The support of the Panama route as against the Nicaraguan for an inter-cceanio canal has gained enormously within the past two weeks. In view of the definite offer of the J'rench Panama Company to sell all its properties and rights for $40,000,000, the American Canal Commission has made a supplemental report recommending this route. Before purchasing the Panama properties, however, the United States would have to secure from the Government of Colombia permission for the Panama Company to transfer its interests without suffering the penalty of /—_forfeiture which the original concession provides. After securing this permission, the United States would have to negotiate a treaty with Colombia looking to the construction, and exclusive control of the canal by this Government. These various stages must take time, and if, as is believed, the recommendation of the commission is subject to such conditions, the fact will be taken advantage of both by the opponents of the Panama route, and the opponents of all canal legislation in order to secure delay in Congress.
The Partisans of Nicaragua. freely asserted by the friends of the Nicaraguan route that the action of the commission will prevent all legislation during the present session. Senator Morgan has declared over and over again, that he would not take the Panama properties and concessions if they were offered for nothing. Several other members of the Senate Committee are as strongly wedded to the Nicaraguan route as Morgan. Mitchell of Oregon and Harris of Kansas are quoted as saying that they will prevent all action y Congress rather than abandon the Nicaraguan project. In any event, there is sure to be a long and acrimonious debate in the Senate, with doubt as to the action of the House in case the Senate adopt the commission's recommendations.
The Southern Senators, as a rule, are fixed in their opposition to the Panama route. It is several hundred miles farther south than Nicaragua, and a canal there would divert the course of commerce from the southern ports of Mobile, New Or-Jeans and Galveston, all of which would profit greatly froma Nicaraguan canal. The feeling among the Senators from the Pacific slope is also very strong for the Nicaraguan route on account of its propinquity to the northern Pacific ports.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.