canal was dug towards the close of the last century to Kiel Bay, on the Baltic. It is from 10 to 11 feet deep, and has locks. Vessels, though of no great burden, can thus at present pass from the one sea to the other. As soon as Prussia occupied the Danish Duchies, proposals were entertained by it for an increase of the depth and width of this canal. Its maintenance, as it is necessitates a large expenditure on dykes, and the contemplated improvements, of which the charge would fall wholly or mainly on Prussia, must inevitably be exceedingly costly. When they were fully carried out, they might not answer the commercial needs of the chief centres of German trade, and might even divert custom from them. Hamburg wants a canal nearer to its end of the peninsula. It will be likely to attain its wish by the measure which has now been sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament. By this scheme the two German seas will be united at points most convenient for the accommodation of the entire Empire.