13th September Tuar there will be a water way suitable for the largest ocean steamers between the' Atlantic and Pacific Oceans before many years are past is now certain. That Congress will authorise its construction is indicated in President MoKinley's recent speech at Buffalo. In the United States generally the canal through Nicaragua has been hitherto most favoured. Tts construction has been checked by the fact that the United S: ates has to come to an agreement with Great Britain as to the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, A new trouty was virtually agreed upon between Lord Pauncefote and John Hay as representing their respective Governments, but 1t failed to satisfy the U. S. Senate; and it is generally understood that the motive power behind the Senate's opposition was not any Anglophobia, or any fear that the treaty contained too little for the United States and too much for Great Britain, but the fear of the transcontinental railways that an Isthmian Canal will divert a large amount of traffic from their lines. Water carriage is necessarily so much cheaper than land carriage, especially in these days of 20,000-ton steamers, that the railways fear that when once the proposed Isthmian Ganal is opened, heavy cargo. that is not in a great harry will be sent round by sea from New York to San Francisco, instead of going across the continent by—rail. Means have apparently been found, however, of mitigating the opposition of the railways: and, in an article on the subject, the New York "Nation," in_a recent issue, says, afier commending the tried caution of the British Minister, Lord Pauncefore: " We may, therefore, accept as very important and pleasing news his statement made in London about the bright prospects for agreement between Great Britain and the United States on a new Isthmian Canal fe 4 hers ye practi " ty brought ini harmeny—the Bri Foreign Office, the American Depart ment of State, and the United States Senate. Phot the new instrument has been drafted so as to meet the views of all three, is the significant fact of Lord Pauncefete's interview. It foreshadows agreement on the main point of a canal neutral in peace and war. OF course, the Senate may again upset the whole arrangement. Its capacities for mischief in meddling with treaties are so great as to draw even from ex-President Cleveland a flash of sarcasm. In his 'Century' article on the Venezuela controversy he remarks that it was well the final treaty of arbitration was solely between England and Venezuela, and did not have to run the risk of the customary disfigurement' at the hands of the Senate.
We feel fairly hopeful then that there will be "a new treaty and that it will be ratified, and that it will be followed by the construction of a canal: the question is, says the "Nation," where that canal} is to be? As we have said, for some time the American people generally were in favour of the Nicaragua route, which involved the use of the great deep-water lake in the middle of the isthmus, and the deepening of the rivers which ran from it, on one side to the Pacific and on the other to the Atlantic. This was the route taken by the company which ran an opposition to the Pacific Mail Company between San Francisco and New York before the first transcontinental railway was built. But the utilization of the Panama Canal, the unfortunate sequel to the Suez Canal which brought down the grey hairs of. M. de Lesseps in sorrow to the grave, and caused a scandal in France which has not yet been forgotten, is being now seriously debated. "To quote the "Nation" again: "Last december, when the report of our own engineers clearly set forth the superiority of the Panama route, grounds both of location and of economy, a decided revulsion of popular sentiment on the subject set in. It has since gone on increasing in power, until now even the politicians are willing to admit the feasibility and possible desirability ofa Panama Canal. The Ohio Republicans, for example, left out of, their platform last month the old uncompromising Nicaragua plank, and called simply for a ship canal across the Isthmus.'"
'The reaction against the Nicaragua route springs first from its probably enormous cost. 'The first estimate was $100,000,000, say £20 million sterling; the United' States engineers who have studied the subject now
'£10,000.000 ster put it at $200,000,000, or say at engin have been ing on the isthmus to study the details of the enterprise and the conditions of the rivers and the rainfall have been pushing the estimate up to $250,000,000, or £50 million sterling, "Sir Weetman Pearson, who dug the huge drainage canal in Mexico, and who thus has had large experience la engineering work in tropical countries, has given it as his opinion that, if the engineers' estimate for a canal at Nicaragua is 200,000,000, the ultimate cost will prove to be little under $300,000,000," or sixty million pounds sterling, little less than the total amount of the Chinese indemnity.
The wealth of the United States, present and prospective, is enormous, and Congress is always ready to spend freely for objects that commend themselves, as the Isthmian Canal does, to the people, but the richest people in the world may well object to spend £80,000,000 fran object that can be attained ly half that expen'liture. The United States engineers themselves allow that the Panama Canal has the advantage over its Nicaragua rival in point of cost of construction, speed of completion, and ease wf operation. Neither canal will be an open cutting from sea to sea like that of Suez. Both canals will have locks, the work of cutting through the backbone of the Isthmus to sea level, or making a tunnel through it big enough for masted vessels to pass each other being altogether tuo proligious. A great deal of work has been done already on the Panama canal, and work is still going on on it, more than two-fifths of it having been completed, More than 15 of the total 46 miles have been dredged to the full width, and toa depth of from 16 to feet. Work has been opened up for the whole length of the canal, and the extent of the difficulties to be met with is known and has been provided for, according to the "Engineer." Until last December the United States Canal Commission could get no satis factory answers from the Panama Company to the questions how much it would cost to buy out its plant, and on what terms control of its concession could be secured. But now, concludes the Nation ":—" When the Commission comes to make its final report to the President, it will tell him that the Colombian Government and the Panama Company are randy jointly to make over the Panama concession to this country on the fairest terms and that it has in writing from the Panama Company an offer to sell its plant and dispose of its rights in the work actually done ata price to be fixed by disinterested appraisers. This should make a vast difference in the Commission's report. It should a power ti offer en public i fuer, we may say thas -sseut duti of engineering sentinent, as of financial and diplomatic belief, is that if any canal at all is to pierce the Isthmus, it will be at Panama, and not at Nicaragua."
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Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.