THE PANAMA CANAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 55, 26 August 1911, Page 8

THE PANAMA CANAL.

APPROACHING COMPLETION". 1 UNCLE SAM AS SHIP'S CHANDLER. San Francisco, July 26. Determination of the method of administration of the Panama Canal after its completion is assuming shape as one of the biggest issues facing the American Government. Within two years the building of the waterway will have been completed, and it will "then be possible to transport vessels froir ocean to shore. This is definitely promised by Colonel. George W. Goethals, the army engineer, who is in absolute charge of the work, and anything this able official has heretofore promised has been realised. The date for the official opening of the canal is, however, January 1, 19-115. In the meanwhile the important question ~of tolls has to be decided; also, whether the Panama zone shall be under a one-man administration or placed under the supervision of a commission, whether United States shipping shall be permitted to use the canal free of tolls or otherwise given an advantage over the shipping of the rest of the world, and whether the American Government will enter into the business enterprise of supplying shipping with coal, food, repair facilities, etc., to the exclusion of private persons or corporations. OPERATING THE " DITCH."

To these and other problems the Taft Administration is now giving considerable thought and time. Col. Goethals, who by general consent is the man entitled "to more credit than any other single man for the business-like way in which the gigantic project has been carried out. lias stimulated discussion of the matters referred to by publicly expressing his own very positive views. In interviews and lectures, notably one before the National Geographical Society, the canal builder has stated that in his opinion the operating of the "ditch" is going to prove a bigger job than the building of it. He is a strong

advocate of one-man control. He him-

self wields the power of unlimited monarchy over the isthmus to-day, and some such power must in his opinion be given to the canal administrator when it is in operation. Moreover, he believes that the United States Government should quickly make up its mind on this momentous matter. By the middle of next year it will be necessary to grapple with the question of organising the permanent force of men to operate the waterway. There are now some 30,000 workmen engaged on the undertaking, 6000 of whom are white Americans. At least half of these Americans, it is asserted, will be required at the canal when it is in regular running order. This staff must lie chosen from the workmen before they arc discharged and return to the United States. Colonel floethals is one of those who believe that the canal can bo so operated as to meet running expense and return to the American people interest on its investment of £02,500,000 —the present estimated cost of the world's eighth wonder. A flat rate of one dollar per ton on shipping has been suggested by the Colonol as a proper toll, the transcontinental railways insist that such a rate would make competition by them impossible. Colonel Goethal replies that the i greater the traffic through the canal the greater the increase of short-haul business to the railways from coast points to inland cities. The Tehuantepec railway route through Mexico will be a vigorous competitor of the canal, and has long resorted to preferential charges, there being nothing stable about its rates. With dollar tolls, however, it is believed shipping would prefer the canal to the Tehuantepec railway. The matter of transferring American shipping through the canal free of charge is complicated by the agreement with Great Britain under the terms of which shipping of the United States may receive no preference. The biggest American shipping interests, however, suggest as a way round the treaty provision that the tolls paid by American shippers should be repaid to them out of the United States Trca-

sury. Congress, which has tho final say in fixing tolls, is not considered likely to make this concession to local shipping interests. THE QUESTION OP TOLLS.

I ">iit Colonel Goehtals has other plans fiir making the canal pay, apart entirely from the collection of tolls. He proposes that the United States Government run the business end of the canal as a monopoly, for the double purpose of rendering the waterway attractive to the shipping of the world and making money. In an interview furnished the New York Outlook, Colonel Gocthals thus outlines his plan:— "Leaving out of the question for the moment the matter of tolls, which is obviously of first importance, let me outline the uses to which I want the organisation now in existence put. First, it must he known that the canal will bring Singapore nearer to Bremen than the Suez Canal brings itl But shippers in Germany are not preparing to change their route to the. Orient yet. Shorter distance alone, with even an equal toll rate, is not enough to influence Germany or any other Power to route her Orient trade via Panama. We must offer other considerations. We must offer besides perfect service through the canal itself, and at a rate beyond competition, service heretofore denied deep-sea shipping everywhere except at terminal ports. We must be able to take charge of a ship from the moment she enters the canal, and by the time she has reached open water on the other side have made her, to all intents and purposes, a new ship, if she needs that much fixing . If we keep in operation our machine shops, if we build and run coaling stations at both ends of the canal, if we have huge laundries with a day and night force, if we have on hand materials of every kind a ship can need, from foodstuffs to engine parts—if, in a word, the United States will do what it never has yet done, exactly what individuals and corporations will do if we don't, establish a business management on the canal zone, then we can get that 375,000,000 dollars back. "If such a plant is equipped we can offer irresistible advantages to the shippers of the world. Sure of a constant, one-price coal supply, shippers could cut their bunker capacity in two, with a consequent increase in cargo-carrying capacity. The "space devoted to the ship's laundry could be cleared for freight. Only one-half the present food supply need be carried. Shippers would

know that repairs, however difficult, c< ild be made in many instances while the ship was in transit through the canal. All this I have urged done—not by a private corporation with the usual preferential system—but by the United States. It is feasible, it is beyond doufl/t profitable, and is in keeping with the spirit in which the canal is being dug."

This would be a new role for Uncle Sam to play, and doubtless will be objected to on that ground by the representatives of the big companies, who would like to gather in the profits indicated. The impending opening of the canal is already being foreshadowed by the stir of events in the commercial world of America. Several big deals for the acquirement of water-front facilities in San Francisco Bay are on the tapis. It is believed San Francisco will gain a tremendous impetus in population and importance in the years immediately following the opening of the waterway. A world's fair is to be held here in the year 1915 to commemorate the undertaking. From Baltimore it is reported that a big company is ready to build sixteen-knot ships for coastwise trade immediately Congress fixes the canal tolls, in the event that the tolls are considered satisfactory. The United States Steel Company has had an agent on the Canal Zone for several monffis. Steps are being taken by this corporation to open trade relations by way of the canal witli South America and the West Coast of North America on a great scale.