The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1905. THE PANAMA CANAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13888, 24 October 1905, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1905. THE PANAMA CANAL.

The resignation, some months ago, of the engineer to whom the United States Government had entrusted the supea-vision of the Panama Canal project gave rise to many doubts as to whether the scheme would ever be carried through. Then there were “ revelations."’ of a kind common in regard to American Government undertakings, wliich naturally suggested that the estimate of the cost of the waterway would be greatly exceeded. More recently, the critics of the project have told us that the difficulty of the undertaking has been underestimated, and that a. quarter of a century would not see the canal opened from ocean to ocean. It is not easy to ascertain the precise truth so far from the scene of operations, and one’s inclination is naturally to believe the worst concerning Panama. The very name stands for the greatest scandal and the greatest swindle of the nineteenth century, so that the Americans- have started out with a handicap. It is interesting, at this stage, to recall the position as it was described in 1888 by Mr Ernest Lambert, a journalist living on the isthmus:—

After five years of work, shallow inlets on either shore, a great scratch in the rook from Colon to Panama and the whit© posts of the surveyors represented all the progress made. Whistling gangs of negroes flourished spades and picks lazily only when the overseer was near. Section-bosses loitered about, surly and perspiring, under their great umbrellas. Chiefs lounged on the verandahs of model bungalows, fitted with every sanitary convenience, absorbing absinthe, and speculating as to the relative undesirability of bilious fever, Intel mitten t fever, chagres fever, yellow fever and fever and ague. The Direc-tor-General kept the whole machine waiting while ho countersigned showerbath tickets. Steam dredges were delayed for hours, even days, while obstructing reck was blasted away by dilatory contractors. The excavated mim i drained back Into the canal. Ships

were hold on heavy demurrage while room was mad© ashore for their cargoes. Dismantled locomotives, imported from Belgium by blundering agents who had mistaken the gauge, rusted beside the track, up to the axles in mud. A shedful of cement, left unprotected after the shed was burned, solidified as it stood in the sun _ and rain. The lowest code of commercial honour prevailed. And so tile dreadful story continues. Reading it again, after the lapse of seventeen years, we hesitate whether to marvel most at the awful condition of affaire on the isthmus or at the financial methods and unblushing deception of the company’s directors in France. Newspapers were bribed to suppress every reference that might damage the prospects of the nest share issue. When the death-rate was up to 85 per cent among the officials, Do Lesseps was cheerfully describing Panama as the sanitarium of Europe. There cannot be such another crash now. The Government of the United States has entered upon its gigantic undertaking with a full recognition of its magnitude and with a keen recollection of the earlier disaster. There are over seventy millions of shareholders in the Canal, and the honour and the reputation of a Great Power is at stake. The Americans cannot leave this thing alone now until they have completed it. It may cost them £40,000,000 or £80,000,000; the Canal may be opened in 1914 or in 1924, but' opened it must bo. The' President has just been assuring an audience in a Southern State that the Canal will be completed beyond a doubt, and perhaps at a lower cost than . was generally estimated. The engineers have certainly gone about their work very systematically. The isthmus is being made healthy, as far ns that is possible, and a close study is being carried out of the Conditions under which the work can be executed with the minimum loss of life. Labour-saving devices are to he adopted in every conceivable direction. The critical American may ask whether the Canal can bo cut for the money estimated, but he does not question whether it will pay to cut the Canal. There is a limit to the price that should be paid for the convenience, but apparently the United States, apart from the railway companies, which are naturally would consent to any payment short of £100,000,000. The sea distance from Now York to San. Francisco is 13,714 miles; when th.s Canal is open It will be 5299 miles, a direct 1 saving of 8415 miles. The Canal will cut 4000 miles from the journey to South American ports on the Pacific, it will bring New York 4000 miles hearer to Sydney and to New Zealand, and it sliould make the voyage from this colony to Europe a mere holiday jaunt of eighteen or twenty days.