The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1888. THE PANAMA CANAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1934, 3 September 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1888. THE PANAMA CANAL.

At the beginning of last month word was received by cable from San Jose that Congress had ratified the concessions granted io the promoters of the Nicaragua canal. From this it would appear that there is a prospect of more than one canal being made through the isthmus at Central America. The Americans jealous of the great work Be Lessees has m hand havo lost no opportunity to decry it, and now, when the vote has been passed to carry it on, they have determined to have a canal of their own. There seems little doubt but that Do Lesseps will finish his work, The locks by which he intends to carry the water ovor a height m order to have the canal opened within the next year are I now being constructed. They are not designed to be a permanent feature, and the cutting of the canal will continue. The building of theße locks requires an outlay of prodigious sums of money. They number ten, and are located $vo pn the Pacific and five on the Atlantic j oidp of the Isthmus. The general width of the canal proper is a very small fraction over Gift. I n the work of canal building there are now employed 5,000 laborers, and on tho locks about 1000 skilled laborers, besides a small army of clerks. Mr Melton Prior, who | visited the works at tho canal m the interests of a Home paper and who took sketches of its route and progress, seems tp bo thoroughly of the opinion that tho schomo will bo carried out m its ontirety. In reply to an American interviewer h,o said ho had spent two weeks cxamihjng the canal. When asked as jko what ho of its prospects ho said :— P I feel confident De Jjessops will complete jt, and frM without ajlowing fhe work to fall into tho hands of his Government. I am willing to beji a champagne lnnch that Do Lesseps' pompany will have the canal completed before 1800— that l», if a European war does not interrupt, They have dono far more work than they are credited with, notwithstanding that millions of money havo been wasted m extravagance, and m lavish expenditures for machinery which lies rusting and going to ruin m great quantities. In my opinion all your American alleged acepticism of De Losseps* ability to finish tho canal, and even your Nicaragua project, is simply a method of tearing tho Do Lessops stock, $ JW? S»y |P m* specnlattye fjealim> 8 , m order ' that' tho Papama C.ana} may cyentupfly fall iptp 'American dbnti'pl. Thp Ampripanp thougft" late' m {he field are not to be outdone »nd. if they cannot ■

stop the work at Panama, they will have a canal of their own rather than use that constructed by superior enterprise. On July a Uth a contract was signed by which a Company called the Atlantic and Pacific Construction Company has undertaken to cut a ship canal through the Isthmuß of Tehuantepec, north of Panama. Between Tehuautepec and Panama the Nicaragua C anil is to be cut and it would seem as if there were to be three rival routes across the Isthmus as a waterway between the Atlantic i and the Pacific. The United States the Republic of Nicaragua, and the De , Lesseps following are all hard at work ! with the latter by far m the lead. A northern contemporary thinks there will be traffic enough for two canals and says: — " But that we are about to get three canals where half-a dozen years ago there was small prospect of getting one, is quite too good to be true. We are not prepared to believe that. No doubt after the traffic has been fairly started, there will be ample opportunity for a couple of snob, waterways—- for another as well as the Panama. There will be plenty of business for both. To understand this, we need only consider what happened at Suez, where after a while it became necessary, by the growth of the traffic, to choose between forming a second canal or doubling the size of the existing one. And the connection of the Atlantic aud Pacific will be to the full as important as the connection of the Mediterranean and hed Sea. The passage at Panama must be as frequented and crowded as that at Suez. When the rush has been set going 'by the Canal at Panama, tho time will hare come for another gate at Nicaragua or Tehuantepec— then, and not before. The opposition to the Lesseps' enterprise was raised by the railway com-, panics foreseeing that the wat^^y Must divert from them aepG£bv&rtoi their traffic, and of ccnafse they do not really want to prsss^he the construction of a oanal^aJi^ft C aragua at the Mexican isthmjis any more than at Panama. As fojr the Panama work passing out of the /uands of file present company, it is now evident from the readiness with which M. de Lesseps' recent call for adnitional funds has been met by his countrymen that they have full confidence m the paying future of the enterprise, and will hold fast by it. Indeed, it is m this private way — dividends to the share holders — that France must reap the chief benefit from the canal. As at Suez, her commerce passing through, can be only a fraction of the English. 'J he great public and national advantage resulting from a connection of the two oceans mußt be principally to England and her colonies, and among her colonieß New Zealand m particular ; and, nexf to the British Empire, the great advantage must be to the United States, because of the searoad provided between her Atlantic and Pacific coasts.