THE PANAMA CANAL.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 5095, 26 January 1885, Page 2

THE PANAMA CANAL.

It appears that the cutting of the canal through the Isthmus of Panama is proceeding not only steadily but rapidly, and there is now what amounts to a positive certainty on the part of its promoters that it will be completed well within the specified time, 1888. Indeed, the last contract for cutting the final section of the canal has just been jigned, and this is to beoompleted in IBS* The contractor*

are the New York Dredging Company, who have undertaken the cutting of 30,000,000 cubic metres at 1 franc 45 centimes per metre. No interest has been taken in England in the loans connected with! this undertaking, but the faith in them in France is simply unlimited, and a, further series of 400 canal obligations, Which is to take place in two or three days, is already known as certain to be applied for several times over. All doubt as to the actual performance of the undertaking ha 3 entn3ly passed away, and though English people, who with what might be almost called characteristic obstinacy, wilfully ignore the fact, the Americans have walked up to it, and are preparing themselves for the changes which it is likely to cause. Theyhavesent a special commission to report on the works, and on the probable date of their completion ; arid not only so, but they are quietly concluding treaties with Central American States, with the evident intention of converting this great future highway of the world into an American canal. It does seem deplorable that the same wilful negligence with which the progress in construction of the Suez Canal was viewed is being repeated, and the probobility is that when the work is complete it will be found that another Eastern question has been raised, and that the world has to reckon, not with feeble Egypt, but with powerful America, whose narrow protective policy gives no guarantee that her control of the Panama Canal would be guided by principles equitable to all the commercial nations of the world.