VIEW FROM SPANISH FORT, PANAMA.
CATHEDRAL SQUARE, PANAMA.
On the Steamships Available for Canal Transit.
The Isthmian Canal Commission, in the Report of 1899, distinguishes between the commercial and the industrial benefits of the Canal, meaning by the former term the increased carrying of goods, and by the latter the development of production induced by improved facilities of carriage.
The tables of distances already given show the potential commercial advantages, and how they are distributed in different measure among different countries, and these figures have all the permanence which makes geographical figures of such enduring importance.
But the actual commercial advantage of a ship canal depends equally upon a second factor, viz., the available ship-tonnage. Supposing a Panama Canal to be open at the present time, there would be hardly any United States ships to use it, except in transport between home ports from which ships flying foreign flags are debarred. The transport to South America, New Zealand, Australia, Northern China, and Japan would necessarily be almost wholly carried on by ships of other nations, especially British.
The absence of an American merchant marine trading with foreign ports is indeed a circumstance without parallel among other nations engaged in modern manufacture. Many interesting facts relating to this strange phenomenon were put on record in the debates of the United States Senate in the early part of 1908.[34]
[34] Congressional Record, February 24, 1908.
At that time there was not one steamship flying the flag of the United States between her ports and those of Brazil, the Argentine, Chile, or Peru.