AUDACIOUS EFFICIENCY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 30, 4 August 1926, Page 9

AUDACIOUS EFFICIENCY

PANAMA CANAL ZONE

: 'A CONTRAST OF IDEALS 1

SSHU SADIES OF COLON.

s^ f * (By George Osbornc.) 'ff Unjjcjudiced travellers through the (Panama Canal will readily give tho palm to Americaais for engineering fcluck and skill. The canal, surely, is one of the wonders of the modern wrld. But evokes regret that the Trench who began this impressive un- ■ dertaking wero forced to relinquish it. •They deserved hotter treatment at the : hands oE the Fates. Mute_ witnesses to ..their courago and enterprise in the ' -form of dredgea and hopper barges lie ■rup on'the hot mud at.. Panama, slowly .justing to pieces, the ruins haunted by 1 alligators. In the jungle, enmeshed and 'Smothered in vines and dense vegeta--tion, lie locomotives, trucks and cranes, Jrjust left on the rail. Venomous things }.creep in and out of them and all over •Cthem. On the great Culebra Cut, the j'imain cause of engineering anxiety, toiJHay, the French deeply excavated miles !'of treacherous rocks and soil. "All this .'ioT nought! But it would be wrong to assume from Ihis that the Americans merely reaped where the French had sown. The greatest obstacle to the achievement of the task the French had set themselves was yellow fever. The mosquito bearing this (disease was answerable for the deaths ijf thousands of the workers, and large--3y responsible for the abandonment of ithe stupendous undertaking. The Americans, before beginning constructive work, first attacked yellow fever—and .vanquished it. They still keep it over the five-mile line of the Zone. I am informed that in this their success is attributable to the researches and co-oper-ation of an English biologist. My object is not to describe the canal in outline or detail, but rather to make a few rough notes, set down a few superficial observations, in the hope ;that they will interest those who Have not seen the canal. It has been defecribed and written about from time ■to time far better and more accurately than I «an ever hope to do it. The traveller from New Zealand is brought face to face at the- Pacific portal of the canal with the audacious efficiency of the Americans. The canal is an audacious work, its management efficient. All of a sudden the verdant Coastline and islets and the distant sea ifront of the Spanish city of Panama, .the emerald sea and tho silvery flying *ah are left behind at a few turns of jthe steamer's screw, and* Balboa opens iip. Steel and concrete structures dominate the landscape. Gigantic coal staithes brow-beat the steamer warping into her berth. Vessels, I was told, are here bunkered at a speed that makes the man-and-baskot method appear antiquated, clumsy, and uneconomic. Iridescent patches of spilled oil fuel overspread the muddy waters; the rattle of pneumatic drills, the clang of a boiler shop, the hum of machinery, aro heard in Balboa. Strange bird cries break in now and again and phalanxes of pelicans pass noisily overhead; shags in jwedge-shaped companies fly swiftly out to sea. All fancies woven around conquistadores, pirates, slaves, pieces of eight, and "rich ships of Acapulco" are put to flight by the clangour of engineering" at Balboa dry dock. DEMARCATION. Now the canal and, five miles on either side of it is United States territory, and is called the Zone. It bisects the Republic of Panama. As the Government of the country was well paid for the land acquired by the United States, it has nothing to complain about. But 5n this arrangement the cities of Panama and Cristobal were excluded from the Zone. The former, anyway, is just where the five-mile demarcation ends; the latter is isolated in the Zone —a ■very "wet" oasis in a positively, inexorably "dry" area. At Balboa and Ancon one sees a white line across the Street, and in some streets down the centre. Budolph Valentino (surely cougin to him, if not himself) was my taxi driver. ' . ■■„,, '' Here you can get - a drink, he said, turning round in his seat. "Zis place out of Zone." He seemed hurt when I ordered, "Drive on!" He was nearly run down Tjy a car full of drunken negroes—Jamaicans, I think, for—Oh, their language! Not Spanish, either. But I wondered, as Rudolph drove on, what would happen to a man astride that white lino if he hold a battle of whisky in his hand. Clearly H-would depend upon which hand. The American citizen cau (and many of them do) carry as much liquor over into the Zone as his alimentary system can accommodate; but he knows better than to try to get it over in any other container. Panama city without the canal would ■be in the one-horse category of towns. The canal has "made" it. Eudolph Valentino, were I to let him, would roll his taxi into certain quarters which have been considerably enlarged- and extended sinco tho canal opened for business. But I was absorbed in the vivid contrast between' Nordic and Latin civic ideals as seen when comparing ■ the zone lay-out and administration. In, Balboa and Ancon are wido asphalt streets, generously lighted, scrupulously clean. Pretty gardens, all open to the street, front the roomy, airy houses of the Americans. A great V.M.C.A. —a well-appreciated boon this; a beautiful new Gothic Union Church; a palatial restaurant with excellent service and prices written large and-definite; a wonderful hospital; comfortable clubs; these arc some of the amenities of the Zone at Balboa and Ancon. Art and utility have gone hand and hand there wherever practicable. ' "Old man Gocthals, sir, he said, 'By q_ _ ; I'll jnako grass grow on that there hill if it costs two million dollars.' But that hill beat him, sir," drawled a young New Orleans American in my hearing. He was far more like an Englishman in appearance than an American. He was a nice mannered young man, too; fair-haired, blue-eyed, splendidly built. GOETHALS. "Old man Goethals —as you call him" —I remarked, "doesn't appear to have been a man to take defeat lying down. What about all this?" (indicating the swirling waters in Mirailores locks, lifting the great ship visibly by inches). "Yes, sir, I will say ho was an exceptional man. But tho fact is the chief local administrator is a Scotsman. His name is Macfarlanc." • * * * The passage of the ship from lock to lock' and through the canal is one of the most fascinating experiences of travel; but it is all too short. One may leave Balboa, at six in the morning and be out- into the Caribbean Sea by two in the afternoon. Alligators, they say, swarm in the muddy creeks meandering through tho mangroves edging the canal and lake, but I saw none. Negro dredge hands 1 saw catching fish, resembling Auckland mullet. The scenery indeed is very muei like tho north of Auckland, where tidal creeks, as at Matakana and Mahurangi, are fringed with mangroves merging into dense bush, only the green is rather moro vivid in the canal. The configuration of tho country is very similar, 100, with hills from 100 t Tcet to 600 feet high. Tho colours of this soil are almost identical —pale vandyko brown, burnt sienna, ochres, rod, and yellow. Past volcanic activity is evident everywhere. It is all one long entrancing panorama. Great ships from

many parts of tho world pass statolily towards the Pacific, some for Chili and Peru, some for California and Alaska, others for China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. At Darien— and what romance is conjured up by that name—three now lofty wireless towers stand, their tops connected by a network of aerials. The PanamaColon express train dashes by in tho distance. Gatun locks should bring this wonder story of the canal to a fitting close, for passing through them into Linion Bay tho ship heads out straight for the open sea. But I cannot let it end without recalling what tho American ladies in the zone did for our sick and wounded soldiers invalided back to New Zealand. I have only hearsay to go upon, but even now, years after the war, one may hoar their praises sung in New Zealand. Their well-organised efforts to cheer the soldiers broken in body and spirit were recognised with lasting thankfulness. And America had not then gone into the war. So, as tho ship swings between the breakwaters of Limon, I look over towards Colon. There the sea is tumbling on the white beaches and tho north-east wind is rustling tho palm trees. There was conceived and carried out a work of a veritably Christian character, of feminine humanity, a work that made New Zealand debtor to those ladies of Colon.