TINY STATE AHEAD OF BRITAIN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3134, 11 September 1922, Page 2

TINY STATE AHEAD OF BRITAIN.

From the first moment one sights the mgantie breakwaters marking the entrance to Cristobal and the Panama Canal, that stupendous work ol 01041, one in filled with amazement that the human pygmy could have achieved a work which stands alone in the present world ol miracles. Few people in Croat Uritain to-day realise that within a comparatively small republic like Panama lies a strip of land averaging certainly not more than three miles in width, in which one can find the very latest scientific and mechanical devices and the highest type of our known civilisation. lu Colon City, at the entrance to Ihe canal, you have 1 the Washington Hotel, which will compare with the finest in the world. Win have a telephone service here to Panama City, Iho other side of the isthmus—a distance of roughly fifty miles lor one shilling, and it takes less than a minute to connect. The electric light and drainage systems are on the most up-co-da to and modern plan. Here you will also find one of the greatest coaling stations in the world. Diev can coal a ship at the surprising rate of a thousand lons an hour. Von will also discover the largest cold storage plant south of the Fnited Stales. Motor tran.-pnrt is excellent and living comparatively micap. From Co'lon to Panama City >Oll have an excellent train service, the cars being built of native mahogany and all-steel work eninstrnetion made from the canal scrap iron in the workshops of the Panama Railroad Company on the isthmus. The journey across is luxurious, rapid, and cheap. Arriving in Panama City here again it is forced upon one how far and awa\ ahead of Croat Pritain in many things is the little Republic of Panama. There is a magnificent hospital, the Rockefeller institute, and a medical service par excellence. There is the Tivoli Hotel, a splendid biri'lding equal to any first-class Kuropcan hotel. The telegraph. telephone, electric fight and postal services are all highly efficient and eery cheap. Croat (iritain should lememher that if it has to compete with the world it must certainly reduce it high cost of telegraph, telephone and postal services. Here one can send a letter to the United States for a penny. The American system in the canai zone especially shows how valuable a highly organised and efficient Unreal: of Statistics can he in eiihaiicing ycommerce and a.II matters of importance. Photographs and statistics of all event of importance are carefully kept and forward, (1 to Washington, F.S.A. 1 look upon Panama as a country of great promise, for outside of Lins lift I ■ three'-mile strip arc vast regions of virtually unknown country, many portionhaving never seen the advent of the white man, and what wealth they may contain is yet to he discovered. I have received Lin 1 greatest help from the American Covorimr of the canal zone. Colonel day .). .Morrow, who sent a special Pullman over to Colon to ennvey me through to Panama City, the official photographer accompanying me. In this way ! was enabled to take photographs of Iho country through which the railroad pas-ed. including the great ghost);, Catnn Lake, with its fiu'ists of dead trees standing in the water. On my arrival in Panama City I was received with the greatest courtesy loins Excellency the President, Hr Pclisario Porras, "and his secretary. Snior Paul .). Calvo. and also by the American Minister. Hr John Clover South. As an example of how importanl the opening of trade is considered hy other countries. 1 may say that Mr Anthony Czameeki, stall correspond-

cut of the Chicago' Daily News and representing eighteen other great American newspapers, is on an extended visit through the West Indies, i’anama, and the Smith American countries. He sends full reports to his hig group of newspapers, these reports being published extensively in the United States for the benefit of her people in the business communities. 1 was enabled to Inna* a very long talk with % Mr Czarnecki, and his well-considered judgment coincided exactly with my own. Again, one has this vividly brought home to him when one sees the enterprise* of the American film companies. The Fox, Universal, and Famous I’layers-Fasky are all represented on mis part of the world, and their travelogue films are of the most valuable, educational and commercial interest.