Near its eastern margin, which lies, however, outside Japan and Australia and only passes among small islands, the Suez and Panama routes to Liverpool are of equal length.
On a line rather west of the centre and running from rather west of north to rather east of south, all places are equidistant from New York and Liverpool—the latter viâ Suez, the former viâ Panama.
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. Thus, as the Mississippi waterway is improved, an increasing proportion of the manufactures and other products of the great Mississippi basin will find their way to foreign markets viâ the Gulf ports, and an increasing proportion of imports will find their way to the Mississippi basin through these ports.[33]
[33] Among West Indian ports affected by the Canal, Kingston, Jamaica, must be particularly mentioned. Now situate at the entrance of a cul de sac, it will then be placed in a position of much greater centrality for the world's commerce, and astride the route from Colon to the North American Atlantic ports. Thus the importance of Jamaica as a constituent of the British Empire will be enhanced. May the opening of the Canal increase the prosperity of our fellow subjects who have suffered so greatly from hurricane and earthquake!
In dealing with the shortening of sea routes it was shown that the greatest reduction was that between the two coasts of North America, but even so the sea route remains longer than that by land, so that the question of commercial advantage is not settled by a mere statement of sea distances, and the indisputable and undiluted advantages of the Canal route for the Atlantic and Gulf ports of North America are those of commerce with the Pacific coast of South America, with New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Northern China, Manchuria, and Eastern Siberia.
From the naval point of view, however, the results of shortening the sea distance from New York to San Francisco are scarcely diminished by the fact of railway communication, since only crews and stores, and not warships, can be transported by rail.
In order to understand the effect of the Canal upon the naval position of the United States the student of affairs must, in addition to the information given above, examine the positions relatively to the Canal of the possessions, particularly the insular possessions, of the United States and of other naval Powers. This will enable him to gauge for himself the more permanent factors which determine the value of the new line of communication, the opportunities it affords for concentrating force where wanted, and the responsibilities of defence which it entails. With the aid of a fairly good atlas this can easily be done by anyone acquainted with the general facts of naval power at the present time. The geographical facts, which are perhaps the only ones beyond question or dispute, are sufficiently simple.
