NEW CANAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4953, 9 February 1937, Page 6

NEW CANAL

PLANS IN THE UNITED STATES. A Bill will be hurried through Congress to authorise the construction of the oft-mooted canal through Nicaragua and Costa Rica, duplicating the Panama Canal, stated a recent message from Washington. The principal object of the measure will be to improve the nation’s defences, but it should also expedite trade with Latin America. The recent earthquakes in Central America, which at any time might threaten the Panama Canal, and the recurrent landslides into the Panama Canal have emphasised the necessity for an auxiliary waterway. The new canal would be 173 miles long, would cost 722,000,000 dollars, and would take 10 years to make. The right to make a canal through Nicaragua and also naval bases at both the Pacific and Carribean ends of it was acquired for 3,000,000 dollars by the United States in 1916. United States army engineers surveyed the route, 70 miles of which is through Lake Nicaragua and 55 miles along the San Juan River. The survey was completed in 1931. Since the making of the canal agreement the United States has kept a firm hand on Nicaragua. A company of American marines guarded the legation at Managua, the capital, from 1912 to 1925. Soon after they were withdrawn in 1925 a revolution broke out. Troops were landed again, and an election was held under the supervision of General Frank R. McCoy, of the United States Army. American marines supervised the elections of 1930 and 1932. In 1933 the marines were withdrawn. At the peak period (1928) there were 5800 American troops in Nicaragua. Evidence was given to Congress in 1931 that the cost of maintaining troops in Nicaragua up to that year had been 5,500,000 dollars.