ernment to stop work upon the locks and dams at LaGrange and Kampsville, in the Illinois river, and supply the available funds and make future appropriations for the improvement of a channel from LaSalle to the mouth of the Illinois river, such improvement to be the creation of a channel not less than one hundred and sixty feet wide and twenty-two feet deep, and to project a channel of similar capacity and not less than fourteen feet deep from Lake Joliet, in the Illinois river, to LaSalle; that said joint resolution declared it to be the policy of the State of Illinois to procure the construction of a waterway of the greatest practical depth and usefulness for navigation from Lake Michigan, by way of the Desplaines and Illinois rivers, to the Mississippi river; that on April 28, 1882, the Illinois and Michigan canal was by the General Assembly ceded to the United States for the purpose of making an enlarged canal or waterway from Lake Michigan to the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, upon condition that the canal should be enlarged and maintained as a national waterway for commercial purposes, the act to take effect only upon the vote of the people of the State, but that no vote was ever taken upon said act. It was represented as a conclusion of the pleader that from all the above and foregoing the policy of the State of Illinois was to establish a waterway, whenever such should be contemplated, of a depth in canal and rivers from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river of not less than fourteen feet. The bill sets out the provision of separate section 3 of the constitution that "the General Assembly shall never loan the credit of the State or make appropriations from the treasury thereof, in aid of railroads and canals," and recites that by joint resolution of the General Assembly in 1907 the constitutional amendment hereinbefore set out was passed, providing for the construction of a deep waterway or canal from the present water power plant of the Sanitary District of Chicago near Lockport to a point on the Illinois river at or near Utica. The bill also

refers to a report of the Mississippi River Commission, so called, appointed by act of Congress to investigate and report on a navigable waterway from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi river; that a waterway fourteen feet in depth from Lockport to the mouth of the Illinois river, and thence by way of the Mississippi river to St. Louis, was practicable and could be constructed, and alleges that a campaign was conducted in Illinois for the adoption of the constitutional amendment upon the theory that a waterway should be constructed at least fourteen feet in depth, with locks at least six hundred feet long and eighty feet wide and with a depth of fourteen feet over the mitre sills, and that the voters at the election of 1908 so understood said amendment; that the amendment was ratified by a large majority of the people and was proclaimed by the Governor of the State as having been duly adopted November 24, 1908; that after the adoption of said amendment the Rivers and Lakes Commission of Illinois, in its annual report dated December 31, 1912, declared the waterway policy of Illinois to be, under the amendment in question, that the dams in the Illinois river be removed and the channel be dredged to a depth of at least fourteen feet; that on April 10, 1907, the Governor of the State sent to the General Assembly a message. reviewing the waterway situation and recommending legislation along the lines of the constitutional amendment of 1908 and that the waterway so constructed under the said amendment should have a depth of twenty-four feet; that said act of May 27, 1915, is claimed by defendants to be a legal act, duly and properly passed by the senate and the house of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois under the authority of the constitutional amendment of 1908, and that the defendants, Edward F. Dunne, as Governor, and the other State officers whose duties appertain thereto, claim said act to be valid and intend immediately to have bonds to the amount of $5,000,000 engraved and printed and sold in accordance with the provisions of the act, to the

injury and detriment of complainant and other tax-payers of the State; that under said act a channel may be constructed eight feet in depth, with locks two hundred and fifty feet long and forty-five feet wide, and if the same is so constructed it will be in violation of the constitutional amendment before referred to, and the said proposed canal provided for in said act will not be a deep waterway within the meaning and terms of the said act, and the act is therefore unconstitutional and void.

The prayer of the bill is for an injunction restraining the defendants, as State officers, from incurring any indebtedness for the engraving, printing or issuance of bonds, for interest on such bonds or for salaries or other expenses of said commissioners; that upon final hearing the injunction be made perpetual and the alleged act of May 27, 1915, be declared unconstitutional and void; that the defendants be perpetually enjoined from issuing or selling bonds and constructing said waterway, or doing any other act or thing under or pursuant to said alleged act for the purpose of putting the same into effect or carrying out any of the provisions thereof.

Defendants filed their joint and several demurrers to the second amended bill of complaint, which were overruled, and the defendants electing to stand by their said demurrers and declining to answer further, the court entered a decree allowing the injunction as prayed by complainant. Defendants prayed and were allowed an appeal to this court.

In the original and first amended bills other points than as above set out were urged against the validity and constitutionality of the act in question, but these were omitted from the second amended bill of complaint and were abandoned on the hearing and have not been argued in this court. The sole question presented by the bill, demurrers and assignments of error, as conceded by counsel for appellee, is whether the act of May 27, 1915, providing for a waterway or canal of a minimum depth of eight feet, is

constitutional in view of the constitutional amendment adopted at the election of November 3, 1908, pursuant to which said act was passed, or, in brief, whether an eightfoot canal, as provided in the act, is a deep waterway within the meaning of the constitutional amendment.

Counsel for appellee contends in his argument that any law providing for a canal or waterway pursuant to the constitutional amendment aforesaid should have specified that the same be not less than fourteen feet in depth. By the bill it appears that the project of an artificial waterway or canal to connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois river, and thus form a connecting link for continuous passage by watercraft from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico by means of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, is not a new one, and it is doubtless true that the subject has been agitated at intervals from the time of the early French explorers to the present date, all of which is interesting as a matter of history and engineering. However, we cannot concede that political speeches, reports of commissions or messages of State officers or previous resolutions of the General Assembly can be accepted as determining the policy of the people of the State in adopting the constitutional amendment in question, or irrevocably committing the authorities to the construction of a waterway of any particular depth in the future, or as throwing any light on the definition of the term "deep waterway" as used in the constitutional amendment, or as conclusive that a waterway or canal having a minimum depth of eight feet would not be a deep waterway within the meaning of the constitutional amendment or would be in violation of the constitutional amendment referred to. It may be conceded, and it is undoubtedly true, that there have been advocates of a waterway of a minimum depth of eight feet, advocates of a waterway of a depth of fourteen feet and advocates of a waterway of a much greater depth, and also that there have been those who were opposed to any waterway at all. In

People v. Hutchinson, 172 Ill. 486, we held that the general principles governing the construction of statutes apply in the construction of constitutions. In People v. Chicago Railways Co. 270 Ill. 87, we said on page 105 of the opinion: "It is a primary rule in the interpretation and construction of a statute that the intention of the legislature is to be ascertained and given effect. (People v. Price, 257 Ill. 587.) This rule does not, however, permit the courts to consider statements made by the author of a bill or by those interested in its passage, or by members of the legislature adopting the bill, showing the meaning or effect of the language used in the bill as understood by the person or persons making such statements. Thus, in Belleville and Illinoistown Railroad Co. v. Gregory, 15 Ill. 20, it was said: 'Nor can the presumed or even well known views of all the members of the legislature be allowed to repeal an express provision of a law or to control its construction. The law, alone, can speak the legislative will. When the courts shall be driven to the lobbies of the legislature to learn the sentiments of the members for the purpose of construing the laws a new rule of construction will have been adopted.'"

The resolution providing for the constitutional amendment in question was duly passed and the amendment to the constitution was submitted to the people of the State and was adopted. By this constitutional amendment the restriction that the General Assembly should never loan the credit of the State or make appropriations from the treasury thereof in aid of canals, as far as a canal between Lockport and Utica was concerned, to cost not to exceed $20,000,000, was removed. This left the General Assembly free, in its discretion, to provide or not to provide for the construction of a deep waterway or canal between the two places mentioned, to provide a bond issue to aid in its construction, not to exceed $20,000,000, and to enable it, from the surplus earnings of said waterway or canal or water power developed thereby, to provide for its maintenance,