PANAMA CANAL. REDUCTION IN SEA DISTANCES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 74, 27 March 1912, Page 10

PANAMA CANAL. REDUCTION IN SEA DISTANCES.

WORLD TRAFFIC EARLY IN 1914. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 16th February. Mr. R. S. Forbes, general manager of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., ha* juijt returned to England after a vicit of inspection to the Panama Canal. Us says that the Americans might well be proud of their achievements in Panama. Tho completion of their woik world mark an epoch in the history of the New World, lc would have an enormous effect upon the prosperity of the whole of tho Pacilic Coast, and would lead to vast developments in trade and to great changes in trade channeLs. It might not, of course, be all at once that shipping would readjust jtseli to the new loute, but he could ccc- no reason why the big ships which the Canal would be able to take' should not find it a remunerative route. The question of the toll to be imposed upon shipping was, of coursa, -very important, and he hoped thai the charge would be as small au the undertaking itself was big. The toll of one dollar suggested by Lhe New York Chamber of Commerce would, he thought, be a fair amoust ti> levy on ships using the Canal. The work was being pushed) forward .so rapidly and in such, spkndid sanitary conditions that it was certain that the Canal would be formally opened by thepassage of a ship from the Atlantic to the Pacilic on. 19th July, IGI3. it would not, however, be open to the general traffic of the world until perhaps the beginning of 1914. Sir John Glover, presiding at the annual meeting of the Mercantile yteamship Company, remarked that the opening of the Panama. Canal was beginning to loom in the near future. They heard nothing authoritative yet as to the dates for which it was to be placed at the' world's service. But there were two fact 6 to remember by which they would have to be governed. First, it would be in regard to the buik cf its busincaj competitive tiaffic, and secondly, it would De certain to make the Suez Canal Company carry out its engagements with its present users. Jt would be desirable to have this matter cleared up before the due 6 for the* new route needed to bo considered. It was not known how many foreign Governments paid part of these dues, or how much each paid ; but they did know that they had nob got the reduction of the Suez Canal dues which they weie promised when the Canal dividend was increased, and that the British Government received from the Suez Canal Company more than £1,000,000 ' per annum. When the Canal i.= opened there will be from New York to all American Pacific ports north of Panama a. uniform reduction of 8413. milt's, and to such ports south of Panama a uniform reduction of about 5000 miles. The corresponding reductions from Liverpool and Antwerp will ba about 6000 and 2600 respectively. From Hamburg to San Francisco the reduction will bo 6200 miles ; Sydney 'will be 3806 miles, and Wellington 2542 miles nearer New Yoik. Between New Zealand and Europe there will be an average saviug of 1600 miles. British ships which now puts thiough the Suez Canal on their way to China and Japan., and thence ' to Vancouver, Seattle, and San Francisco, will return to their home ports by way of the .Panama Canal, when return cargoes can 'be obtained in those -cities. Ships from Japan, China, Austria, New Zealand, and from Pacific ports of South America will sail to Now York -via the new waterway.