Panama Canal

“ The way to compel the canal to pay indirectly is to make it incidental to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to create the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening? ”

“ The New Panama Canal Company had by this time brought their labours to the point where it seemed practicable to appeal to the investing public of the world for funds to construct a high-level Panama canal. To do this in the face of a Nicaraguan canal, undertaken as a national affair by the United States, would have been hopeless: they therefore laid their detailed plans before President McKinley. A Commission was accordingly appointed by Congress to inquire into the best route for an Isthmian canal "under the control, management, and ownership of the United States." ”

“ The Panama Canal Railroad has done very little to modify the situation. The Pacific coast of America has looked westwards over its waste of waters, and has scarcely been reached by the industrial and economic forces at work behind it in the Old and New Worlds. Its trade has been carried on mostly with Europe, and especially England, in sailing vessels that have plodded round the distant Horn. An interesting example of this geographical and commercial detachment of the west coast of Central and South America is furnished by the port of Mazatlan in Western Mexico. ”

“ Panama asked for nothing better than that a rich and powerful country like the United States should continue the French enterprise and carry it through. The canal would run right through the province, and would bring it into the main stream of the world's traffic and commerce. No doubt the central government at Bogotá would skim off as much as possible of this new wealth and prosperity at the isthmus; but even so, Panama would reap a great advantage from the running of this new and much-frequented highway of communication between east and west through its territory. ”

“ If they do become greater the Panama Canal will be an inefficient servant and will come far short of fulfilling the purpose which prompted its building. The sea-level canal could be enlarged by dredges without stopping traffic through it,18 but with a lock canal it is different. When the locks as constructed become inadequate the only way to increase their capacity is to shut down the canal for years while new and larger ones are being built. ”

“ Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks ever will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that sail the seas could go through locks one-half the size of those at Panama. So far as commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton vessel plying tropical waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton ship is an exception. According to the best shipping authorities, the day when vessels of more than 25,000 tons will find it profitable to ply on the routes which lead through the Panama Canal is so far in the future that they are not able to discern it. ”

“ The opening of the Panama Canal promises to be one of the factors in hastening the day when the Orient will become as progressive as the Occident, and when sleeping nations will arise from their lethargy and contribute uncounted millions of tons of traffic to the Pacific Ocean, making it a chief theater of commerce as well as of world events. ”

“ James Bryce, late British ambassador to Washington, and a man not less famous in the world of letters than successful in the field of diplomacy, declared before the National Geographic Society that not only is the Panama Canal the greatest undertaking of the past or the present but that even the future seems destined never to offer any land-dividing, world-uniting project comparable to it in magnitude or consequence. ”

“ It will aid, however, if the success of the Panama Canal shall not reanimate the effort to secure deep-water channels from the Lakes to the Gulf and from the Lakes to the Atlantic. After Panama the nation is unlikely to be daunted by any canal-digging project. Having improved the ocean highway, the people will demand easier access to it. ”

“ Supposing a Panama Canal to be open at [Pg 167] the present time, there would be hardly any United States ships to use it, except in transport between home ports from which ships flying foreign flags are debarred. The transport to South America, New Zealand, Australia, Northern China, and Japan would necessarily be almost wholly carried on by ships of other nations, especially British.
The absence of an American merchant marine trading with foreign ports is indeed a circumstance without parallel among other nations engaged in modern manufacture. ”

“ The Panama Canal is the greatest engineering project of all history. There is more than the patriotic prejudice of a people proud of their own achievements behind this assertion. Men of all nations concede it without question, and felicitate the United States upon the remarkable success with which it has been carried out. ”

“ Taught wisdom by these tactics—against which they had unavailingly employed all the expedients of law and of coöperative competition—the shippers of California appealed to Congress to act wisely lest the Panama Canal as a waterway for all and a regulator of transcontinental freight rates be throttled by the railroads. They pointed out that the roads might in combination maintain one line of ships between New York and San Francisco which would make rates so low that no other line could meet them and live. ”

“ In the opening chapter I have stated that the Panama Canal in its ultimate economic influence will not affect the nitrates or be affected by them, because their life is limited to the infancy of the waterway, while, during the period of their existence that may remain after it is opened to traffic, the bulky nature of the cargo which must pay the tolls counteracts the possible shortening of the distance. ”

“ It needs no prophet to foresee interesting commercial developments in a region where the alternative routes and alternative sources of manufacturing supply offer almost equal allurements.
I must also draw attention to the position of New Orleans and other ports on the Gulf of Mexico in relation to the Canal. At present New Orleans by sea is further than New York from Valparaiso and San Francisco, Yokohama and Shanghai, but it is 581 miles nearer to Colon. Hence, when the Panama Canal is open it will be 581 miles nearer than New York to those ports, and to Sydney, Melbourne, and Wellington. ”

“ The result is that in traveling in these countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation, to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon the American manufacturers. ”

“ Just as the German banks report to their home commercial organizations the transactions of other countries in lands whose trade is sought, so foreign ships naturally work for the advantage of the country whose flag they fly. Surprising as it may seem to many, and disappointing as it must be to all, it is the unfortunate fact that within a year of the time set for opening the Panama Canal to commerce there is not the slightest evidence that that great work is going to have any influence whatsoever toward the creation of a United States fleet in foreign trade. ”

“ Every means was taken of testing such important matters as the effect of sea-water on this material, the time it takes for these huge masses of artificial stone to settle, and many other questions on the answer to which the permanence and stability of the locks and the entire waterway would depend. The Panama Canal, writes Mr. Showalter, is "the greatest effort man ever has made, and perhaps ever will make, to simulate the processes of geologic ages, and do in days what Nature required unreckoned years to accomplish." ”

“ This fact finds illustration in the building up of the suburbs and back country by the development of trolley lines, and, on a larger scale, the prodigious growth of our Pacific coast after the transcontinental railroads had fought their way to every corner of that empire still in the making. Much is uncertain about what the Panama Canal will do for the expansion of our trade and influence, but the one thing that is certain is that no sane man is likely to put the figures of increase and extension too high. ”

“ One of the most important results of the Panama Canal, one which is likely to have the largest influence on future political history, seems scarcely to have been noticed by writers on this subject. I have shown how much nearer Australia and New Zealand are brought to New York than to Liverpool, owing to the isthmian passage. They are brought of course proportionately nearer to the eastern provinces, which are also the governmental headquarters of Canada. ”

“ The West Indies and British Columbia are just the two portions of the empire which the Panama Canal may benefit most and most immediately, and they have a right to expect the support and co-operation of the imperial government wherever it can be given. All the Powers of the world will be afloat on the Caribbean and along the Pacific sea-trails to Balboa. ”

“ The American canal employees have done very little shopping in Panama and Colon, because they could buy every necessity and luxury duty-free in the United States [Pg 229] government stores. Some trade may be lost owing to the departure of the workers, but it is hoped that this will be more than replaced by the growing stream of tourists who will come to visit the "big ditch," and increased business brought by the shipping which will pass through the canal. ”