These suggestions were made a few years ago as part of Japan's campaign to develop economic relations with Latin America, Japan proposed that she should grant a loan to Nicaragua în return for a concession to build the much-discussed waterway, by which Japanese shipping would be rendered independent of Panama, and thus of American control.
A canal under Japanese control would, of course, have raised serious problems for the United States. Washington saw the danger signal and when, during the Nicaraguan revolution of 1936, it was feared in Latin America that the United States would again intervene, Mr. Cordell Hull hastened to declare that the Good Neighbour policy precluded US. intervention in Nicaragua or elsewhere in the New World.
Relations between Nicaragua and the United States greatly improved as the result of this declaration, and the Nicaraguan canal once again became the object of revived interest. Despite the view of the U.S. Department of Commerce that the Panama Canal sufficed to meet the present needs of mercantile shipping, it was emphasized by those in favour of the second waterway that it would shorten the sea route between the east and west coasts of the United States by S. 700 miles, with a consequent saving in the operating costs of intercoastal shipping. assumes an even greater importance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.