The importance of this proposed wireless station is very evident to those interested in Venezuela, and its prosperity. By establishing direct and efficient communication between this country and America and Europe, it will open the way to vast trade possibilities.
Having thus discussed the three methods of communication which are of paramount importance in foreign trade, we can not but realize that Venezuela has been working under a serious handicap. However, she has made great progress in the last decade and it is to be hoped that under a wise government she will continue her sound trade policies and before many years will take her proper place among the leading commercial nations of the world.
Philip D. Sullivan.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES
Pronounced improvements in the political, economic and social life of the Republic of Venezuela have been effected within the last few years by the construction, upon a broad and comprehensive scale, of a system of national highways totalling, in extent of completed roads, 2,900 kilometers (approximately 1,800 miles). These have been specifically designed to bear the burden of motor transportation both of passengers and freight, as well as of all classes of vehicular and equestrian traffic. Built primarily with a military objective, these roads already have come to serve the routine needs of peace, while being at all times available for the exigencies of war. They provide a means for the quick mobilization of the Venezuelan army of 50,000 men at any of the principal strategic points of the country. Infantry, cavalry or artillery may with equal facility and despatch pass over any of these roads to a given rendezvous. The broad, smooth highways compass distances, grades and defiles that hitherto presented almost impassable barriers to the quick and flexible movement of military forces.
If heretofore the army suffered from a lack of adequate transportation facilities, the commerce of Venezuela too was woefully handicapped. One of the greatest and most coveted of Venezuela's assets is her magnificent coastline of hundreds of miles on the Caribbean Sea. To realize the serious difficulties under which her rich interior labored in seeking an egress to foreign markets, it need only be noted that until the completion, during the last decade, of the highway system with its three separate routes from three chief ports of the republic to the capital and interior centers of industry, the country had the use of only two railway lines. These lines were well constructed, it is true, but offered an indifferent service at a prohibitive tariff with amazingly excessive wharf and terminal charges. The only available alternative to these consisted of old Spanish trails up and down the mountain sides where the necessity of walking in single file hazarded the necks of man and beast.
With respect to the technique of construction and maintenance of the highways of the new system, local considerations and the requirements of the major volume of traffic normally moving into or out of a given section have been carefully taken into account. On the level stretches of the extensive llanos in the interior, advantage has been taken of natural dirt bases for roads that have come to sustain the burden of the enormous production of cattle, grain, corn, coffee, cotton and sugar sent forth from those fertile plains. On the precipitous mountain slopes of the massive watershed that divides the highland llanos from the sea, macadam has been the principal material used; this has been true also in other mountain districts of the Republic. In general, American and English principles of roadbed construction have been employed and great numbers of steel bridges and not a few suspension bridges have been designed, imported and set up by leading American bridge-building corporations.
The improved route from Caracas to Guatire has made the latter accessible at all times to the capital. The route from Caracas to Barquisimeto supplies a direct road from the capital to the center of the Venezuelan Andes, while the one from Maracay to Ocumare de la Costa leads directly to the sea at the point of juncture of the two greatest highways, opening the way to the agricultural and cattle raising industries of the central region of the Republic.
The Great Eastern Highway leads from Caracas through the states of Miranda, Auzoategui and Bolívar to the mineral region of interior Guayana. The Great Western Highway connects the center of the Republic with the remotest western regions, leading from Caracas to Valencia, San Carlos, Guanare, San Antonio de Caparo and San Cristobal. It crosses the most densely populated part of Venezuela and promises to be, in the near future, the principal artery of communication. Telegraphic connection is constantly maintained between the road engineers and the minister of public works. The highway from Turmero to Calabozo is likely to become the bond of union between the great eastern and western highways. It has maintained traffic for the first time in the llanos during the rainy season, thus furnishing a constant outlet for the wonderful productivity of this region. Steam rollers and other standard mechanical apparatus have been employed in the construction work, while recently the authorities have commenced to use the superficial petrolization process for laying the dust and counteracting the impairment of the roadbed by the rapidly increasing automobile traffic.