PANAMA CANAL’S FUTURE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXV, Issue 12983, 26 January 1910, Page 3

PANAMA CANAL’S FUTURE.

FRENCH’ -EXPERT’S' OPINION. = M;.- ■ Philippe Brnian-Varilla,. .latp cliicf engineer of the'.Panama'Canal,, who, after ■ ■ The, check sustained by the old company, made such valiant efforts to keep the ; enterprise going, has been interviewed Vby a- representative pf the “Ganlois", to ■whom lie has. made soilie very interesting .^remarks. . After having referred to an I, interview, nearly a year ago, in which ■'•h®: said that the probable cost would he i,li4oo,ooo,ooofiv for the works alone, ho ;alluded to Colonel Gocthal’s estimate, pointing out that it tallied closely wit]), his own calculation. Asked to what y cause ho attributed this enormous difference from tli'o original estimate, M. Munau-Varilla irepfied: _ “To tho exgpnses which' slip somehow into work un&rtaken at the tropics; to illnesses: to the fact that tho labourers iido not do very much ; to general items It ia.. precisely the same thing n,s incrcasjv.ed! in so extraordinary a manner the cxIpenses calculated by the old Pnmjma "Canal Company. Despite the immense (progress achieved since the death of the .old company in the matter of. excavation, in'' safeguard against yellow fever, and iir 'thfuiye of mechanism worked by olfce- , tricitjL the Americans arc not doing bo.t,ter tllan wo did; indeed, if the hinch .more unfavouralile conditions under which •wo laboured are considered, they have 'not reached our standard.” Asked if, after all this expenditure, Americans would not have tho canal of their wishes, Mr Bunau-Varilla answered;— ■ “Alas! No. They will have a canal, ."but the worst and most dangerous of ■'canals, tho one whose horizon is' most, and whoso life is the most precarious. It will he a canal with locks, 'rthe. life of which will- depend solely on the stability of a dam of soft clay, 2300 'metres in length. The adoption of such /a, work in a country where earthquakes dare frequent is really sad. When it is ' finished we may expect to hear any day of its disappearance during the night, ; and then there will he no more of a canal ;at Panama than there is to-day. jSneli.a -plan, seems to have been inspired by the■■engineers of the Tower of Babel. IfTt is not tho confusion of tongues, it is, at ■ any rate, a confusion of ideas which will have donp all tho mischief, I have presented tho Americans with an open book, .which they have closed without caring ito read it. Had they taken that trouble : i,the canal would have been opened to in-■Vter-occanic navigation at least a year ago. ,<And ■in nine years this finst canal would khave been transformed into A grander •route than any man ever dreamed of as not even M. dc Lcsseps. In nine years the two oceans would' ...hqve t-been united by a,veritable sea arm freefily opened to them! 200 metres- in breadth, /fourteen metres deep at the least, recoiv■injj all the rivets:, of the Isthmus, in’cluding the celebrated Chagres, without ■■restriction or b'nlitation, v and without ‘•■the- smallest artificial work, dam, of lock, ijSvhichyan earthquake shock or an ex--plosivoj could ddsfi'oy, remaining. At that S-moHpll the total expenditure on the j'Works would nbt have attained mil-Tiar-d of francs,” and the canal would bo against tho enterprises of Nature and of ‘man. 11,1 ; •'