Sept. 26. "THE publication of the text of the Panama Canal Law, signed by President Taft on August 24, thas been eagerly awaited and st. capital clauses will be no less eagerly studied. Criticism hitherto in respect of the all-important question of the interpreteion which Congress might dean fit to put upon the Hay-Pauncefore Treaty was, to some extent, in the dark, both at Home and America. So clear does the "Treaty appear, that it was almost impossible to believe that Congress could approve, and President Taft sign, anything so entirely opposed to its provisions as the Law was understood to be. Unfortunate-' ly, the Law itself leaves no Possible doubt upon this point. After certain details regarding the prescription and levying of tolls: int the Canal, there appears this single sentence shall be levied upon vessels "No tolls engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States." Any am-Dignity that could be found in that enactment tells rather in favour of American shipping than otherwise. Already it has been pointed out in England that the Law does not say vessels ''exclusively" engaged in the coastwise trade, and that the omission leaves a loophole for considerable abuses, in view of the elasticity already allowed to the word "coastwise'' in regulating the movements of vessels bound from and to American ports. In any case, the exemption of coast wise.
ing might be made, indirect-!
ly to benefit—long-distance vessels. Just as, at one time, it paid American banana growers to ship their produce to the West Indies, in order to get the advantage of the famous bana-subsidy, so it might very well pay an American line of steamers out of a Pacific port to run ships through the Panama Canal and offer special terms to East coast merchants hitherto trading with the Par East through Suez.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.