PANAMA LOCK CANAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 50, 28 February 1907, Page 7

PANAMA LOCK CANAL.

STATE CONSTRUCTION INSTEAD OF CONTRACTORS. TRESS ASSOCIATION. NEW YORK, 27th February. It has been decided that the Washing, ton Government, instead of the contractors, shall construct the Panama Canal. The difficulties of the work ; monumental in any case, have been heightened by the eharp difference of opinion as to whether it should be a lock or a sealevel canal. President Roosevelt' has staunchly adhered to the former plan, and in November last made a special trip to Panama. Apparently there have been no tenders, or they have been too high, for the first intention of the Government was distinctly in tho direction of construction by contract. The American Review of Reviews for December says: — "It has been decided to entertain bids for the construction of the great work by contract, and it is understood that the leading firms of American contractors, whether separately or in syndicates, will have submitted figures to tho President through the War Department. Under the plan contemplated, the Government's rektion to the work will be very intimate and constant, but along with i the most complete Government supervision there will be the efficiency that contractors of great resources and experience could alono supply." There 'is still much doubt in America .whether certain engineering difficulties — changes in the liver, tho Culebra Cut, and the Bohio dam — can be overcome by a lock canal. Says the New York Times :— "Probably Chief Engineer Stevens and his commissioners are satiafied thai they can triumph over these and »U other engineering difficulties. If they are mistaken, the President and the country will have the satisfaction of discovering the mistake after we have spent a hundred millions more money. Then three or four hundred millions of additional expenditure and twenty years of work will complete a sea-level canal. Nor can the President's wannost friends wholly forget that he disregards the advice of the majority of the consulting engineers, including all the foreign engineers., vha» tJvjfg he tpfttfht.'*