PANAMA PROBLEMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 July 1912, Page 7

PANAMA PROBLEMS

As was to be expected, the American Senate has confirmed the decision arrived at by the House of Representatives to let American coastwise trade through the Panama Canal free of tolls. The arguments in favour of this course are so strong that they arc practically insuperable. This huge undertalcing will have ■ cost the Americans in all probability £80.000,000 by the time it is finished :, and it is unreasonable to expect them to forego the chance of recouping themselves and making their outlay as far as possible a profitable investment. It would be equally unreasonable ,lo demand that they should exact as heavy charges from their own shipping as from the foreigners using the canal.. The enccur agernent of the American mercantile marine is one of the most important ; ir. bioms in practical politics in the United States to-day ; and it is frp.m the American standpoint highly desirable that all possible assistance should be given to American shipping, especially when 't is engaged in coastal trade. The extension of the American navigation laws so as to include the Sandwich Islands indicates dearly enough the line that public opinion has taken on this subject in recent years in the United States.

'■ But there is another argument to bo considered that Congress could hardly afford to overlook. One of the chief public benefits tint will be secured by the com '’.i.l c,.; of the Canal will be the possibility of wringing the marine transport service between the Atlantic and the Pacific into competition' with the railways, and so, breakig down the freight monopoly which the transcontinental railway companies have set up. That Congress is determined not to permit the railway companies to carry on their policy of exploitation undisturbed is evidenced clearJy enough by its decision to prevent any vessels owned by railway companies from making use of. the Canal. If the railway companies had secured this privilege, they could have effectually disur n« tl the competition that is otherwise certain to threaten them by way of Panama, the resolution to let American coastwise shipping through the Canal free of dues is thus a natural and logical corollary to the course that Congress has already <aKi n in issuing this prohibition against tie railway companies;Hi and it will obviously serve the double purpose of promoting 'he growth of American shipping, and neaic,lng down the system by which the rrilways have so long controlled the >rms■continental transport trade. Against all these fads, the oppo units of this policy can set only one argument that the American Government has 'pledged its faith to England- not to discriminate between its own mercantile marine and foreign shipping using the Canal. It is undeniable that the BnlwertClayton Treaty of 1850 and the Hay[Pauncefote Treaty of 1901 contain such a provision. But the arguments from equity and national interest are so strongly in favour of the American view of the ■case that, in our opinion, it would be in the. last degree indiscreet and injudicious of England to lay any stress upon these treaties. In any case, it would be impossible to enforce them, and we have no ’doubt that under, the circumstances the British Government will, acqui *?ce poli'e,ly in the policy that the American Senate ibas decided to adopt.'