PANAMA CANAL

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1929, Page 9

PANAMA CANAL

A RICH TRADE ROUTE. INCREASE IN TONNAGE The Panama Canal, that short cut to Cathay which Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, and other early explorers sought but failed to find —because it was not there —is now exceeding the vision which those pioneers had of it as a channel for wealth between Europe and the Orient, b providing a way for a far greater commerce between Europe and the Pacific coast of America.

According to statistical reports from the canal zone, an epic of modern progress is being unfolded in the rapidlygrowing volume of business moving directly from the Pacific coast to Europe. Comparative totals of both east and west-bound trade between Canada and Europe through the canal show a gain' of 2,215,000 tons from 1924 to 1928; and similarly between the United States and Europe, a gain of 685,000 tons. Unhampered by rail transhipments after hauls across the continent, commerce is now seen to be moving from Pacific ports to Europe and the Continent in substantially growing volume, and whole fleets of new vessels are being added to the service. Other Powers, ever alert to the promotion of new trade routes, are adding ships. The Hamburg-American, French, North German Lloyd, and lines of Swedish, British, Italian and other flags are developing the route extensively. Not only has it proved a lucrative business in the carrying of fresh and dried fruits, grain, apples and other products of the Pacific Coast to EuiZpe, but it has proved a fertile field for passenger business.

While the first ships placed in the trade were intended solely as cargo carriers, the demand for passenger accommodations has resulted in the building of several new motor ships, equipped with a sufficient number of staterooms to handle the passengers seeking a direct route from California to Europe. In addition to the Californian products, the wheat of Western Canada is finding its outlet to Europe through Vancouver to a rapidly-growing extent. From as far inland as Alberta, 800 miles east and over the Rocky Mountains, the wheat moves westward, to Vancouver, there to be placed in elevators awaiting Europe-bound ships, and the factor of rates, which are cheaper by this combination route from Western Alberta, than would be a straight rail haul east' to " Montreal, compensates for the somewhat longer transit time.

So substantial in volume has this traffic become that the cargo tonnage between the West Coast of Canada and Europe now ranks second in all the Panama Canal routes, exceeded only by the United States inter-coastal. It even exceeds the business between the West Coast of the United States and Europe, while if these two are lumped, the result is equal to 20 per cent, of the total business of the' Panama Canal annually.

The only American line in the fastgrowing Pacific-European trade is the Dollar Line, whose ships in their regular round-the-world voyages operate west-bound.

The increase in tonnage between the two widely-separated sections—California and British Columbia and Europe—has been so great that in 1928 it was equal to 60 per cent, of the United States inter-coastal traffic.

The “short cut” to Cathay, even though a man-made one, has proved a potent factor in developing international trade, although North America, intervening between Europe and the Far East, has proved a better customer and trader than the Oriental merchants whom Columbus and the early explorers sought to bring nearer in point of time to Genoa and Venice.