PANAMA CANAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 15 November 1912, Page 5

PANAMA CANAL.

CABLE NEWS

ited Press Astociationr—By \Ekctrie T(ltgraph—Copyright.)

PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION. TOIVLS FOR SHIPPING FIXED. (Received Last Night, 10 o'clock.) WASHINGTON November 14. President Taft has issued a proclamation fixing the Panama Canal tolls for merchant and passenger vessels at one dollar and 20 cents (approximately ss) per ton net actual carrying capacity with a reduction of forty per cent oa all ships' ballast. The tariff for naval ships, excepting colliers, transports and hospital ships 3s fixed at fifty cents per displacement ton, and the excepted vessels at one dollar and twenty cents per ton net. The proclamation does not refer to the British protest. The rates are based on those likely to be enforced in the Suez Canal in 1913. Professor Johnson's report on the Suez Canal states that it will probably be self-sustaining by 1918. He recommends that the rate per net ton he reduced after a decade. He expects- that the Canal will compete successfully for tho New Zealand trade, and anticipates that ihe foreign traffic in the first two years will not he likely to exceed 9.000.000 tons, hut lie thinks there will he a sixty per cent increase during the first- decade. He does not expect that much iWsbvrlinii commerce v.-Ml Ijf» diverted to tho Panama Canal. President Taft expects that tin l ' -economy effected on the voyaae from the Eastern States to' Australia and New Zealand will attract ail the present traffic round Capetown.