THE PANAMA CANAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 266, 16 November 1885, Page 4

THE PANAMA CANAL.

Dr. Arthur Gore, who returned to San Francisco recently from a trip through the United States of Colombia, says : Since the failure of the Company to receive a new loan, a spirit of- demoralisation seems to have settled down upon the whole enterprise. Nothing of any consequence is being accomplished at present. Workmen are being discharged right and left, and auction sales of mules, carts, and other property are of frequent occurrence. It ia said that the Sub-Director-General intends to remove his head quarters to Colon, and that tho Grand Hotel, built by the Canal Company, is to be sold. Nearly all the merchants of Panama hold " canal paper," as it is called, and the larger owners are feeling very blue over tho prospect in store for tho enterprise. Dr. Goro is satisfied that the whole proceeding has been worked by egregious frauds from the beginning, and for the 8120,000,000 already expended there is nothing to show in the way of a canal but a superficial scratch in tho hard mass of volcanic rock through which it v, as proposed to cut a passage. Large sums of money have been spent in tho construction of residences for officers, houses for workmen, hospitals, shops, tool-houses, &c, nearly all of which were built by contractors who have bled the country most unmercifully. Some very handsome buildings and grounds now mark the line of the canal at the various points where it was thought best to begin operations. Gazing on these palpable evidences of extravagance, tho French residents remark — " C'cst magnifiquc, metis cc n'entpan h canal." The surveyors' stakes were supplied under contract for 25d01s apiece, and all the other preliminary arrangements have been male on a scalo and at a cost that would bankrupt a company with anything less than the wealth of " Ormua and of Ind " at its back.