INCREASED TRAFFIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19841, 16 May 1927, Page 11

INCREASED TRAFFIC

PANAMA CANAL’S LIMIT SUPPLEMENTARY SCHEMES NEW YORK. April 20. The rapid growth of shipping traffic through the Panama Canal emphasises the necessity of the American Government giving immediate consideration ;o plans to increase the capacity of the janal or to construct another waterway from the Atlantic to the Pacific icross Nicaragua.

About 26,000,000 tons of shipping passed through the Panama Canal last year, compare’! with 5,000,000 in 1915. The maximum capacity of the canal is estimated at between 50,000,000 and J 00,000,000 tons, which will be reached at the present rate of growth of traffic in ten or fifteen years. Engineers and naval experts must decide soon whether it is more practical to enlarge the capacity of the canal or to construct a now one.

Those favouring the present canal advocate its gradual transference into the 11 Straits of Panama” —that is, a sealevel channel. I,oooft. wide, invulnerable from military attack and freed from all dangers of earthquakes and landslides.

The alternative proposal of a new canal through Nicaragua, which is most often discussed now, is held to have much in its favour, but to have the disadvantage of giving the United States two routes to maintain, and perhaps, to defend. Most Americans, it is said, are inclined to agree with General Goethals, that the Panama Canal should be first developed to the limit of its potentialities. Considerations of naval strategy are involved in both projects, and President Coolidge strongly advocates the immediate study of all aspects of the problem.