Nicaragua Canal

“ That the Nicaragua Canal will divert maritime commerce from San Francisco and other Pacific Coast Ports is a fallacy based upon the proposition that, with the advantage of five thousand miles navigation and canal toll in their favor the merchants of Pacific Coast Ports will be unable to compete with their Atlantic Coast and European rivals. ”

“ It seems most important, among other things, that we should be free to make the best terms for ourselves in the matter of the Nicaragua Canal, and that we ought to be entirely free to settle all questions with our Central and South American neighbors. ”

“ The Nicaragua Canal can depend upon an already large commerce, yet in its incipiency. The resources of the American continent are undeveloped and its population limited. No man can place a limit upon the future commerce of this great division of the habitable world. ”

“ The Nicaragua Canal Commission, under the chairmanship of Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, appointed July 24, 1897, under the authority of a provision in the sundry civil act of June 4 of that year, has nearly completed its labors, and the results of its exhaustive inquiry into the proper route, the feasibility, and the cost of construction of an interoceanic canal by a Nicaraguan route will be laid before you. ”

“ The Panama Canal has proved that the avoidance of locks can only be purchased in an uneven country at an immense cost, and the canal engineer has therefore to consider whether the resources at his disposal will enable him to pay the price involved. The proposed Nicaraguan Canal is another enterprise that presents some interesting problems of this description. This canal will make use for a great part of the total distance between ocean and ocean—169 miles—of Lake Nicaragua, and as that lake is 600 feet above sea level, it is manifestly necessary to make use of locks. ”

“ At Nicaragua the distance is greater, being about 156 m. in a straight line, but more than one third is covered by Lake Nicaragua, a sheet of fresh water with an area of about 3000 sq. m. and a maximum depth of over 200 ft., the surface being about 105 ft. above sea-level. Lake Nicaragua is connected with the Atlantic by a navigable river, the San Juan, and is separated from the Pacific by the continental divide, which is about 160 ft. above sea-level. At Nicaragua only a canal with locks is feasible, but at Panama a sea-level canal is a physical possibility. ”

“ For a long time this was the most popular of all the routes with the American Congress and the American people. The Nicaraguan route contemplated the utilization of the San Juan River on the east, between the Atlantic Coast and the Nicaraguan lakes, the Nicaraguan lakes as far as they extended westward, and thence through a canal across the dividing land from the upper lake to Nicaragua to the Pacific Ocean at Brita. The Nicaraguan route would be 377 miles shorter between San Francisco and New York than is the Panama route, along which the United States is now constructing a canal. ”

“ The treaty of 1850 was concerned primarily with a canal along the Nicaraguan route—that is, as the preamble expresses it, a canal "between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua and either or both of the lakes of Nicaragua or Managua to any port or place on the Pacific Ocean." But as Article VIII. says, it established "a general principle" relating to any waterway across the isthmus between North and South America. ”

“ Nicaragua is not a rich-enough country to be able to pay for this, and it is here that the subject touches the closest interests of other countries, and is serious enough to overthrow a much-desired treaty.
If the Canal is to be built, it must be built by a country rich enough to pay for it.
The country which builds the Canal will have the right to collect a toll from every vessel passing through, and also to defend it, and prevent the ships of an enemy from using it. ”

“ Being once fairly started in the career of aggrandizement regardless of consequences, our imperialists will find an open ear when they tell us that our control of the Nicaragua canal cannot possibly be safe unless that canal be bordered on both sides by United States territory, and that therefore we must have the whole country down to that canal and a good piece beyond. ”

“ Nature has provided against this as any canal engineer who has examined the route can prove. An abundance of fresh water under absolute control is the striking advantage developed at Nicaragua, as against the Suez Canal built through an irreclaimable sand desert, constantly encroaching upon it and necessitating constant dredging. But I may remark that the Suez canal with an expensive staff expends only 8-1/2 per cent. of gross receipts for management while the cheapest and most efficient railway in the United States uses 47 per cent. ”

“ It has been asserted that President Roosevelt took the view all along that under the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no right to prevent the United States from building the canal, and that, in spite of the provision of the Spooner Act requiring him to proceed with the construction of the Nicaragua Canal in the event of the failure of negotiations at Panama, he was determined to exhaust every possible effort before giving up the Panama route. ”

“ America and of foreign trade everywhere among our neighbors. It has refused to charter, sanction or encourage any American organization for constructing the Nicaragua Canal—a work of vital importance to the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, and of our national influence in Central and South America, and necessary for the development of trade with our Pacific territory, with South America and with the islands and farther coasts of the Pacific Ocean. ”

“ McKinley, one of the largest, if not the largest, syndicates of moneyed men ever gathered together obtained a concession from the government of Nicaragua for the construction of a canal known as the Nicaragua Canal. ”

“ On the Pacific end practically no harbor improvements will be necessary. On the Atlantic the present needs are satisfied, but the large steamers of the future may require deepening which can be done and the resulting channel easily maintained since there is no persistent filling in process such as characterizes the Greytown harbor.
Volcanoes have long been plentiful in Central America, especially near the proposed Nicaragua canal. Nicaragua Lake, so geologists say, owes its separation from the Pacific to a great upheaval. There is now an active volcano near which ships would have to pass. ”

“ From New York to ports in Asia and Australasia there would be a saving of 500 to 3000 miles over any route except by Suez, and between Europe and Japan sailing-vessels will save 3000 miles by taking the Nicaragua route. There can be no reasonable doubt that the world's commerce will be greatly benefited by the opening of the proposed canal, and in a few years we may see it operated to its full capacity, of every year passing eleven thousand ships from ocean to ocean. ”

“ If unable to secure a satisfactory title for this route, the President was instructed to build a canal by the Nicaragua route at a cost of not more than $189,000,000. Negotiations have been carried on with Colombia according to this act. ”

“ Keasbey [5] on the Nicaragua Canal urges frankly and emphatically the choice of the Nicaragua route for a canal across Central America, and the assumption by the United States of a dominant position in the political control of this water way. The author opens his discussion with a brief description and comparison of the ten or twelve more or less distinct routes that have been proposed, expressing the decided conviction that the Nicaragua and Panama routes are the only two worth considering, with the advantage on the side of the former. ”

“ I deny that it will be much more expensive to operate than the Suez Canal, which needs constant dredging to keep it from filling with desert sands, as against the nominal cost of operating modern locks at Nicaragua, proof of which we have in the cost of lockage at the Saint Mary's Canal, which now passes through its locks nearly three times the tonnage that uses the Suez Canal. ”

“ The principle of neutralization was nominally retained, but under the sole guarantee of the United States, with power to police the canal, and the clause of the first draft forbidding fortifications was omitted. [183]
[Pg 182] This convention removed the principal diplomatic obstacles which stood in the way of constructing a canal through the isthmus. For several years the United States had been investigating the cost of constructing a canal through Nicaragua, that route being the one which had always been considered most feasible by the great majority of American engineers. ”

“ The testimony of the experts is very strong, not only that the Panama route is feasible, but that in the Nicaragua route we may encounter some unpleasant surprises, and that it is far more difficult to forecast the result with any certainty as regards this latter route. As for Colombia's attitude, it is incomprehensible upon any theory of desire to see the canal built upon the basis of mutual advantage alike to those building it and to Colombia herself. All we desire to do is to take up the work begun by the French Government and to finish it. ”

“ But those in favour of a canal were not sleeping all this time. The old routes were again mooted, that through Lake Nicaragua being put down at 194 miles in length, while the other, since known as the Panama, was only 51. Dr. Edward Cullen, however, in 1850 went out and made some surveys, with the result that he advocated the old Darien line as the shortest and most practicable. He would start from the same Port de Escoces that witnessed the downfall of William Paterson's scheme, and which he said was a most commodious harbour for the terminus of a canal. ”

“ The government of Central America now determined to survey the route for the canal, and thus demonstrate to the world its practicability. In 1837 President Morazan employed Mr John Baily to survey the route, which he did, as already stated. In 1838 a convention between Nicaragua and Honduras authorized Peter Bouchard to make an agreement in France for the organization of a company to construct the canal. He did not succeed in accomplishing anything. Don Jorge Viteri, bishop of San Salvador, was sent as ambassador to Rome, and make like efforts, but without success. ”

“ The States of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras are the only Central American States whose consent or cooperation would in any event be necessary for the construction of the ship canal contemplated between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans by the way of Lake Nicaragua. ”

“ This surrender was practically forced upon the company by the American Government, as the threat to construct a canal at Nicaragua meant death to any hopes of raising sufficient extra capital for the completion of the Panama Canal. A telegram was sent, offering to sell out all assets, rights, and interests to the only possible purchaser at that purchaser’s own figure of $40,000,000. ”

“ The expense of the Nicaraguan Canal was estimated by Napoleon at only four millions sterling; but it is obvious, from the Prince’s own statements, that such a passage as he contemplated would only have afforded draught of water for vessels of 300 tons. Napoleon’s object was, however, quite as much to promote emigration, trade, and civilisation in the State of Nicaragua, as to open a communication between the two oceans. ”

“ The Isthmus of Nicaragua has always invited serious consideration for a ship canal route by its very marked physical characteristics, among which is chiefly its great depression between two nearly parallel ranges of hills, which depression is the basin of its large lake, a natural and all-sufficient feeder for such a canal. ”