The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterprise

by J. Saxon Mills

Gatun Upper Lock—West Chamber.

It seems incredible that the canal should ever be in danger of injury or destruction from the attack of any civilized Power, because all nations are apparently interested in its preservation. What, then, is the meaning of these slopes which are being prepared for forts and batteries at either end of the canal? "With the two great forts at the two ends of the canal," writes Mr. Showalter, "fitted with four 14-inch guns, six 6-inch guns, and twelve 12-inch mortars, with twelve companies of coast artillery, one battery of field artillery, four regiments of infantry, and one squad of cavalry, there is not likely to arise a time when these fortifications, backed up by the American navy, will fail to command a proper and wholesome respect from other nations." Yet if the object were simply to maintain the neutrality of the canal, the best course would seem to have been to leave the canal entirely unfortified, as is the case at Suez, and trust to the moral influence of the great Powers and their common interest in keeping the canal free and open to the world's traffic. Obviously the idea of making the canal zone a big military camp and arsenal is not so much to "police" the passage as a great international waterway, but to defend it and the zone as a position of immense strategic importance to the United States. President Hayes, in a message to the Senate in 1880, spoke of the canal as "the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and Pacific ports, and virtually a part of the coastline of the United States." The words I have italicized seem to show that the United States regard the new passage rather as wholly proprietary, like those of Kiel and Corinth, than as international in status, like the Suez Canal.

In the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty there is no specific reference to fortification. The only allusion to the defence of the canal occurs in the second subsection of the third clause: "The United States shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is rather more specific in its provisions on this subject, though even that instrument seems scarcely to have contemplated an armament and garrison on the large and permanent scale intended at the isthmus.[17]

England has, however, acquiesced in the proposed fortification. The decision is not likely to be challenged in any other quarter. The United States have built the canal with their own money and enterprise. They are more closely and immediately interested in the passage than any other Power, and so long as they fulfil their undertaking to afford equal treatment in tolls and other respects to the commerce of all nations, nobody is likely to protest against the presence of American men and guns at the isthmus.

Indeed, there is some force in the plea that the complete neutralization of the canal would be inconsistent with American control and operation. In time of war the Americans would have had either to refrain from using the canal for their warships (an unthinkable proposition) or to permit their enemy or enemies to use it on equal terms. This would have meant a rather painful experience for the American engineers, managers, workmen, and others on the isthmus. They would have been obliged to put the enemy's vessels through the canal, and thus commit a sort of legalized treason against their own government by giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy. So it comes to this—that the canal will be neutral at all times except when the United States are themselves a belligerent. Then it will become part and parcel of the sovereign dominions of the great American Republic.

But the United States will have to stand all the ulterior possibilities of this position. If they were at war the canal would be at once liable to attack. In fact it would invite attack as a very vulnerable point in their armour. It has been truly said that the canal zone will have all the disadvantages, without any of the advantages, of an island. It will be entirely dependent on imported supplies and isolated from the centre of American power. If the American fleet lost the command of the sea even for a short time, the enemy could land troops at any part of the isthmus, march them against any point of the extended canal line and inflict on the United States a wound in a very sensitive, if not a vital region. So that instead of simply doubling the efficiency of the existing American fleet, by enabling it to be transferred swiftly and bodily from the western to the eastern coast, it may rather add to the naval responsibilities of the States and compel a considerable increase in their sea-power. To Englishmen, however, this development of the power and resources of the United States ought to bring no feelings but those of pleasure and satisfaction. In view of the great secular struggle between East and West for supremacy in the Pacific, which some people think will fill the pages of future world history, anything that strengthens the position and prestige of Anglo-Saxondom as the main guardian of Western ideas and principles should be welcome to all the members of that race.

It is estimated that the fortification of the canal will cost about $12,000,000. This added to the $375,000,000, the estimated cost of construction, will bring the entire bill up to the round and goodly sum of $400,000,000 or £80,000,000. This puts all other expenditure on artificial water-channels into the shade, as the Suez Canal cost only £19,000,000, the Manchester Ship Canal £15,000,000, and the Kiel Canal £8,000,000. As regards this expense and the possibilities of revenue returns, Colonel Goethals has written an interesting passage:—

Much has been said and predicted as to the commercial value of the canal to the United States. In this connection it must be remembered that the commercial shipping of this country never required the canal. The trip of the Oregon in 1898 settled the question of the advisability of constructing an isthmian canal, and had the canal been built at that time, thereby saving that trip around the Horn, there is no question that it would have been agreed generally that the canal, even at an expenditure of $375,000,000, was worth while.

In whatever light the Panama Canal is viewed, it will have paid for itself if in time of war or threatened war a concentration of the fleet is effected without that long, tedious, uncertain route followed by the Oregon.