THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1889.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9322, 27 March 1889, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1889.

What about Panama The latest news, dated London, th e 19th instant, states that " it has been arranged to continue the Panama contracts while the liquidator is re-forming the company." Mr. Froude, in his book on the West Indies, was right in saying that it was not national feeling or political jealousy, but a belief that the work was not practicable, which debarred M. de Lesseps when forming a company from obtaining support outside his own people. And no doubt when there has been so much mismanagement as to now bring matters to a crisis, there are many who will still hold to the opinion that the work is not practicable. Yet it is because of the prospect of a canal at Panama that the Samoan Archipelago has shot into special importance, and that there has been the row over Germany's attempt, by a mixture of sharp practice and bullying, to lay hands upon such a strategic and mercantile position. It was in expectation of the canal that England, France, and the United States nearly forty years ago entered into a treaty to neutralise the Hawaiian Archipelago, and maintain the independence of that little kingdom, as important from its position in the Central Pacific as Samoa is in the south. It was in expectation of the canal and of the international interests which could not but be connected with it, that the late Emperor Napoleon entertained the idea of a federation of all the Central American Republics under a conjoint protectorate of the European Powers. Ever since the acquisition _of California by the United States, with the discovery of gold fields and consequent rush of European and American enterprise to the shores of the Pacific, it is not easy to look at tho map and suppose that a mere strip of land, only fifty or sixty miles wide, and whatever its natural features, could long be allowed to interfere with a work of such immense convenience— obvious necessity —as the joining of tho two oceans. Statesmen evidently believed that the isthmus was bound to be cut sooner or later for, _as we see, it became the rule with the various Governments to look out for such an event, and take certain steps in accordance with that view. But for carrying out the work professional advice had to be sought, skilled opinion consulted, and it seemed to be always adverse, ever ready to declare the project hopeless. And indeed the tremendous impediments of rock and torrent, with a pestilential climate superadded, could only be realised when face to face with them ; and we remember very well how, in 1833, Dr. Cullen's undertaking collapsed, under the peculiar and accumulated difficulties after thousands of workmen had been brought to the ground. The natural obstacles to the work are so vast that M. tie Lesseps was isolated among professional authorities in maintaining that they could be overcome. That was his position at Suez also. To cut a canal there was likewise pronounced on all sides impossible. But he succeeded there, and although the task at Panama is still harder than at Suez, is very much more difficult, yet he has gone far enough with it to demonstrate beyond doubt that the thing is quite practicable, and can be done. The most sceptical and bitterest of his opponents have come to admit that though the thing should now pass from his hands it would be sure to be eventually taken up by others and be successfully finished. Even hostile Mr. Froude admitted this a couple of years ago, when there was less work to show at Panama than there is at present. The breakdown has not occurred because of the natural difficulties —they have been surmounted, or are proved to be surmountable. Neither has it occurred from the necessary cost of the work, great as that is. It has been caused by the extravagance and waste and business jobbery, the blame of which must rest on the company. The great engineer, now approaching his ninetieth year, has enough to attend to in his professional capacity, without also taking up the onerous duties of financial management. Enlarging the Suez Canal and constructing one at Corinth for the Greek Government have had to share his attention and receive his periodical visits as well as the gigantic undertaking at Panama. If the work should now pass from the hands of the veteran engineer, it is quite possible that it might again lio by indefinitely, stand postponed for years, for it is not easy to see who would take it up. There are various circumstances that would hamper the change. For instance, the Monroe doctrine evidences American susceptibilities about European enterprise on American soil; i and it is only because France cannot now alarm those political sensibilities, is in such a different position from what she was under the late Emperor, that the Government and Legislature at Washington have never endorsed the ( opposition which the French Canal Company have experienced from the rivalry of the American railway interest. Again, it is well known that the United States of Columbia — the provinces of what used to be New Granada are now called, and whose territory contains Panama —are strongly adverse to the idea of any company formed within the greater United States of Washington taking the place of the French Canal Company if the latter should give up the work. And yet that this adverse sentiment of the Spanish Americans, dating from the bygone filibustering days, is not after all either general or ineradicable may be judged from the fact that the two republics of Nicaragua and Costa Rica have granted to a company, with headquarters in New York, all needed concessions for the Nicaragua land. But herein one more obstacle crops out, and the Nicaragua project has not been gone on with because there is a powerful party in the United States which does not want a canal there any more than at Panama. No help for the canal cutting is probable from that quarter until they have a strong shipping interest by the revival of their mercantile marine ; and yet the opportunity for navigation between their Atlantic and Pacific ports is just one of the measures which would directly contribute to the revival of their marine.