FROM ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4292, 27 February 1901, Page 7

FROM ATLANTIC TO PACIFIC

JOINING THE GREAT OCEANS. Tho Panama Canal (says the London ‘■ Echo *) was indeed a blow to the national dignity of France, and even today the term " Panamaist ” is used to express loathing and contempt. The idea of joining the two great oceans, and thereby abolishing once and for all the dangerous passage by Cape Horn, was an old one, bow old it would be difficult to say. But it was first brought practically before tho French public in 1880 by M. do Lcssops, the famous engineer of the Suez Canal. To carry out his project tlie Universal Inter-Oceanic Canal Company was floated, with a capital of £12,000,000. In December, 1880, 500,000 twenty-pound .shares wore offered at par to Europe and America, the 5 per cent, interest on which was to he paid out of the capital while the work was under construction. The remaining 10,000 shares wore to be allotted to°thc original grantees for the concessions and tho survey.

The public came forward eagerly to take up the shares. Altogether there were 102,230 shareholders, 80,839 of whom held £5 .shares, 19,143- from £6 to £2O shares, and 23,208 from £2l to £SO shares. The total cost of the construction was estimated at £20,500,000. The first work on tho canal’ was actually begun on February 1, and in October tho cutting of the Cullebra was taken in hand. For five years the work proceeded slowly and unsatisfactorily. Tho public began to lose confidence. It was soon discovered that the cost had been under-estimated. In 1886 it became known that 600 millions of francs wore required for its completion. At the commencement of the following year twelve miles of the canal, from Colon to Bahia, had been actually cut. In July a. uew r series of bonds at 440 francs were issued, and M- de Lesseps brought forward a Bill by which the company might bo authorised to issue lottery bonds. To the latter measure tho Government refused to give its sanction, in spite of the fact that M. de Lesseps pointed out that the canal was doomed unless tho annual -payment of 74,000,000 francs for interest out of the working capital was reduced to 50,000,000, as the physical difficulties of the project had been under-estimated. In July, 1891, M. Wyso made an attempt to form a new company, which should carry on the work on new lines. It was proposed to form a huge inland lake, which should be readied by three locks on either side. For this project 600,00*0,000 francs were required,’ together with the machinery of the old company. But feeling ran very high against M. do Lesseps and the other directors of the old company. Fifty-three million pounds has been already sunk in this project, £33,000,000 only of which had been expended in tho Isthmus, the rest being wasted in Franco. On November 19th an interpellation took place in tho Chamber regarding the statements in the papers that M. Floquet, when Prime Minister, had obtained 300,000 francs From the Panama Company to subvention several journals during the Boulangist crisis, and that three million francs had been distributed among one hundred members in order to obtain the'passing of tlio Bill of 1888, authorising tho issue of lottery bonds. A committee of thir-ty-three was appointed to investigate these charges, and this was the beginning of tho end of the great project.

When constructed the Nicaraguan Canal will be 170 miles long; 121 miles, will traverse two rivers arid a lake; 22 miles will be in artificial basins. This leaves 27 miles of actual excavation to make the connection between the Atlantic Ocean and tho Pacific. The most important results of the canal will be the great saving of time and the .corresponding different relations between the various ports. In the States even it will bring some of tho cities thousands of miles nearer by sea. Melbourne will bo 1350 miles nearer to New York than to Liverpool, and Japan will be 2400 miles nearer to Philadelphia than it will be ; to London. The cost of making the canal is put down at from 13 to 25 million pounds—probably the higher figure. The traffic is calculated- at 8.000,000 tonnage: a year, to be) doubled in ten years. If charged at tho average Suez Carial rate of 8s a ton, this would bring in £3,000,000. Allowing £1,200,000 for maintenance, etc., a net revenue of £2,000,UUO would remain. Tho right to make the canal belongs to the ■ IntorOceanio Cgnal Company. The syndicate includes some of the wealthiest United States capitalists, who will work in harmony with the policy of the United States. Tho company has the necessary capital. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, of which much is heard in connection with the Nicaraguan Canal, was an agreement between Great Britain and the United States that neither Power should obtain or exercise exclusive control over such a canal, the neutrality of which should bo guaranteed. An attempt to come to terms about this treaty caused a violent outburst in the States against Secretary Hay, as, by the new agreement called the Hay-Pauncefoto Treaty, the States bound herself not to fortify the canal, but to preserve the neutrality of the waterway iri war or peace. At the same time tha agreement proposed that the States should act as police. At present ‘the matter is at a standstill.