SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1899. THE NEXT GREAT CANAL.

Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 23, 28 January 1899, Page 4

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1899. THE NEXT GREAT CANAL.

Recent cable advices informed us that the United States Government was taking up in earnest the work of cutting a canal through the Central American isthmus. The Federal Treasury, is ready to pay the immense sum which the work is estimated to cost— namely, £23,000,000— but there are certain diplomatic obstacles that must be overcome before the canal can be actually constructed. If the United States canuot come to terms with the Republic of Nicaragua, the best route of all will probably have to be abandoned, and Mr. M'Kinley is reported to have been empowered to acquire another route in that event. As all the routes would be in foreign territory, ' it is obvious that the Washington Government will have much negotiation to get through, unless it takes over either the old Panama Canal or the Nicaragua Canal. Then there is the Clay-ton-Bulwer Treaty, under which the United States and Gre^t Britain bound themselves not to obtain exclusive control over any oceanic canal. This treaty, however, should not prove a serious difficulty. When it was made the relations between the two English-speaking nations were considerably loss cordial than they are now, and the agreement was founded upon :i basis of mutual distrust. The distrust has now disappeared, and the British people are beginning to understand that their interests will be as safe with the United States in control of the canal as they would be under any system of joint ownership. The United States has, necessarily, the dominanb interest m the canal, and Great Britain would doubtless waive her treaty rights, provided that the Washington Government undertook to admit British and American ships to the new waterway upon equal terms The fact that Mr. M'Kinley is empowered to arrange for the route, and fov the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and is also to be provided with the necessary funds, shows that the people of the United States r/-e sincere in their determination to join the two oceans by a waterway. Before long, we may expect the dream of Cortez and other sixteenth century adventurers to be realised, and the distance between Spain and Peru lessened by five thousand miles. We must go back some three centuries to trace the origin of the scheme for constructing a canal across the American Isthmus. There is probably no other great engineering idea that has- so long held a prominent place "in the minds of rulers; statesmen, and financiers. As soon as the Spaniards began to exploit the wealth of Peru trade across the Isthmus sprang into importance, and the land routes, just like the wate • ways, alternated between the Panama route and the more northerly lines across Nicaragua or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Southern Mexico. A proposal to pierce the Isthmus of Darien was made as early as 1520, and Cortez had the Isthmus of Tehuantepec surveyed with a view to constructing a canal. In 1550 a Spaniard named Antonio Galvao suggested four different routes, one of them being across the Isthmus of Panama. Indeed, during the reign of Philip 11. of Spain, the husband of our own Queen Mary, the Isthmian commerce was so large that the formation of a canal became one -of the first purposes of his li'mpire. European politics, and especially the long w.ar for Dutch independence, made this transatlantic enterprise impossible. During the two sue ceeding centuries statesmer were so occupied with other affairs that they almost entirely iost sight of the project, but scientists still continued to dream of a canal. At the close of the eighteenth century, Yon Humboldt carried on extensive explorations in Spanish-America, and reported that the Isthmus of Nicaragua and the southern extremity of the Isthmus oi Darien seemed "the most favourable for the formation of canals of large .dimensions." Acting upon this information, n Liberal Cortes, called together at the attempted establishment of Constitutional monarchy, ordered, in 1814, the Viceroy of Ncav Spain to undertake the work of piercing the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but abso-

lutism returned in the Mother Country, and the War of Independence broke out soon after in the Spanish colonies, so tho work was never carried out. This was the last attempt of Spain to realise the dreams of her early adventurers, and from that lime the canal has been the project of other nations. The later history of the project has been concerned chiefly with the Panama Canal of M. de Lesseps, and the various proposals for a Nicaraguan canal. The United States began to assert itself on the question, and under President Jackson strongly opposed a Dutch company which, under the direct patronage of the King of Holland, intended to pierce a canal through Nicaragua. President Jackson took his stand upon the Monroe doctrine, and declared tnafc bis Government could not consent to Eui'opean possession of the right of way across Central America. This strenuous opposition, added to the natural difficulties of the enterprise, led to the Dutch company's abandoning its scheme. President Jackson then tried to bring about the construction of such a canal by the United States. In this he was before his time. The French also made ineffectual attempts to pierce a waterway through the American Isthmus. Louis Philippe projected a. canal across Panama, and Napoleon 111. throughout his life steadily adhered to the idea of a canal across Nicaragua, but this, like his Mexican schemes, was doomed to failure. In 1849 the Nicaraguan Republic was at odds with Great Britain regaling' the" 'Mosquito Coast. The United States was on the point of obtaining from the little Republic the exclusive right of constructing a waterway across the country on condition that it would guarantee " to protect aud defend tho sovereign authority of Nicaragua." Great Britain, whose foreign policy was then controlled by the famous " Pam," loudly protested against the agreement, and the American President, owing to internal politics, could not risk a rupture with that Power, and so agreed to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. The history of the Panama Canal, with its financial scandals and its dismal failures, is fresh in the minds of the public. The Canal Company would gladly sell its property and concessions to the United States, but it is now evident that De Lesseps chose a bad place for his waterway, and that the Americans would be wise to select if possible the Nicaragua route. The formation of a canal across the Isthmus is naturally one of the first effects of United States expansion.