NICARAGUA CANAL PROSPECTS.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 66, 14 September 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

NICARAGUA CANAL PROSPECTS.

Archibald Boss Colquhoun, a wellknown explorer and first Governor of Mashonaland, has returned from several months' mission in Nicaragua, where he thoroughly inspected the Nicaragua Canal route and visited the Panama Canal. He was present at Managua during the British occupation of Corinto. Asked if the canal scheme was practicable, Colquhoun emphatically replied : — ' Undoubtedly it is practicable. I feel certain of that. But there are many points of engineering importance requiring consideration and full discussion. The American commission is composed of men of the highest ability, and will, I believe, issue an impartial report, not in any way based on Party lines. ' The total length from Greytown, on the Atlantic, to Brito, on the Pacific, 124} miles, will be unimpeded navigation of the Siver San Juan and Lake Nicaragua. Twenty-one and a-half miles will be through artificial basins, making the total distance 142£ miles in which ships can travel with little or no restriction. There will only be 26£ miles of actual digging to be done. ' From what I have seen of Nicaragua and in a lengthened visit to the United States (especially the Southern States), I am more than ever convinced of the immense importance to the United States of this project. I feel sure that it is only under the auspices of the United States Government that this great enterprise can be carried through as it should — that is, by overcoming all difficulties in regard to execution, and throwing the proposed waterway open as an international channel to the world's commerce. 1 The canal, in my opinion, will be universally of greater importance than the Suez Canal, and will largely revolutionise the shipping routes of the world. For the United States the canal will have the effect of developing the trado of the Pacific slope and the Southern States.'