SHIP RAILWAY SCHEME.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 276, 5 June 1886, Page 4

SHIP RAILWAY SCHEME.

There are before the American Congress two schemes for the promotion of commerce across the Isthmus of Panama. One is a canal at Tehuantepec, and the other is a ship railway, that proposes to pick up a loaded vessel out of the water, set her upon trucks, and transport her across the country, and set her in water upon the other side, The Committee to whom this last scheme was referred have submitted a report, from which we will condense. They say that there is a present necessity for the construction of a transit way for ships across the American Isthmus, and submits that the Government should bolster this scheme by giving a guarantee that for 15 years the revenue from the completed railway shall be £750,000 per annum. That is, if the net earnings of the line in any year of the first 15 fall short of £750,000, the United States will make good twothirds of the deficit, and Mexico will assure the other third. The Committee are of the opinion that the road would net that sum from the start, and therefore the gurantee would cost nothing. But whatever it might advance would be a loan, and not a gift, the loan to be payable in fifteen years, secured by certificates receivable in payment of tolls on American vessels. It provides, also, that the liability of tne Government shall not attach until the railway, with its terminal works, has been completed and eqipped, nor until the Company has safely transported, from ocean to ocean, a vessel weighing, with her load, not less than

4000 tons. This scheme looks very innocent indeed, but there is reason to suspect that it is pretty much of a Trojan horse. Once get the Government committed by the passage of this Bill, there would be no great difficulty in obtaining supplementary legislation and direct advances of money from the public treasury. De Lesseps has gone to the Government of France for help in his Panama project—so would Eads go to his Government for help if encouraged by the passage of this Bill.