CHAPTER XIX
FORTIFICATIONS; TOLLS; COMMERCE AND QUARANTINE
With the completion of the Canal appeared many problems other than the engineering ones which had for so many years engrossed public attention. Some of these problems—like the question whether the Canal should be fortified or its neutrality guaranteed by international agreement—had reached a conclusion during the last year of the constructive work. But the question of Canal tolls, the future management of the Canal Zone and the broad speculation as to the general effect upon the trade of the world were still subjects of discussion.
That there should have been any serious opposition to the fortification of the Canal seems amazing, but the promptitude with which it died out seems to indicate that, while noisy, it had no very solid foundation in public sentiment. Indeed it was urged mainly by well-meaning theorists who condemn upon principle any addition to the already heavy burden which the need for the national defense has laid upon the shoulders of the people. That in theory they were right is undeniable. Perhaps the greatest anomaly of the twentieth century is the proportions of our preparations for war contrasted with our oratorical protestations of a desire for peace. But the inconsistencies of the United States are trivial in comparison with those of other nations, and while the whole world is armed—nominally for defense, but in a way to encourage aggressions—it is wise that the United States put bolts on its front gate. And that in effect is what forts and coast defenses are. They are not aggressive, and cannot be a menace to any one—either to a foreign land, as a great navy might conceivably be, or to our people, as a great standing army might prove. The guns at Toro Point and Naos Island will never speak, save in ceremonial salute, unless some foreign foe menaces the Canal which the United States gives freely to the peaceful trade of the world. But if the menace should be presented, it will be well not for our nation alone, but for all the peoples of the earth, that we are prepared to defend the integrity of the strait of which man has dreamed for more than 400 years, and in the creation of which thousands of useful lives have been sacrificed.
EXPLAINING IT TO THE BOSS
Mistaken but well-meaning opponents of fortification have insisted that it was a violation of our pact with Great Britain, and a breach of international comity. This, however, is an error. True, in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, both the United States and Great Britain expressly agreed not to fortify or assume any dominion over any part of Central America through which a canal might be dug. But that treaty was expressly abrogated by the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. In its first draft this latter treaty contained the anti-fortification clause and was rejected by the United States Senate for that very reason. In its second draft the treaty omitted the reference to fortifications and was ratified. Lord Lansdowne, one of the negotiators for the British government, explicitly said that he thoroughly understood the United States wished to reserve the right to fortify the Canal.
Photo by American Press Ass’n
SPANISH MONASTERY AT PANAMA
It was so clear that no question of treaty obligations was involved that the opponents of fortification early dropped that line of argument. The discussion of the treaty in the Senate silenced them. They fell back upon the question of expediency. “Why”, they asked, “go to the expense of building and manning fortifications and maintaining a heavy garrison on the Zone? Why not, through international agreement, make it neutral and protect it from seizure or blockade in time of war? Look at Suez”!
Photo by H. Pittier
Courtesy National Geographic Magazine
CHOCO INDIAN OF SANBU VALLEY
This was more plausible. At first glance the questions seem answerable in only one way. But consideration weakens their force. There is a Latin copy-book maxim, “Inter armas silent leges”—“In time of war the law is silent”. It is cynically correct. International agreements to maintain the integrity or neutrality of a territory last only until one of the parties to the agreement thinks it profitable to break it. It then becomes the business of all the other parties to enforce the pact, and it is usually shown that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Consider a partial record:
THE RISING GENERATION
The independence of Korea was guaranteed by four Great Powers in 1902. Inside of two years the Japanese Admiral Uriu violated the independence of the Korean port of Chemulpo by sinking two Russian cruisers in it, and shortly thereafter Japan practically annexed the country. None of the Powers that had “guaranteed” its independence protested.
Austria-Hungary in 1908 annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the fact that seven Powers, including Austria-Hungary herself, had fixed the sovereignty of those provinces in Turkey. The signatory powers grumbled a little, but that was all. Mr. W. E. Hall, recognized as the greatest living authority on international law, observes cynically, and truthfully, that “treaties are only permanently obeyed when they represent the continued wishes of the contracting parties”.
Prussia once guaranteed the independence of Poland, and in two years took the leading part in blotting it off the roll of nations.
ANCON HILL, WHERE AMERICANS LIVE IN COMFORT
Illustrations of the failure of nations to observe the rights of neutrals are common. Turkey and Korea afford recent illustrations of nations that have entrusted their national integrity to international agreements. Nothing remains of Korea’s nationality but a name, and the Allies are rapidly carving Turkey to bits while the Great Powers that guaranteed her integrity look on in amazed and impotent alarm. The United States itself has not been wholly without share in such high-handed proceedings. In the event of a general war Panama Canal would be kept neutral just so long as our military and naval power could defend its neutrality and no longer.
Moreover, we do not want it neutral in a quarrel in which we are involved. The Canal is dug by our money and in our territory and is part of our line of defense. We do not propose to permit its passage by an enemy. That would be strict neutrality indeed, but it would make the Canal a weakness instead of a defense. Without it our Pacific Coast is practically safe from European aggression; our Atlantic coast protected by thousands of miles of ocean from any foe whose naval strength is in the Pacific. To throw open the Canal to our foes as well as to our friends would be like supplying the key to the bank vaults to the cracksmen as well as to the cashier.
Photo by American Press Ass’n
GATUN LAKE, SHOWING SMALL FLOATING ISLANDS
The parallel with the Suez Canal strenuously urged by the advocates of neutrality does not hold. The waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea was not dug as a government enterprise. It was a distinctly commercial enterprise, with its shares listed upon the exchanges and bought and sold in the open market. By the purchase of a majority of those shares the ownership of the Canal passed into the hands of the British government, but all the nations had joined in the international agreement to protect their individual rights before the British ownership was effected. Moreover, Great Britain is by no means content with the safeguards provided by the Constantinople convention, but has planted her great fortresses at Malta and at Aden, near the ends of the Canal, and maintains in the Mediterranean a naval force equal to that of any other two nations. The Caribbean is to be the American Mediterranean, and the visible and effective power of the United States in those waters must be equal, probably vastly superior, to that of England in Europe’s great inland sea.
A SPECTACULAR BLAST
Nor does the existence of a powerful navy, even the material multiplication of our present naval force, obviate to any considerable degree the necessity for powerful forts at either end of the Canal. Our fleet cannot be anchored during the continuance of a war to any one fixed point. The navy is essentially an offensive force, its part in the defense of our country being best performed by keeping the enemy busy defending his own. Farragut said that the best defense against the attack of any enemy is the rapid fire of your own guns. Extend this principle and it appears that the best way to defend our own coasts is to menace those of the enemy. This principle was not applied in our recent war with Spain, but we had not the navy then, and diplomatic considerations further intervened to prevent our employing against Spain’s sea coast cities such vessels as we had. Should we rely wholly on the navy to defend our Canal entrances a mere demonstration against those points would tie up a considerable portion of our floating force, while an enemy’s main fleet might ravage our thickly populated sea coasts.
THE FIRST VIEW OF COLON
Discussion of this question, however, is largely academic, for the fortification of the Canal has been determined upon, and construction of the forts is well advanced. There is, however, some disquietude over a fear, expressed by the late Admiral Evans, that the topography at the Atlantic terminus of the Canal is such that fortifications, however great their strength, would not be sufficient to prevent the enemy holding a position so near the Canal’s mouth as to be able to concentrate its fire on each ship as it emerged and thus destroy seriatim any fleet seeking to make the passage of the Canal. The criticism was a serious one. Even to the civilian mind the inequalities of a battle in which six or eight battleships can concentrate their broadside fire on a single ship navigating a narrow and tortuous channel and able to reply with her bow guns only are sufficiently obvious. Indeed the criticism was held of sufficient force to be referred to the General Board of the Navy, which, after due consideration, made a report of which the following quotations form the substance:
“The General Board believes that the proposed fortifications at the termini of the Isthmian Canal would be invaluable in assisting the transfer of a United States fleet from one ocean to the other through the Canal, in the face of an opposing fleet. The function of the fortifications in this particular is precisely the same at the Canal termini as it is at any fortified place from which a fleet may have to issue in the face of an enemy’s fleet.
A PORCH AT CULEBRA
“Guns mounted on shore are on an unsinkable and steady platform, and they can be provided with unlimited protection and accurate range-finding devices. Guns mounted on board ship are on a sinkable, unsteady platform, their protection is limited, and range-finding devices on board ship have a very limited range of accuracy. The shore gun of equal power has thus a great advantage over the ship gun which is universally recognized, and this advantage is increased if the former be mounted on disappearing carriages, as are the seacoast guns of the United States. The mere statement of these elementary facts is a sufficient proof of the value of seacoast guns to assist a fleet in passing out from behind them to engage a waiting hostile fleet outside, provided the shore guns are mounted in advance of, or abreast, the point where the ship channel joins the open sea. Even if somewhat retired from that point they would be useful, but to a less extent.
Photo by American Press Ass’n
AVENIDA CENTRALE, PANAMA, NEAR THE STATION
Copyright, 1913, F. E. Wright.
SWIMMING POOL AT PANAMA
Some say that before the days of the city water supply this pool held water for protection against fire. Nowadays it is chiefly used for the aquatic revels of the boys.
“At the Pacific terminus of the Canal there are outlying islands that afford sites for fortifications, the usefulness of which in assisting the egress of a fleet in the face of opposition is universally admitted, as far as the General Board knows; but there has been unfavorable criticism of the possibility of fortifications at the Atlantic end to serve this purpose. The General Board regards these criticisms as unfounded and believes, on the contrary, that the conditions at the Atlantic terminus of the Canal are unusually favorable for the emplacement of guns that would be of assistance to a fleet issuing in the face of hostile ships.
IN A CHIRIQUI TOWN
“On both sides of Limon Bay, in which the Canal terminates at the Atlantic end, there are excellent sites for forts, well advanced on outlying points. The line joining these sites is 3000 yards in front of the point where the Canal prism reaches a low-water depth sufficient for battleships, and Limon Bay from this point outward is wide enough for a formation of eight ships abreast. The outer end of the most advanced breakwater proposed is only 600 yards in front of the line joining the sites for the forts; and as long as ships remain behind the breakwater, it will afford them a considerable amount of protection from the enemy’s fire, while they will themselves be able to fire over it. In order to make his fire effective against the issuing ships the enemy must come within the effective fire of the fortifications. Under these circumstances it is impossible to deny the usefulness of fortifications in assisting the issue of a fleet against opposition. The conditions in this respect at the Atlantic end of the Canal are incomparably better than those existing at Sandy Hook, whose forts nobody would dream of dismantling”.
A MOUNTAIN RIVER IN CHIRIQUI
Concerning the type of fortifications now building there is little to be said. The War Department is not as eager for publicity as are certain other departments of our federal administration. In November, 1912, Secretary of War Stimson made a formal statement of the general plan of defense. No change has been made in this plan, and it may be quoted as representing the general scheme as fixed upon by the War Department and authorized by Congress:
“The defenses to the Isthmus are divided into two general heads:
“1. A seacoast armament with submarine mines at the termini of the Canal, for protection against a sea attack and to secure a safe exit for our fleet in the face of a hostile fleet.
“2. The construction of field works and a mobile force of troops to protect the locks and assure important utilities against an attack by land”.
“The seacoast fortifications will include 16-inch, 14-inch and 6-inch rifles and 12-inch mortars. This armament will be of more powerful and effective types than that installed in any other locality in the world. At the Atlantic end of the Canal the armament will be located on both sides of Limon Bay. At the Pacific end the greater part of the armament will be located on several small islands, Flamenco, Perico and Naos, which lie abreast of the terminus. Submarine mines will complete the seacoast armament and will prevent actual entry into the Canal and harbors by hostile vessels.
BITING THROUGH A SLIDE: FIVE CUBIC YARDS PER BITE
“In addition to these fortifications, and the necessary coast artillery and garrison to man them, the defensive plans provide for the erection of field works, and for the maintenance at all times on the Panama Canal Zone of a mobile force consisting of three regiments of infantry, at a war strength of nearly 2000 men for each regiment, a squadron of cavalry, and a battalion of field artillery. These latter fortifications and the mobile garrison are intended to repel any attacks that might be made by landing parties from an enemy’s fleet against the locks and other important elements or accessories to the Canal. As an attack of this character might be coincident with or even precede an actual declaration of war, it is necessary that a force of the strength above outlined should be maintained on the Canal Zone at all times. This mobile garrison will furnish the necessary police force to protect the Zone and preserve order within its limits in time of peace. Congress has made the initial appropriations for the construction of these fortifications, and they are now under construction. A portion of the mobile garrison is also on the Isthmus, and the remainder will be sent there as soon as provision is made for its being housed”.
It is to be noted that these plans contemplate only the garrisoning of the Isthmus in time of peace. The department has steadfastly refused, even in response to congressional inquiry, to make public its plans for action in war time. The only hint offered on the subject is the estimate of Col. Goethals that 25,000 men would be needed there in such a contingency and his urgency that such a garrison be maintained on the Zone at all times.
COMMISSARY BUILDING AND FRONT STREET, COLON
The most vulnerable point of the Canal is of course the locks. The destruction or interruption of the electrical machinery which operates the great gates would put the entire Canal out of commission. If in war time it should be vitally necessary to shift our Atlantic fleet to the Pacific, or vice versa, the enemy could effectively check that operation by a bomb dropped on the lock machinery at Gatun, Pedro Miguel or Miraflores. It is, however, the universal opinion of the military experts that this danger is guarded against to the utmost extent demanded by extraordinary prudence. Against the miraculous, such as the presence of an aeroplane with an operator so skilled as to drop bombs upon a target of less than 40 feet square, no defense could fully prevail. The lock gates themselves are necessarily exposed and an injury to them would as effectually put the lock out of commission as would the wrecking of the controlling machinery.
Col. Goethals has repeatedly declared his belief that the construction of the locks is sufficiently massive to withstand any ordinary assaults with explosives. No one man could carry and place secretly enough dynamite to wreck or even seriously impair the immediate usefulness of the locks. Even in time of peace they will be continually guarded and patroled, while in time of war they will naturally be protected from enemies on every side and even in the air above. The locks are not out of range of a fleet in Limon Bay and a very few 13-inch naval shells would put them out of commission. But for that very reason we are building forts at Toro Point and its neighborhood to keep hostile fleets out of Limon Bay, and the United States navy, which has usually given a good account of itself in time of war, will be further charged with this duty and will no doubt duly discharge it.
That the locks make the Canal more vulnerable than a sea-level canal would have been is doubtless true. The fact only adds to the argument in behalf of defending it by powerful forts and an adequate navy.
PEDRO MIGUEL LOCKS
The deep arched recesses are provided that the gates may fold flush with the walls
General Weaver, U. S. A., raised the only serious question as to the sufficiency of the defenses on the Pacific side in his testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations:
“My views are entirely in harmony with those expressed by Col. Goethals. I think that the defenses are wholly adequate. The only question I have noted raised as to the adequacy of the defense has been as to whether guns would not be mounted by an enemy on Taboga Island, and as to whether an enemy’s ships could not stand behind Taboga Island, and as to whether these land guns and naval guns could not from there control the water area in front of the Pacific terminus? The new type of mortars that the Ordnance Department is making for the fortifications at Panama will have a range of 20,000 yards. They will cover the water well over beyond Taboga Island, and have under fire all of Taboga Island and the water for a considerable distance beyond the outermost shore lines of Taboga Island. It is about 12,000 yards from the fortifications at the Canal terminus to Taboga Island. The mortars will reach 8000 yards beyond Taboga. The 16-inch gun on Perico will have a range of 20,000 yards. The 14-inch guns on Flamenco and Naos Islands will have ranges of 18,400 yards. The 6-inch guns on Naos Island and on the mainland have a range of 6000 yards, and are well placed to oppose any attempt at landing on the lands on which the fortifications are located.
“Mr. Sherley.—‘So far you have spoken only of the Pacific side. Now, what have you to say about the defense on the Atlantic side’?
“Gen. Weaver.—‘On the Atlantic side the defense is, in my opinion, equally adequate. At Fort Randolph, on Margarita Island, there are eight mortars of the new type, two 14-inch guns and two 6-inch guns. That armament will protect the Margarita Island side of the entrance and it also controls the waters to the south. On the Toro Point side at Fort Sherman we have eight mortars, two 14-inch guns, and two 6-inch guns. There are in addition two 6-inch guns provided at Manzanillo Point, city of Colon. In my opinion this armament is entirely adequate for the defense of the Atlantic side’”.
It is apparent, therefore, that the unfortified Island of Taboga is the one questionable point in our Pacific line of defense. It is wholly probable that steps will be taken to erect such defenses as will make the seizure of this island impracticable to any enemy.
DETAIL CONSTRUCTION OF A LOCK
The great tube, later covered by concrete, carries the water for filling the chamber
Plans for the landward defenses of the coast forts had not been determined upon at the time of publication of this book. Necessary no doubt from a strictly military point of view, they seem to the civilian mind rather superfluous in view of the character of the countryside along the borders of the Zone. The general who would undertake to lead an army through the jungle would encounter a natural foe such as armed forces have never had to overcome, and his invading column would hardly emerge upon the Zone in fit condition to give battle to any considerable army of occupation.
However, should an enemy once effect a landing at any point within striking distance of Panama or Colon, say on the Chorrera coast, or at Nombre de Dios or Porto Bello, some defensive works would be needed to prevent their taking the coast forts in the rear. Such works are being planned and an extensive permanent camp is to be built at Miraflores, at which point the Canal can be readily crossed—there are to be no permanent bridges—and smaller posts at Margarita Island, Toro Point and Culebra Island. To man the actual seacoast forts there will be 12 companies of coast artillery of 109 men each; while distributed in the army camps will be, according to present estimates, three regiments of infantry, a squadron of cavalry and a battalion of field artillery, making in all rather more than 8000 men.
Photo by H. Pittier
Courtesy National Geographic Magazine
A GROUP OF GUYAMI GIRLS
The probable influence of the Panama Canal on commerce, on trade routes, on the commercial supremacy of this or that country, on the development of hitherto dormant lands is a question that opens an endless variety of speculations. Discussion of it requires so broad a knowledge of international affairs as to be almost cosmic, a foresight so gifted as to be prophetic. A century from now the fullest results of the Canal’s completion will not have been fully attained. This creation of a new waterway where a rocky barrier stood from the infinite past in the pathway of commerce will make great cities where hamlets now sit in somnolence, and perhaps reduce to insignificance some of the present considerable ports of the world.
Certain very common misbeliefs may be corrected with merely a word or two of explanation. Nothing is more common than to look upon all South America as a territory to be vastly benefited by the Canal, and brought by it nearer to our United States markets. A moment’s thought will show the error of this belief. When we speak of South America we think first of all of the rich eastern coast, of the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Ayres. But it is not to this section that the greatest advantage will come from the Canal. Vessels from our Pacific coast can indeed carry the timber of Puget Sound, the fish of Alaska and the Columbia River, the fruits of California thither more cheaply than now, but that is but a slight fraction of their trade. Nor are Brazil and the Argentine participators in Oriental trade to any great extent, though the Canal may make them so. The western coast of South America is chiefly affected by the Canal, and that to a degree rigidly limited by the distance of the point considered from the Straits of Magellan, and the size of the Canal tolls imposed.
A ZONE SIGN OF CIVILIZATION
Nor will the Suez Canal be an abandoned waterway after our own cut at Panama is completed. It will, indeed, be not surprising to see the Suez Canal tonnage increase, for trade breeds trade, and the Panama Canal will be a stimulant as well as a competitor. To all of British India and Southern China the distance from Liverpool via Suez is less than via Panama, and to Melbourne, Sidney and other Australian ports the saving in distance via Panama is less than 2000 miles. The Suez Canal, it is to be remembered, is owned by Great Britain and a very slight concession in rates will be all that is needed to keep British merchant vessels to their long accustomed routes. We have had a harder task in digging our Canal than the French had at Suez, but we need cherish no delusive idea that we are going to put the earlier waterway out of business.
PART OF THE COMPLETED CANAL
The really great material advantage which the United States is to derive from this monumental national undertaking will come from the all-water connection between our own Atlantic and Pacific coasts. A ship going from New York to San Francisco via the Straits of Magellan traverses 14,000 miles of sea—some of it the very most turbulent of all King Neptune’s tossing domain. By Panama the same ship will have but 5000 miles to cover. The amazing thing is that ships are going around the Horn, or at least through the Straits, but the high rates on transcontinental railroads make even that protracted voyage profitable. What the Canal will do to transcontinental rates is a matter that is giving some railroad managers deep concern. It was in fact a consideration which led to prolonged and obstinate opposition to the building of any canal at all. Water carriage between the two coasts has long been a bogey to the railroad managers. When coastwise steamships on the Atlantic and Pacific with the Panama Railroad for a connecting link offered some competition, the five transcontinental railways pooled together and, securing control of the Pacific Mail Steamship line operating between San Francisco and Panama, used it to cripple all competition. For a time there was danger that the methods then employed might be adopted to destroy the usefulness of the Panama Canal, and it was to guard against this that Congress adopted the law denying the use of the Canal to vessels owned by railroad companies.
HIS MORNING TUB
At the time of its passage this law created much discussion. The reason for it was widely misunderstood. Its first effect was the canceling of several orders for ships placed by railroad companies with shipbuilders in anticipation of the Canal’s opening, and the public naturally cried out against a measure which seemed to interpose an obstacle to the reappearance of the American flag on the high seas. But the law was bred of bitter experience. In bygone days it was discovered that both time and money could be saved on shipments from California to New York or other Atlantic seaports by sending them to Panama by water, across the Isthmus by rail, and then by water from Colon to their destination. This route grew in favor until the transcontinental railroads intervened to check its further development. Getting control of the Pacific Mail line of steamers from San Francisco to Panama, they first put their rates so low as to drive all competing ships from the route. Of course they lost money, but the loss was apportioned among the companies forming the pool, and when the competing concerns had been ruined or driven out of business, the rates were put up again and the losses that had been incurred were speedily recouped. Once the complete monopoly on the Pacific had been secured, every effort was made to discourage shipments by that route. The ships passed Los Angeles, the greatest fruit port in the country, without a call, but touched at innumerable little mud villages in Central America so as to make the time of through shipments intolerable. They often sailed with half a cargo—refusing to take freight that lay at their docks on the plea that all their cargo space was disposed of. It was—to the railroads who afterward gathered up the rejected freight and shipped it east over their own lines at prices to suit themselves.
NATIVE GIRL, CHORRERA PROVINCE
NATIVE BOY, CHORRERA PROVINCE
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. Doubtless such a line would lose money, but the loss, divided among the conspiring roads, would be but a flea bite to each, and would be more than recouped by the higher rail rates they might charge. In response to this appeal Congress enacted the law denying railroads the right to maintain lines of water carriage on what would be normally competitive routes. The statute though planned primarily for the maintenance of the highest usefulness of the Panama Canal affects other routes, notably Long Island Sound. It is denounced by the railroads and has doubtless checked to some extent American shipbuilding, but it is nevertheless the only apparent weapon against a very real and harmful device in the railroads’ efforts to maintain high rates.
PARK AT DAVID
The question of the tolls to be charged for passage through the Canal is one that has evoked a somewhat acrimonious discussion, the end of which is not yet. About the amount of the toll there was little dispute. It was determined by taking the cost of maintenance of the Canal, which is estimated at about $4,000,000 annually, and the interest on its cost, about $10,000,000 a year, and comparing the total with the amount of tonnage which might reasonably be expected to pass through annually. Prof. Emory R. Johnson, the government expert upon whose figures are based all estimates concerning canal revenues, fixed the probable tonnage of the Canal for the first year at 10,500,000 tons, with an increase at the end of the first decade of operation to 17,000,000, and at the end of the second decade to 27,000,000 tons. The annual expenses of the Canal, including interest, approximates $14,000,000, and Congress has accordingly fixed the tolls at $1.20 a ton for freight and $1.50 per passenger. It is anticipated that these figures will cause a deficit in the first two or three years of operation, but that the growth of commerce through the Canal will speedily make it up.
MAIN STREET, CHORRERA
A PLACID BACK WATER IN CHIRIQUI
In legislating upon the question of tolls Congress opened an international question which has been fiercely debated and which remains a subject of diplomatic negotiation between our State Department and the British Foreign Office. This was done by the section of the law which granted to American-built ships engaged in the coasting trade the right to use the Canal without the payment of any tolls whatsoever. At the time of its appearance in Congress this proposition attracted little attention and evoked no discussion. It seemed to be a perfectly obvious and entirely justifiable employment of the Canal for the encouragement of American shipping. The United States had bought the territory through which the Canal extended and was paying every dollar of the cost of the great work. What could be more natural than that it should concede to American shipping owners, who had borne their share of the taxation which the cost of the Canal necessitated, the right of free passage through it?
The concession seemed the more obvious and proper because the privilege of free passage was limited to vessels in the coastwise trade. Under our navigation laws maritime trade between ports in the United States is confined to ships built in American shipyards. This regulation is clearly intended to confer upon the United States a monopoly of the building of coastwise ships, and the subsequent exemption of coastwise ships from Panama Canal tolls was a further benefaction to this monopoly. As a matter of fact, our coastwise trade was at the moment passing into monopolistic control, and the wisdom of making so prodigious a gift to a monopolistic combination might have justly been questioned. But the strictly business features of the Canal have always been decorated with more or less sentimental declamation about reëstablishing the American flag on the high seas, and it was to contribute to the latter desirable end that the tolls were to be remitted. It seemed to occur to no one that the ships thus favored were either owned by railroad companies and used largely to stifle competition or by a somewhat notorious organizer of trusts whose ambition was to control water transportation from Maine to the Mexico border, and who was checked in the attainment of his aim by a sentence to the Federal penitentiary. It is not only in war time that the flag is waved most enthusiastically by men who only want the bounty that goes with it.
Nobody, however, at the time of the passage of the act regulating tolls thought it had any particular international significance. Its signature by the President was taken as a matter of course and it was not until some time afterward that the Ambassador of Great Britain presented his country’s claim that the exemption clause was in violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The section of that treaty which it is claimed is violated reads thus:
“The Canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or changes of traffic”.
The outcry against the exemption clause soon became very vociferous. Perhaps the Canadian railroads or some of their officials may have been instrumental in this, seeing a possible profit in running ships from Montreal or Quebec to Vancouver or Victoria, touching at various United States ports en route. Such a voyage would not constitute a “coastwise passage” under our laws, and foreign vessels might engage in such traffic. But they saw that the exemption in tolls by which a United States vessel of 12,000 tons would escape canal tolls amounting to $15,000 would put them at a serious disadvantage. Hence they appealed to Great Britain and the protest followed. Whether affected by the vigorous colonial protest or not, the British government urges that the United States will very properly adjust its tolls to meet the needs of the Canal for revenue, and that if the coastwise shipping be exempted there will be a loss of some millions of dollars in revenue which will compel the imposition of higher tolls on other shipping. It is urged also on behalf of the protestants that the word “coastwise” is capable of various constructions and that a vessel plying between New York and Los Angeles might be held not to have sacrificed her coastwise register if she continued her voyage to Yokohama or Hong Kong.
GATUN LAKE. FLOATING ISLANDS MASSED AGAINST TRESTLE
American public men and the American press are radically divided on the question. A majority, perhaps, are inclined to thrust it aside with a mere declaration of our power in the matter. “We built the Canal and paid for it”, they say, “and our ships have the same rights in it that they have in the Hudson River or the canal at the Soo. Besides the British cannot engage in our coasting trade anyway, and what we do to help our coastwise ships concerns no one but us”. Which seems a pretty fair and reasonable statement of the case until the opponents of the exemption clause put in their rejoinder. “Read the treaty”, they say. “It is perfectly clear in its agreement that the United States should not do this thing it now proposes to do. Treaties are, by the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. To violate one is to violate our national honor. It would be disgraceful to let the word go out to all the world that the United States entered into sacred obligations by treaty and repudiated them the moment their fulfilment proved galling. The protected shipyards, the already subsidized coastwise steamship companies, are asking for more gratuities at the cost of our national honor. What is the use of reëstablishing on the high seas a flag which all peoples may point out as the emblem of a dishonorable state”?
GUIDE WALL AT MIRAFLORES
This picture shows method of lock construction. The space within these two walls will be filled with dirt and cement. The ground on either side will be inundated, forming a small lake through which the Canal passes.
So rests the argument. The advocates of the remission of tolls to the coastwise ships of the United States have the best of the position, since their contention is already enacted into law, but the opposing forces are vigorously urging the repeal of the law. Congress will of course be the final arbiter, and as the Canal cannot be opened to commerce before 1915 there is ample time for deliberation and just judgment. A phase of the problem which I do not recall having seen discussed arises out of the literal acceptance of the language of the treaty as bearing upon the use of the Canal in war time. It declares that the Canal “shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations ... on terms of entire equality”, and while it goes on to prescribe the rules to be followed in war time it nowhere declares the right of the United States to debar to the warships of a hostile nation the privilege of passing through the Canal. Under the strictest construction of the language of the treaty the refusal of the United States to permit a German or a Japanese fleet to pass through, even though that nation was at war with us, would be a violation of the treaty which would justify English interference to enforce the opening of the Canal—which of course would be war. No such contingency could possibly arise, nor any such construction be put upon the language of the treaty by any reasonable and responsible party. Yet it is scarcely a more forced construction than the one applied in order to make it appear that we may not free our own ships in purely domestic trade from canal tolls.
POLING OVER THE SHALLOWS
The fundamental principle controlling the amount of the tolls is to fix them at such a figure as to minimize the competition of Suez. Commerce proceeds by the cheapest route. Some slight advantage may accrue to the Panama route if the government can make such contracts with American mines as to be able to furnish coal at the Isthmus at a price materially less than is charged at Suez. The estimates, supplied by Prof. Johnson, of probable commerce have been based on a price for coal at Cristobal or Colon of $5 a ton and at Balboa of $5.50 a ton. At the time the prices for coal at Port Said on the Suez Canal were from $6.20 to $6.32 a ton. This, plus cheaper tolls, will give Panama a great advantage over Suez.
Photo by American Press Association
THE SPILLWAY ALMOST COMPLETE.
The scaffolding will be removed and all towers built to height of those on left
The first immediate and direct profit accruing to the people of the United States from the Canal will come from the quick, short and cheap communication it will afford between the eastern and western coasts of the United States. People who think of passenger schedules when they speak of communication between distant cities will doubtless be surprised to learn that on freight an average of two weeks will be saved by the Canal route between New York and San Francisco. The saving in money, even should the railroads materially reduce their present transcontinental rates, will be even more striking. Even now for many classes of freights there is a profit in shipping by way of the Straits of Magellan—a distance of 13,135 miles. By Panama the distance between New York and San Francisco is but 5262 miles, a saving of 7873 miles or about the distance across the Atlantic and back. From New Orleans to San Francisco will be but 4683 miles. Today there is little or no water communication between the two cities and their tributary territory. At least one month’s steaming will be saved by 12-knot vessels going through the Panama Canal over those making the voyage by way of the Straits of Magellan. A general idea of the saving in distance between points likely to be affected by the Canal is given by the table prepared by Hon. John Barrett, Director General of the Pan-American Union and published on page 384.
SAN BLAS LUGGER IN PORT
Photo by Brown Bros.
THE BEGINNING OF A SLIDE
The great crack has opened in the side of a road; note house in the distance about to go
The Pacific coasts both of the United States and of South and Central America will be quickened into new life when the stream of commerce begins to flow through the new channel at Panama. It may be wise to lay emphasis at this point upon the fact that so far as industrial and commercial life on our own Pacific coast is concerned it needs little quickening, as the march to civic greatness of those communities has been unparalleled. But even that magnificent advance has been impeded and harassed by the difficulty of communication with the markets of the Atlantic coast. The struggles of the Pacific coast planters and lumbermen to break the bondage imposed upon them by the railroads have been fairly frantic, and their uniform failure pathetic. Perhaps the railroad managers have demanded no more than a rightful care for the interests of their stockholders warranted. This is no place to argue the railroad rate question. But from the shipper’s point of view the demands have been so intolerable that every expedient for resisting them has been tried and failed. Even now there is profit to a corporation—and to the shippers that patronize it—in carrying goods from San Francisco to Hawaii, thence to Tehuantepec and across that Isthmus to the Gulf and thence again to New York in competition with the direct railroad lines. If freight can be thus handled profitably, with two changes from ship to car and vice versa, it is easy to see how vastly beneath the charges of the railroads will be the all-water route between New York and San Francisco. It is little exaggeration to say that for commercial purposes all the Pacific seaboard will be brought as near New York and European markets as Chicago is today. The forward impetus given by this to the commercial interests of the Pacific baffles computation.
Photo by Brown Bros.
“MAKING THE DIRT FLY”
But it is Latin America that has reason to look forward with the utmost avidity to the results that will follow the opening of the Canal. For the people of that little developed and still mysterious coast line reaching from the United States-Mexico boundary, as far south at least as Valparaiso, the United States has prepared a gift of incalculable richness. Our share in the benefit will come in increased trade, if our merchants seize upon the opportunity offered.
THE HAPPY CHILDREN OF THE ZONE
From Liverpool to Valparaiso today is 8747 miles and from New York 8380. But when the ships go through the Canal the English vessels will save little. For them the run will be reduced to 7207 miles, while from New York the distance will be cut to 4633. With such a handicap in their favor New York shippers should control the commerce of Pacific South America north of Valparaiso. Guayaquil, in Ecuador, will be but 2232 miles from New Orleans; it has been 10,631. Callao, with all Peru at its back, will be 3363 miles from New York, 2784 from New Orleans. In every instance the saving of distance by the Panama route is more to the advantage of the United States than of Great Britain. Today the lion’s share of the commerce of the South American countries goes to England or to Germany.
DISTANCE SAVED BY THE PANAMA CUTOFF
COMPARATIVE DISTANCES (IN NAUTICAL MILES) IN THE WORLD’S SEA TRAFFIC AND DIFFERENCE IN DISTANCES VIA PANAMA CANAL AND OTHER PRINCIPAL ROUTES
| From | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To | Via | New York | New Orleans | Liver- pool | Hamburg | Suez | Panama | ||
| Seattle | - | Magellan | 13,953 | 14,369 | 14,320 | 14,701 | 15,397 | ... | |
| Panama | 6,080 | 5,501 | 8,654 | 9,173 | 10,447 | 4,063 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,873 | 8,868 | 5,666 | 5,528 | 4,950 | ... | ||
| San Francisco | - | Magellan | 13,135 | 13,551 | 13,502 | 13,883 | 14,579 | ... | |
| Panama | 5,262 | 4,683 | 7,836 | 8,355 | 9,629 | 3,245 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,873 | 8,868 | 5,666 | 5,528 | 4,950 | ... | ||
| Honolulu | - | Magellan | 13,312 | 13,728 | 13,679 | 14,060 | 14,756 | ... | |
| Panama | 6,702 | 6,123 | 9,276 | 9,795 | 11,069 | 4,685 | |||
| Distance | saved | 6,610 | 7,605 | 4,403 | 4,265 | 3,687 | ... | ||
| Guayaquil | - | Magellan | 10,215 | 10,631 | 10,582 | 10,963 | 11,659 | ... | |
| Panama | 2,810 | 2,231 | 5,384 | 5,903 | 9,192 | 793 | |||
| Distance | saved | 7,405 | 8,400 | 5,198 | 5,060 | 2,467 | ... | ||
| Callao | - | Magellan | 9,613 | 10,029 | 9,980 | 10,361 | 11,057 | ... | |
| Panama | 3,363 | 2,784 | 5,937 | 6,456 | 7,730 | 1,346 | |||
| Distance | saved | 6,250 | 7,245 | 4,043 | 3,905 | 3,327 | ... | ||
| Valparaiso | - | Magellan | 8,380 | 8,796 | 8,747 | 9,128 | 9,824 | ... | |
| Panama | 4,633 | 4,054 | 7,207 | 7,726 | 9,000 | 2,616 | |||
| Distance | saved | 3,747 | 4,742 | 1,540 | 1,402 | 824 | ... | ||
| Wellington | - | Magellan | 11,344 | 11,760 | ... | 13,353 | 9,694 | ... | |
| Suez | ... | ... | 12,989 | ... | ... | ... | |||
| Panama | 8,857 | 8,272 | 11,425 | 11,944 | 9,205 | 6,834 | |||
| Distance | saved | 2,493 | 3,488 | 1,564 | 1,409 | 489 | ... | ||
| Melbourne | - | Cape Good Hope | 13,162 | 14,095 | ... | 11,845 | 8,186 | ... | |
| Suez | ... | ... | 11,654 | ... | ... | ... | |||
| Panama | 10,392 | 9,813 | 12,966 | 13,452 | 10,713 | 8,342 | |||
| Distance | saved | 2,770 | 4,282 | [1]1,312 | [1]1,607 | [1]2,527 | ... | ||
| Manila | - | Suez | 11,589 | 12,943 | 9,701 | 9,892 | 6,233 | ... | |
| Panama | 11,548 | 10,969 | 14,122 | 14,608 | 11,869 | 9,370 | |||
| Distance | saved | 41 | 1,974 | [1]4,421 | [1]4,716 | [1]5,636 | ... | ||
| Hongkong | - | Suez | 11,673 | 13,031 | 9,785 | 9,976 | 6,317 | ... | |
| Panama | 11,691 | 11,112 | 13,957 | 14,443 | 11,704 | 9,173 | |||
| Distance | saved | 18 | 1,919 | [1]4,172 | [1]4,467 | [1]5,387 | ... | ||
| Yokohama | - | Suez | 13,566 | 14,924 | 11,678 | 11,869 | 8,210 | ... | |
| Panama | 9,798 | 9,219 | 12,372 | 13,858 | 11,119 | 7,660 | |||
| Distance | saved | 3,768 | 5,705 | [1]694 | [1]1,989 | [1]2,909 | ... | ||
| Panama | 2,017 | 1,438 | 4,591 | 5,110 | 6,387 | ... | |||
See also map on page 385
[1] Distance saved in these cases is via Suez or Cape of Good Hope.
North of the Canal are the Central American countries of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. On their Gulf coasts harbors are infrequent and poor, but on the Pacific plentiful. Their territory is as yet little developed, but with few manufacturers of their own they offer a still undeveloped market for ours. In all, the twelve Latin-American countries bordering on the Pacific have an area of over 2,500,000 square miles, or about that of the United States exclusive of Alaska and its insular possessions. They have a population of 37,000,000 and their foreign trade is estimated at $740,000,000. In this trade the United States is at the present time a sharer to the extent of $277,000,000 or about 37 per cent. With the Canal in operation it is believed that the total commerce will be doubled and the share of the United States raised to 50 per cent.
THE PANAMA CUT OFF
THIS MAP SHOULD BE STUDIED IN CONNECTION WITH THE TABLE OF COMPARATIVE DISTANCES ON PAGE 384
However, it is the great Australasian and Asiatic markets, now scarcely touched about the outskirts, to which the Canal will give the readiest access. Here other nations will profit equally with ours unless our merchants show a greater energy in the pursuit of foreign trade than they have of late years. Time was that the old shipping merchants of Boston, Philadelphia and New York asked odds of no man nor of any nation, but had their own ships plying in the waters of all the world, with captains who were at once navigators and traders—equally alert to avoid a typhoon and to secure a profitable cargo or charter. But that sort of foreign trade is now vanished with the adventurous spirits who pursued it. Unless conditions governing the American merchant marine materially change within the next two years—of which there seems today no likelihood—it will be England and Germany with their existing lines of ships that will chiefly benefit by the United States $400,000,000 gift to the commerce of the world.
Curiously enough New York, or for that matter any North Atlantic seaport of the United States, is in a sort a way station for ships from Europe to North Asiatic ports. In navigation the straight course is not always the shortest course, for the very simple reason that the equator is the longest way around the world. On account of the curvature of the earth’s surface a vessel from Liverpool to Hamburg to the Panama Canal by following the great circle route can make New York a stopping-place by adding only one day’s steaming to the voyage. On the other hand a vessel en route from Panama to Yokohama can touch at San Diego and San Francisco with only two days’ extra steaming. These facts make for the advantage of the shipper by adding to the vigor of competition for cargoes, but they add to the fierceness of the rivalry which the American ship owner will have to meet and for which the kindly government prepares him by forcing him to buy his ships in the costliest market and operate them in accordance with a hampering and extravagant system of navigation laws.
Photo by Brown Bros.
AN ERUPTION OF THE CANAL BED
The pressure of the adjoining hills has forced up the soil at its weakest point, namely the bed of the Canal, to a height of 18 feet, as shown by the dotted line
The ease however with which English or German ships en route to the Far East may touch at New York, Boston or Philadelphia will doubtless divert to Panama some of the traffic that would find a shorter through route via Suez. For example, from Liverpool to Melbourne is 1312 miles less via Suez than by way of Panama, while to Hongkong it is 694 miles less. Yet it is quite conceivable that the advantage of taking New York or other United States Atlantic ports on the way may secure some of this traffic for Panama.
The really striking saving in time and distance is shown by a comparison of the present distances between our Atlantic coast towns and Australasia and the Orient. Prof. Johnson has put this in two compact tables, which I quote from The Scientific American:
TABLE I.—DISTANCES AND TIME SAVED VIA THE PANAMA CANAL AS CONTRASTED WITH ROUTES VIA THE SUEZ CANAL, THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, AND THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC GULF SEABOARD OF THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALASIA
| To | From New York | From New Orleans | Remarks | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dis- tance saved | Days saved for vessels of | Dis- tance saved | Days saved for vessels of | ||||||||||
| 9 knots | 10 knots | 12 knots | 14 knots | 16 knots | 9 knots | 10 knots | 12 knots | 14 knots | 16 knots | ||||
| Miles | Miles | ||||||||||||
| Adelaide | 1,746 | 7.5 | 6.7 | 5.6 | 4.6 | 4.0 | 3,258 | 14.6 | 13.1 | 10.8 | 9.2 | 8.0 | Difference between routes via Panama, Tahiti, Sydney, and Melbourne, and via St. Vincent and Cape of Good Hope. |
| Melbourne | 2,770 | 12.3 | 11.0 | 9.1 | 7.7 | 6.7 | 4,282 | 19.3 | 17.3 | 14.3 | 12.2 | 10.7 | Difference between routes via Panama, Tahiti, and Sydney and via St. Vincent, Cape of Good Hope, and Adelaide. |
| Sydney | 3,932 | 17.7 | 15.8 | 13.1 | 11.2 | 9.7 | 5,444 | 24.6 | 22.2 | 18.4 | 15.7 | 13.7 | Difference between routes via Panama and Tahiti, and via St. Vincent, Cape of Good Hope, Adelaide, and Melbourne. |
| Wellington | 2,493 | 11.0 | 9.9 | 8.1 | 6.9 | 6.0 | 3,488 | 15.6 | 14.0 | 11.6 | 9.9 | 8.6 | Difference between routes via Panama and Tahiti and via Straits of Magellan. |
TABLE II.—DISTANCES AND DAYS SAVED BY THE PANAMA OR THE SUEZ CANAL BETWEEN THE ATLANTIC GULF SEABOARD OF THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN, CHINA, THE PHILIPPINES, AND SINGAPORE
| To | Via | From New York | From New Orleans | Remarks | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dis- tance saved | Days saved for vessels of | Dis- tance saved | Days saved for vessels of | |||||||||||||
| 9 knots | 10 knots | 12 knots | 14 knots | 16 knots | 9 knots | 10 knots | 12 knots | 14 knots | 16 knots | |||||||
| Miles | Miles | |||||||||||||||
| Yokohama | - | Panama | 3,768 | 16.9 | 15.2 | 12.6 | 10.7 | 9.3 | 5,705 | 25.9 | 23.3 | 19.3 | 16.5 | 14.4 | Via San Francisco. | |
| Suez | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | Via Colombo, Singapore, Hongkong and Shanghai. | |||
| Shanghai | - | Panama | 1,876 | 8.1 | 7.3 | 6.0 | 5.1 | 4.4 | 3,813 | 17.1 | 15.4 | 12.7 | 10.8 | 9.4 | Via San Francisco and Yokohama. | |
| Suez | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | Via Colombo, Singapore and Hongkong. | |||
| Hongkong | - | Panama | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1,919 | 8.4 | 7.5 | 6.2 | 5.2 | 4.5 | Via San Francisco, Yokohama and Shanghai. | |
| Suez | 18 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | Via Colombo and Singapore. | |||
| Manila. | - | Panama | 41 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1,978 | 8.6 | 7.7 | 6.4 | 5.4 | 4.7 | Via San Francisco and Yokohama. | |
| Suez | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | Via Colombo and Singapore. | |||
| Singapore | - | Panama | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | Via San Francisco and Yokohama. | |
| Suez | 2,484 | 11.0 | 9.8 | 8.4 | 6.9 | 5.9 | 547 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 0.9 | Via Colombo. | |||
So far as Asiatic traffic is concerned, there is almost sure to be some overlapping of routes. Conditions other than those of time and space will occasionally control shipmasters in the choice of a route. But so far as the trade of our Atlantic ports with Hongkong, the Philippines and points north and east thereof is concerned it will all go through Panama. So, too, with the vessels from English, French or German ports. If the contemplated economies offered by the price of coal and fuel oil at Balboa are effected, the inducements of this route will divert from Suez all European shipping bound for Asiatic ports north of India. A careful study of the Suez Canal shows that the trade of the United States with all foreign countries made up 33 per cent of the total traffic, and the commerce of Europe with the west coast of South America comprised 38 per cent. Col. Johnson compiled for the benefit of the Commission a table which showed the vessels which might advantageously have used the Canal in 1909 and 1910, and accompanied it with another giving his estimate of the amount of shipping that actually will use the Canal in 1915 and thereafter. As the expression of official opinion based upon the most careful research, these tables are here republished.
CLASSIFICATION OF ESTIMATED NET TONNAGE OF SHIPPING USING THE PANAMA CANAL IN 1915, 1920 AND 1925
| Average per annum during 1915 and 1916 | 1920 | 1925 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coast-to-coast American shipping | 1,000,000 | 1,414,000 | 2,000,000 |
| American shipping carrying foreign commerce of the United States | 720,000 | 910,000 | 1,500,000 |
| Foreign shipping carrying commerce of the United States and foreign countries | 8,780,000 | 11,020,000 | 13,850,000 |
| Total | 10,500,000 | 13,344,000 | 17,000,000 |
CULEBRA CUT ON A HAZY DAY
NET TONNAGE OF VESSELS THAT MIGHT HAVE ADVANTAGEOUSLY USED A PANAMA CANAL IN 1909-10.
| Total Entrances | Total Clearances | Total Entrances and Clearances | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe with: | |||
| Western South America | 1,553,887 | 1,594,513 | 3,148,400 |
| Western Central America and Pacific Mexico | 80,788 | 118,714 | 199,502 |
| Pacific United States, British Columbia, and Hawaii | 419,865 | 269,853 | 689,718 |
| Pacific United States via Suez Canal | (1) | (1) | (1)158,000 |
| Oriental countries east of Singapore and Oceania | 618,704 | 555,881 | 1,174,585 |
| Eastern United States coast with: | |||
| Western South America, Pacific Mexico, and Hawaii | 309,909 | 166,686 | 467,595 |
| Pacific Coast of United States (via Cape Horn) | 117,147 | 55,508 | 172,655 |
| Pacific Coast of United States and Hawaii (via American-Hawaiian S.S. Co.) | 181,713 | 181,713 | 363,426 |
| Oriental countries east of Singapore and Oceania | 600,000 | 900,000 | 1,500,000 |
| Pacific traffic: | |||
| Pacific Coast | 158,558 | 259,932 | 418,490 |
| Atlantic Coast | ... | ... | ... |
| Eastern Canada with Alaska, Chile and Australia | 13,410 | 22,248 | 35,658 |
| Total | 4,044,981 | 4,125,048 | 8,328,029 |
Note.—(1) Reported by Suez Canal Company; hence the total is not separable into entrances and clearances at American ports.
After all, however, the most patient investigation of the past and the most careful and scientific calculations of the probabilities of the future may produce a wholly inaccurate result. The real effect of the Canal on the world’s commerce may be something wholly different from what the experts expect. But we may proceed upon the well-established fact that no new route of swifter and cheaper transportation ever failed to create a great business, and to develop thriving communities along its route. 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.
Photo by Brown Bros.
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF MIRAFLORES LOCK
At the upper end of the lock the guide wall extends into Miraflores lake; the lower end opens into the tide-water Canal.
More and more the exports of the United States are taking the form of manufactured goods. The old times when we were the granary of the world are passing away and the moment is not far distant when we shall produce barely enough for our rapidly increasing population. British Columbia is taking up the task of feeding the world where we are dropping it. On the other hand, our manufacturing industry is progressing with giant strides and, while a few years ago our manufacturers were content with their rigidly protected home market, they are now reaching out for the markets of foreign lands. Figures just issued show that in 10 years our exports of manufactured goods have increased 70 per cent. The possibilities of the Asiatic market, which the Canal brings so much more closely to our doors, are almost incalculable. For cotton goods alone China and India will afford a market vastly exceeding any which is now open to our cotton mills, and if, as many hold, the Chinese shall themselves take up the manufacture of the fleecy staple they will have to turn to New England and Pennsylvania for their machinery and to our cotton belt of states for the material. The ships from Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and Galveston, which so long steamed eastward with their cargoes of cotton, will in a few years turn their prows toward the setting sun. Indeed these southern ports should be among the first to feel the stimulating effect of the new markets. Southern tobacco, lumber, iron and coal will find a new outlet, and freight which has been going to Atlantic ports will go to the Gulf—the front door to the Canal.
HANDLING BROKEN ROCK
Photo by American Press Association
LOCK CONSTRUCTION SHOWING CONDUITS
How swiftly and efficiently American manufacturers and jobbers will seize upon the new conditions and avail themselves of this opening of new fields is yet to be determined. The enemies of a protective tariff are not the only ones who hold that it has had the result of dulling the keen spirit of adventurous enterprise for which our people were once noted. The absolute possession of a home market ever growing in size and into which no foreigner could enter with any hope of successful competition has naturally engaged at home the attention of our captains of industry. Bold and dashing spirits of the sort that one hundred years ago were covering the seas with Baltimore clippers and the output of the New England shipyards turned their attention half a century ago to the building of railroads and the development of our western frontier. When the middle-aged men of today were boys, the heroes of their story books ran away to sea and after incredible adventures came home in command of clipper ships trading to China. Today the same class of fiction starts the aspiring boy in as a brakeman or a mill hand and he emerges as a railroad president or the head of a great manufacturing industry.
TRAVELING CRANE HANDLING CONCRETE IN LOCK-BUILDING
These cranes are the striking feature of the Canal landscape, handling thousands of tons of concrete daily
TIVOLI HOTEL FROM HOSPITAL GROUNDS
MESTIZO GIRL OF CHORRERA
Whether the earlier spirit of world conquest will again spring up in the American mind so long content with the profits of its own national preserves is yet to be demonstrated. To what extent it has vanished any thoughtful traveler in foreign lands observes with a sigh. One sees evidences of its weakness at every foreign international exhibition, for the American section is generally the least impressive there. The opinion of our manufacturers is often that to show their products abroad is folly because foreign manufacturers will imitate them with cheaper materials and labor. In most foreign markets, in the cities of Europe, South America and the Orient the chief American products you see displayed are those manufactured by one of those combinations of capital we call a trust, and they are usually sold abroad at lower prices than at home. Typewriters, adding machines, sewing machines, shoes and the divers products of the protean Standard Oil Company seem to be the most vigorous representatives of American industrial activity abroad. Nevertheless the recent statistics show that our experts are on the up-grade, and evidences of growing interest in our export trade multiply daily.
That the Canal of itself will not make amends for indifference or lethargy on the part of our manufacturers goes without saying. The nation may supply them with the waterway, but it cannot compel them to use it, or even teach them how. Every American traveler in South America has groaned over the reports that come from every side concerning the fatuity with which our manufacturers permit themselves to be distanced in the race for the trade of those republics. Our consular reports are filled with suggestions from consuls, but the various associations of exporters are so busy passing platitudinous resolutions about the need of taking the consular service out of politics that they have no time to heed the really valuable suggestions offered. Our methods of packing goods, and our systems of credits, are repugnant to the South American needs and customs and the fact has been set forth in detail in innumerable consular reports without any response on the part of our exporters. The American attitude is “what is good enough at home is good enough abroad”—which is patriotic but not a good rule on which to attempt building up foreign trade. Incidentally sometimes what is good enough for a home market is often too good for a Latin-American one. The English and the Germans recognize this and govern themselves accordingly.
It is a far cry from digging a canal to the system of educating young men to represent a firm in foreign lands. Yet one finds in visiting South America, or for that matter Oriental cities, that a great deal of the rapid expansion of German trade is due to the systematic education of boys for business in foreign lands. The weakest part of the educational system of the United States is its indifference to foreign tongues, an indifference possibly quite natural because but few Americans have really any need for any language except their own. But the German representatives sent to South America are at home in the Spanish tongue, and carefully schooled in the commercial needs and customs of the Latin-American countries before they reach them. They are backed, too, by a strong semi-official organization in their own country. They have in most of the principal South American towns German banks quite as interested as the salesmen themselves in the extension of German trade. It is reported that whenever paper involved in an American transaction with a South American buyer passes through a German bank in South America a report of the transaction is sent to some central German agency which tries to divert the next business of the same sort into German hands. I have no personal knowledge of such transactions, but the story is current in South America and it is quite in accord with the German’s infinite capacity for taking pains with little things.
Copyright, 1913, F. E. Wright.
SANTA ANA PLAZA, PANAMA
This plaza was built up largely during the French régime and the open air cafés are relics of that period of pleasure. It is the gayest of the town’s rallying places.
HOW CORN IS GROUND
Foreign ships, no less than foreign banks and the excellence of foreign commercial schools, are and will continue to be a factor in the building up of foreign trade via the Canal. 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. England, Germany, Italy and Japan are all establishing new lines, the last three with the aid of heavy subsidies. But in April, 1913, a recognized authority on the American merchant marine published this statement: “So far as international commerce via Panama is concerned not one new keel is being laid in the United States and not one new ship has even been projected. The Panama Canal act of last August reversed our former policy and granted free American registry to foreign-built ships for international commerce through the Panama Canal or elsewhere. But this ‘free-ship’ policy has utterly failed. Not one foreign ship has hoisted the American flag, not one request for the flag has reached the Bureau of Navigation”.
THEY USED TO DO THIS IN NEW ENGLAND
The reason for this is the archaic condition of our navigation laws. The first cost of a ship, even though somewhat greater when built in American yards, becomes a negligible factor in comparison with a law which makes every expense incurred in operating it 10 to 20 per cent higher than like charges on foreign vessels. James J. Hill, the great railroad builder, who planned a line of steamships to the Orient and built the two greatest ships that ever came from an American yard, said once to the writer, “I can build ships in the United States as advantageously as on the Clyde and operate them without a subsidy. But neither I nor any other man can maintain a line of American ships at a profit while the navigation laws put us at a disadvantage in competition with those of every other nation”. Those mainly responsible for the enactment and maintenance of the navigation laws declare them to be essential to secure proper wages and treatment of the American sailor, but the effect has been to deprive the sailor of the ships necessary to earn his livelihood.
Photo by Brown Bros.
PILE-DRIVER AND DREDGE AT BALBOA DOCK
However, coastwise shipping will be greatly stimulated by the Canal. In the midst of the lamentation about the disappearance of the American flag from the high seas it is gratifying to reflect that the merchant marine of the United States is really the second in the world, though our share in international shipping is almost negligible. That we rank second as a whole is due to the phenomenal development of our shipping on the great lakes where with a season barely eight months long a shipping business is done that dwarfs the Mediterranean or the German Ocean into insignificance. This has built up a great shipbuilding business on the lakes, and steel ships are even now being built on the Detroit River to engage in Panama trade. There are not wanting those who hold that if the money which has been spent at Panama for the good of the whole world, had been expended in making a thirty-foot ship canal from Lake Erie to tide-water on the Hudson, the benefit to the people of the United States, and to American shipping would have been vastly greater.
Photo by Brown Bros.
GIANT CEMENT CARRIERS AT WORK
Placed in pairs on either side of a piece of work requiring concrete, these frames support cables in which swing cars carrying concrete and controlled by a workman in the elevated house shown
Indeed one of the pathetic things in the history of commerce is the persistence with which enterprising Chicagoans, and other mid-westerners, have tried to establish all-water routes to the European markets. All such endeavors have failed, costing their projectors heavily. 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. Already there is discussion of whether the railroads will help or hamstring the Canal. Cargoes for the ships have to be gathered in the interior. When delivered at the seaport of their destination they have to be distributed to interior markets. It is in the power of the railroads to make such charges for this service as would seriously impede the economic use of the Canal.
Among the great canals of the world that at Panama ranks easily first in point of cost, though in length it is outdone by many, and its place as a carrier of traffic is yet to be determined. There are now in operation nine artificial waterways which may properly be called ship canals, namely:
1.—The Suez Canal, begun in 1859 and completed in 1869.
2.—The Cronstadt and St. Petersburg Canal, begun in 1877 and completed in 1890.
3.—The Corinth Canal, begun in 1884 and completed in 1893.
4.—The Manchester Ship Canal, completed in 1893.
5.—The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, connecting the Baltic and North Seas, completed in 1895.
6.—The Elbe and Trave Canal, connecting the North Sea and Baltic, opened in 1900.
7.—The Welland Canal, connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario.
8 and 9.—The two canals, United States and Canadian, respectively, connecting Lake Superior with Lake Huron.
The Suez Canal naturally suggests itself for comparison, though it falls far short in volume of traffic of either of the two canals at Sault Ste. Marie, between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. It is ninety miles long, or just about twice the length of the Panama, and about two-thirds of its length is dredged through shallow lakes. It is 31 feet deep as against Panama’s 45, with a surface width of 420 feet, while the Panama Canal is from 300 to 1000 feet. The Suez Canal cost slightly under $100,000,000 and pays dividends at the rate of 12 per cent. Lord Beaconsfield, who bought control of it for England in face of fierce opposition and was savagely denounced for wild-cat financiering, secured for the Empire not merely its strongest bond, but a highly profitable investment as well. The tolls now charged are about $2 a ton according to the United States net measurement.
TRACKS ASCENDING FROM LOWER TO UPPER LOCK
Doors giving access to service tunnels are shown at either side of the central ascent
Of the other canals enumerated some, like the Manchester and the Elbe and Trave Canals, are of purely local importance, while others, like the Kaiser Wilhelm (better known as the Kiel) Canal, are mainly for naval and military purposes. In volume of traffic the first of all canals in the world is the American canal at the “Soo”, with the Canadian canal paralleling it a fair second. The volume of traffic passing through these waterways during the eight or nine months they are free from ice is incredible. In 1911 it approximated 40,000,000 tons and exceeded in volume Suez and all the other ship canals heretofore enumerated together. To the facilities for water carriage afforded by this and the neighboring Canadian canal is due much of the rapid growth and development of the country about the western end of Lake Superior. What countries will profit in the same way by the work at Panama? The Pacific coast, both of North and South America. Perhaps South America even more than our own land, for its present state admits of such development.
One problem opened by the Panama Canal which seldom suggests itself to the merely casual mind is the one involved in keeping it clear of the infectious and epidemic diseases for which Asiatic and tropical ports have a sinister reputation. The opening of the Suez Canal was followed by new danger from plague, cholera and yellow fever in Mediterranean countries. A like situation may arise at Panama. It is proposed, though I think not yet officially, to have passing vessels from infected ports inspected at the entrance to the Canal. If infection exists the ship can be fumigated during the passage through the Canal, which will take from ten to twelve hours, while the subsequent voyage to her home port, whether on our Atlantic coast or in Europe, will make any subsequent delay in quarantine needless. The plague is the disease most dreaded in civilized communities, which it only enters by being brought by ship from some Asiatic port in which it is prevalent. Its germs can be carried by rats as well as by human beings, and for this reason in some ports vessels from suspected ports are not allowed to come up to a dock lest the rodents slip ashore carrying the pestilence. Sometimes in such ports you will see a vessel’s hawsers obstructed by large metal disks, past which no rat may slip if he tries the tight-rope route to the shore. The new contracts for wharves, docks and piers at all our Zone ports prescribe that they shall be rat-proof. Indeed the rodents are very much under the ban in Panama, and the annual slaughter by the Sanitary Department exceeds 12,000.
Photo by Brown Bros.
COL. GOETHALS’ HOUSE AT CULEBRA
As is fitting, “The Colonel’s” house tops the highest hill in Culebra, looking down the cut
Preparations are being made to make Balboa a quarantine station of world-wide importance. The mere proximity of the date for opening the Canal has caused discussion of its effect upon the health of civilized nations. At Suez an International Board exists for the purpose of so guarding that gateway from the East that none of the pestilences for which the Orient has an ill-fame can slip through. No suggestion has been made of international control at Panama. In fact such of the foreign articles as have come under my eye have been flattering to us as a nation, asserting, as they all do, that in sanitary science the United States is so far ahead that the quarantine service may be safely entrusted to this nation alone. Despite this cheerful optimism of Europe, there has not yet been a very prompt acquiescence by Congress in the estimates presented by Col. Gorgas for the permanent housing and maintenance of the quarantine service. Since the United States is to give the Canal to the world, it should so equip the gift that it will not be a menace to the world’s health.
ELECTRIC TOWING LOCOMOTIVES ON A LOCK