THE PANAMA CANAL SCHEME.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1737, 13 September 1879, Page 3

THE PANAMA CANAL SCHEME.

A banquet has been given at the Grand Hotel in Paris, in honor of M. F. de Lesseps’ scheme to cut a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The notion of the founders of the feast seems to have been a shrewd one, for though no practical steps have yet been taken to open a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, this symposium is described in the “Moniteur” as the “ Banquet d'lnauguration du Canal Interoceamqtie.” M. de Lesseps’s own personal prestige has induced capitalists to subscribe towards bis scheme not less than eighty thousand pounds sterling, and to pay down thirty thousand, that a concession has been granted, signed, and sealed by the Government of Columbia, and that in November next M. de Lesseps, accompanied by an American gentleman, Mr Appleton, will proceed to the United States to invite the cooperation of American capital in the realisation of this great work. From a purely commercial and financial point of view objections might possibly bo raised against this scheme. But it is impossible to deny that if realised it would bo a great benefit to commerce and navigation, and that in particular it would shorten very materially the voyage from England to San Francisco, the Sandwich Islands, China, and Japan. Whether it will pay its shareholders from the first, or whether several series of shareholders will be ruined before it does pay, is a matter with which the bulk of the public have no concern. But a tribute of praise is due to M. do Lesseps for his grand conception. He is the Peter the Hermit of this commercial age, and if he risks capital where the Crusaders of old risked life, there can hardly be a_ doubt but that while ho has the faith which moves mountains, he turns it to an account more beneficial to mankind generally than the inspirer of the Crusades ; but then Peter the Hermit did not dine at the Grand Hotel, wherein it must be admitted that he was decidedly inferior to M. de Lesseps. Peter the Hermit thought that steel was the means to rule the world ; M. de Lesseps admits the claims of iron, but not as a weapon, and trusts to gold.

At the last meeting of the Geographical Society of Paris, M. de Lesseps made some communications respecting his Panama canal scheme. As in the case of the Suez canal, he himself, he said, would alone ba responsible to the public. He was going to ask them for 400,000,000 f. The caution money of 2,000,000 f. required by the Government of Venezuela had already been paid in. The total expenses of constructing the canal M. de Lesseps does not think will exceed 750,000,000 francs, and he believes it will not take more than eight years to bo completed. He endeavored to show that the difficulties to be overcome are not so formidable as those encountered in making the Suez Canal. He dwelt on the advantage which accrued from the existence of a railway along its course, and of large towns at each extremity, and compared this state of things with the difficulties met with in a desert whore there was not a drop of water to quench the thirst of the workmen, M. de Lesseps, in conclusion, mentioned that Louis Napoleon, while shut up at Ham, thought a great deal about a Panama canal, and sent an officer devoted to the Imperialist cause to explore the Isthmus. The officer’s report being favorable, ho wrote to the French Ministry asking to be set at liberty in order that he might devote himself to the realisation of his scheme, and promising never to meddle with politics again. No reply was given to his petition, and he afterwards escaped and went to London with a view to setting to work on bis project, which is described at length in the “ Bevuo des Deux Mondes ” of 1847. He waa just profiaring to start for America when the Revoution of 1848 made him alter his intentions.