The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1895.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 1833, 7 August 1895, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1895.

Lieutenant King, U.S.N., recently contributed to the Illustrated American an article entitled " The Importance of Nicaragua to the United States." It is pretty clear that what led to the writing of the article was the recent unpleasantness between Great Britain and Nicaragua, when the latter at first refused and subsequently delayed to pay a small indemnity demanded by Great Britain for an outrage for which the Nicaraguan Government were fairly held responsible. Lieutenant King says : — " Close upon the heels of the English occupation of Corinto, followed the departure from Mobile, Alabama, of the engineers appointed by the United States Congress to investigate and report upon the proposed route [of the inter-oceanic canal]. Nothing m the history of this great enterprise, so close to the heart of every patriotic American, is so significant as England's desire to gain a foothold on the Isthmus just at this juncture ; and her audacious attempt to secure territory under the flimsy pretext of collecting a paltry indemnity, is a matter which the United States cannot regard with indifference. Has the history of the occupation of Egypt, as soon as the Suez Canal became a reality, been forgotten ? And has the British lion relinquished one inch of territory that was seized there under a similar pretext." Englishmen can afford to smile at the erroneous belief expressed m those sentences. There is no similarity between the British occupation of Egypt and the landing of a few marines and the making a small naval demonstration m connection with the Nicaraguan affair; except, indeed, that m Egypt there is a canal, and m Nicaragua one is to be constructed and has had some money already expended on it. The action of Great Britain was not

taken under cover of a mere pretext. The claim for the indemnity was genuine, and there never was any intention of keeping permanent possession of a single acre of Nicaraguan soil. All that was wanted was the indemnity, amounting to a few thousands of pounds, and as soon as a settlement was obtained or guaranteed, the British force withdrew. There was some " tall talking" on the part of the Americans, m which the President had his share, but he was obliged to admit that there was no ground for interference by the United States. The canal question had nothing to do with British movements on the occasion, though the importance of the canal to British commercial interests can scarcely be exaggerated. We must confess to having nothing but the most imperfect knowledge of the progress of the work. Under treaty between Nicaragua and the United States the canal was begun by an American company m 1889, but political and financial difficulties have caused delays. We were under the impression that the route had been finally decided upon for the whole of the 170 miles intervening between the Caribbean Sea, dn the Atlantic side, and the Pacific Ocean. Such, however, does not appear to be the case, though m some parts there has been a good deal of dredging. Lieutenant King says : — "There are two proposed routes across Nicaragua, known respectively as the upper and lower ones. The latter follows the left bank of the San Juan River, while the former makes a straight cut from Grey town to Ochoa, where it joins the river by an immense dam. As this route presents less engineering difficulties to the proposed methods of attack, it has the advantage of more natural water transit and is shorter by six miles; it is, m all probability, the one that the Government will accept. By it one hundred and forty miles will be slack water navigation through the basins of the rivers Deseado, San Francisco, San Juan, Lajas, Rio Grande, and Lake Nicaragua, leaving only thirty miles of actual excavation — thus reducing the amount of excavation by ten miles and making the canal one hundred and seventy miles long." The huge dam is one of the most difficult features of the undertaking, but the work has been pronounced by eminent engineers to be perfectly feasible. From the confluence of the rivers San Carlos and San Juan to Lake Nicaragua the waters of the San Juan will be raised to the highest point which the canal will attain, being 110 feet above the sea, and there will be slack water navigation for sixty-four miles m the river. There are no engineering difficulties connected with crossing the lake, but the line of navigation will have to be deepened by dredging. The lake once crossed, there will remain seventeen miles of construction on the Pacific slope. As to the commercial prospects of the canal, Lieutenant King says : — " Another important feature of the work and one m which practical business men are interested, is whether or not the earnings of the canal will pay the cost of construction. The most careful estimates have placed the price of construction at 65,000,000 dols. To

this the Hon. Warner Miller, President of the Construction Company, has added interest upon the securities during the time of construction, and other expenses, that may bring the amount up to 100,000,000 dols. Assuming this as the price, and 1,000,000 dols. as the annual expense of repairing and operating the great work, it is well to study the amount of tonnage that will pass through the canal every year. It is said that about six million tons of shipping would be a fair average of what might be expected immediately, and that this amount will be doubled within ten years after the completion of the waterway." Although financial and political difficulties have still to be overcome, the completion of the canal within the next few years may be regarded as a certainty. It is a thoroughly reasonable scheme from the engineers' point of view, and those who are engaged m the construction are spurred on by the consideration of the enormous ocean traffic which will be diverted to the new route, as well as by the anticipation of an immense development of commercial enterprise following rapidly on the opening of the canal.