The Isthmus of Panama, a crossroads of the world ever since Balboa first stood upon "a peak in Darien" and made his great discovery, loomed large on the Congressional horizon recently, after President Roosevelt's strong advocacy of an early start on a third set of locks for the Big tne new locks, approved in principle by the last session of Congress but for the construction of which no money is yet available, are only one of many measures advocated by the President and the War and Navy Departments to crease the capacity, decrease the vulnerability and strengthen the defences of the Panama Canal This programme was instituted a year ago, when Congress appropriated more than $50,000,000 for the construction of new barracks, installation of more guns, improvement of zir fields, more planes and more soldiers, and "bomb proofing" of canal structures, The canal today is far better prepared for defence than it was one year ago. There are almost 20,000 troops there today as compared to some 12000 a year ago, and the defence forces have just been reorganized for effectiveness.
The Panama Canal, which at present represents a capital investment of about $541,000,000 (700,000,000 or more if costs of national defence installations are included) and which has been earning almost $15,000,000 annually, has long been of twin importance to the nation—as a commercial waterway which shortens the sea route from New York to San Francisco by 7,873 miles, and as a link between our ocean frontiers by means of which the American fleet could quickly be shuttled to meet attack from east or west.
Its military importance has, in recent years, transcended its commercial importance—at least in the public mind—and it was primarily for military reasons that Congress last year authorized the construction of a third set of locks—to be constructed 400 to 900 yards distant from the present twin set of locks. They are io be "bomb proofed" so far as possible and be 1,200 feet long, 135 feet wide and 45 feet deep, as compared to the 1,000-foot length and 110-foot beam of the present locks, The new locks will not require a new channel, or a separate canal.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.