THE PANAMA CANAL.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1874, 7 October 1913, Page 8

THE PANAMA CANAL.

NEW SHIPPING ARRANGEMENTS. The near approach of the completion! of the Panama Canal possesses a direct interest for shipping and commercial Australia (writes a correspondent iu the " Sydney Daily Telegraph.") Thq position to-day may bo Briefly explained. It is hardly news to atat* that it is the intention of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to maintain a round-the-world service via tlio now waterway. The Glen and Shiro Lines, which are owned by this company, already run to tho Far Eaßt via Suez. The idea of tho board of govor< nors is that the service shall bo continued across tho Pacific to ( Princo Rupert, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and other ports on the western seaboard of North America, bo as t,o connect with the company's steamers from Southampton to the Pauania Canal. A preliminary lhovo has recently been made by the commencement < t a trans-Pacifio service. Orders wers last year placed with Messrs. Harland and Wolff for the construction of five vessels, each of 12,000 tons, for th« Panama connection. So far as the general public is concerned, it is not known whether these vessels will be employed running to tho Pacific Coast ports of North and South America, or to Sydney, for it is'common knowledgo, or at least tho statement has not been contradicted, that when everything is ready vessels flying the house-flag of tho Poval Mail Steam Packet Company will proceed from Southampton and Sydney via the Panama Canal and from Sydney to Southampton, via the Cape of Good Hope, though whether this second round-the-world connection will bo conducted by the samo ships, or maintained by two different sets of vessels, ' nothing is known. Respecting tho . Pacific Coast of North and South America, and tho route to tlio Orient, via Suez, tlio Hamburg-Americau Line i proposes an itinerary similar to' that winch the Royal Mail Steam Packet i Company is credited,.- though -cargo , only will be carried. The German con- . ceni is interested in a scheme advanced : bv Mr. Bernard Baker, who was president of the Atlantic Transport Com- , pany, prior to its absorption by the Morgan combine. Mr. Baker's schema . is .for sailings between New York /and San Francisco via Colon and other Canal ports. This, coming under tho | category of coastwise trade, would bo confined to American ships, but foreign . investors aro not prohibited from hold- . infi shares in any such venture. _ Assuming that nothing-uiiloward interi feres with the structural success of tlio Panama Canal, it would seem likely that i extensive changes in tho direction ana complexity of many of tho world's shipping routes cannot- do other than tako ' place. The precise degree to which' I Australia will he influenced by the new, i situation set up has to be proved, i ~