RIVER VILLAGE IN CHIRIQUI
THE PEARL ISLAND VILLAGE OF SABOGA
Any formal convention, however, any international agreement for the control of the Pacific which should leave Germany out, would be an incentive to trouble rather than a bright harbinger of peace. For no nation is making more active and intelligent preparations to reap to the fullest the advantages of the Canal than are the Germans. Their nation’s great interests in Brazil, Argentine, and Chile, her colonizing activities in Asia, her Chinese port of Kiau-Chou, forcibly wrested from China, all impel her to take a lively interest in the Canal and the Pacific. The Kaiser would not look with any placid indifference upon such an Anglo-American agreement as has been urged, and as its ends can be, and probably will be attained without formal pronouncement, any open diplomatic negotiations for such a convention would probably be unwise. Enough to say that while speculation concerning such an agreement is quite general among publicists today, no discussion of it has yet engaged the attention of any statesmen.
After considering the problem of what the Canal will be worth, let us reverse the ordinary process and figure out what it will cost. Exact statement is still impossible, for as this book is being printed the Canal is months away from being usable and probably two years short of completion if we reckon terminals and fortifications as part of the completed work.
In an earlier [chapter] I have set forth some of the estimates of its cost from the figure of $131,000,000 set by the volatile De Lesseps to the $375,000,000 of the better informed and more judicious Goethals. In June, 1913, however, we had at hand the official report of all expenditures to March, 1913, duly classified as follows:
CLASSIFIED EXPENDITURES—ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION
A statement of classified expenditures of the Isthmian Canal Commission to March 31, 1913, follows:
| Periods | Department of Civil Administration | Department of Law | Department of Sanitation | Department of Construction and Engineering | General Items | Fortifications | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total to June 30, 1909 | $3,427,090.29 | ... | $9,673,539.28 | $69,622,561.42 | $78,022,606.10 | ... | $160,745,797.09 |
| Total—Fiscal Year, 1910 | 709,351.37 | ... | 1,803,040.95 | 26,300,167.05 | 2,863,088.83 | ... | 31,675,648.20 |
| Total—Fiscal Year, 1911 | 755,079.44 | ... | 1,717,792.62 | 27,477,776.19 | 3,097,959.72 | ... | 33,048,607.97 |
| Total—Fiscal Year, 1912 | 820,398.57 | 24,729.16 | 1,620,391.12 | 28,897,738.10 | 2,819,926.53 | 1,212,881.66 | 35,396,065.14 |
| July, 1912 | 63,913.12 | 1,448.53 | 123,803.64 | 2,649,246.61 | 200,970.55 | 104,126.92 | 3,143,509.37 |
| August, 1912 | 62,182.51 | 1,468.26 | 123,154.48 | 2,539,680.83 | [3]98,054.61 | 111,402.55 | 2,739,834.02 |
| September, 1912 | 59,201.01 | 1,207.82 | 120,385.70 | 2,285,979.89 | 77,003.53 | 127,168.25 | 2,670,946.20 |
| October, 1912 | 64,383.37 | 2,033.75 | 137,574.61 | 2,473,280.76 | 83,523.30 | 129,736.37 | 2,890,532.16 |
| November, 1912 | 62,200.12 | 1,892.14 | 119,031.66 | 2,420,085.77 | 75,779.01 | 300,016.33 | 2,979,005.03 |
| December, 1912 | 58,987.96 | 1,462.18 | 115,819.26 | 2,871,977.03 | 120,946.61 | 118,152.57 | 3,287,345.61 |
| January, 1913 | 57,699.58 | 1,469.59 | 114,562.04 | 2,825,872.06 | 6,463.72 | 119,272.77 | 3,125,339.76 |
| February, 1913 | 56,586.06 | 1,649.00 | 127,324.80 | 3,784,370.51 | 123,034.12 | 314,994.96 | 4,407,959.45 |
| March, 1913 | 58,761.03 | 1,899.22 | 105,891.08 | 2,712,218.10 | 7,706.70 | 131,940.75 | 3,003,003.48 |
| Grand total | $6,255,834.43 | $39,259.65 | $15,902,311.24 | $176,860,954.32 | $87,385,540.71 | $2,669,693.13 | $289,113,593.48 |