THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1904. THE PANAMA CANAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12523, 16 March 1904, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1904. THE PANAMA CANAL.

All the political difficulties that have soMong interfered with the completion of the Panama Canal seem at last to have disappeared, leaving nothing but mechanical obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of the most ambitious work of the kind yet attempted. There can be no question that these are great, and will tax the resources and energy of those who have succeeded to the task originally set themselves by France and her great engineer; but it may be added with confidence they are pretty sure to be overcome. The difficulties which proved insurmountable while the work was iD the hands of French enterprise were mainly caused by the impossibility of correctly estimating the cost of the work to be done, and the mistake made by M. de Lesseps of attempting too much, and these cost France something like sixty millions sterling. Of this the shareholders now get back some eight millions from America, and America receives the benefit of France's experience. The exchange is- probably a fair one. It is said that by far the greater part of the work done by French enterprise has been thrown away, but the experience so dearly bought cannot fail to prove a most valuable asset. It has become possible to estimate, at least approximately, what it will cost to finish the canal, and in the hands into which it has now fallen there is no danger of the financial difficulty again proving an obstacle to its completion.

When M. de Lesseps formed his original estimate of the cost of joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a waterway he calculated that £21.000,000 would be sufficient capital for the undertaking. For this he proposed to make a canal at the sea level, as he had already done through the isthmus of Suez, and had it been possible there can be no doubt- the enterprise would have turned out a great financial success. The result of twenty-two years of somewhat spasmodic effort has been to show that the plan of a canal similar to that of Suez was a mistake when applied to Panama. A hundred millions of money would, it is said, have been barely enough to make it, and the cost of maintaining it would probably have been very great. It is now believed that something short of twenty-five millions will complete the work by constructing the canal on several different levels, while the advance of mechanical science during the last twenty-five years has been great enough to remove most of the objections to the plan. The two main objections* to, the lock system applied to such a canal were the delays entailed by its operation, and the necessity for a large water supply at a high level which it involved. Both of these objections, it is said, will be removed by the new device by which ships will be enclosed in a small docklike enclosure, which will then be raised bodily from one level to another by hydraulic power. By this means it is claimed the passage of the canal will not take more than one day, and the comparatively small supply of water needed can always be procured at little expense. It has been suggested that even the interest on thirty to thirty-five million pounds may be difficult to realise from the dues that are likely to be collected ; and it is not at all unlikely that such may be the case for the first few years after the waterway is completed. There is no serious doubt, however, that eventually the enterprise will pay, and in the meantime the United States can afford to wait as well as any creditor. A glance at the increase in the oversea commerce of the United States alone during the last ten years will afford some indication of what it is likely to be by the time the canal can be finished, and when to this is added the probable expansion of the trade of the Pacific within that time, it may well be argued that even from the first the canal should pay. Events move now at a speed undreamt of by our forefathers, and in the presence of the hurrying stream of human development even ten years may well appear a long time. When the Isthmus of Suez was pierced by the —and that, let us remember, was but a short time ago—nobody would have ventured to predict anything approaching the commercial success which has attended the enterprise. And there is no reasonable doubt that the experience of Suez will be duplicated before many years are past by that of Panama.

We have spoken of the trade of the United States in relation to the canal as though this were all on which it had to rely for its financial success ; this, however, is far from being the case. It is true that such a waterway between the world's great oceans must have a greater interest for America than for any part of Europe, and the fact that the United States have, as a nation, undertaken the work, shows that they recognise it; but its benefits will by no means be confined to them. The distance from England to Eastern Australia and New Zealand through the isthmus will be less by between two and , three thousand miles than by the present route by way of Cape Colony; indeed the course from Plymouth to Auckland

through the canal will be as nearly '} as possible a straight line, involving )' an actual saving in distance of con- j siderably more 'than three thousand j miles. The question -of canal dues ;. may, of course; prove a serious one, '■'• as it does in the ease of the Suez,' Carial^Vbitt as equality of treatment ': for vessels of all nations has been secured by treaty, it may be taken for granted that the charges will be : made as low as possible by the A me- J rican Government an the interest of ! the national ship-owners, to whose | exertions it is due that the enterprise was taken up by the Government. Of all the Bri- , tish possessions New Zealand and; Eastern Australia are the most • nearly interested in the successful j completion of the great enterprise, j and in point of distance saved this 1 colony is the most nearly interested of all. To reduce the voyage be- '■ tween England and New Zealand by j nine or ten days for steamers, and in addition to ensure that nearly the whole of it shall be made through tropical and sub-tropical regions, can hardly fail, to prove more than an offset against any reasonable charges that can be made for the use of the canal. Should this prove to be the case the ocean voyage between this colony and Europe through the Carribean Sea, may be expected largely to take the place both of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn routes, and to become a serious rival for the passenger trade now crossing .America, either through Sari Francisco or Vancouver.