TO FORTIFY THE CANAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1025, 14 January 1911, Page 5

TO FORTIFY THE CANAL.

« . BIG AMERICAN VOTE. By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright. Now York, January 12. An . appropriation of fivo million pounds has been made by the United States for tlio fortification of the Panama Canal . It appears to have been decided that the Panama Canal is to bo fortified (writes Admiral Sir Cyprian. Bridge in "The Times"). Fortification, it should be remarked, is a very',wide term. It may mean simple defer.co works' and a moderate number of medium-calibre Runs; or it may mean what Sir George Clarke calls "monumental" forts armed with the heaviest guns of the day; or, again, it may mean something between the two. It is difficult to seo what military justification there could be for providing the canal with great and heavily-armed defence works. Such works could be of use only against a strong fleet; and it is certain if the United Slates' Navy wero unable'to prevent that fleet from obtaining a control of the surrcunding waters so. cotnpleto as to enable it to make a sustained attack on the fortifications that the whole object of fortifying the canal, viz., to keep it open, wouid have disappeared. The danger to which an inter-ocean or maritime canal is liable is that of attack by a land force, not by a naval force. This will be recognised. at once in the case of the Suez Canal. A hostile land force, whose assaidt would be really formidable, might be strong enough to seize and keep the canal or merely strong enough to injure it and render it useless. We have here the two cases of invasion and of raid. Against either of them monumental fortifications would bo a poor, though undoubtedly a costly, defence. As long as the United Stales Navy has command of the neighbouring sea invasion may bo left out of consideration. The raid is a much more probable'danger; and, as against the Panama Canal, raids need not come by sea. The best, indeed the only effective,' dofeneo against them is that which can bo furnished by a body of well-equipped defenders. These may have the support of simple defence works having a moderate armament;'but what will be immensely more important to the security of the Panama Canal than any forts or batteries will bo the garrison; anil the numerical strength of that garrison —which may liavo to ward oft' attacks on both sides—is not likely to be small. r: - — ~-~sa