370 To the River Plate and Back 



grades, and is partly narrow gauge at present; traffic 

 upon it in the winter months, June, July, and August, 

 has been much interrupted by landslides and snow-falls, 

 and up to the present has been more or less irregular. 

 It is extremely improbable that this road under ex- 

 isting conditions could be made the vehicle of a large 

 traffic in cereals and meats, destined to be sent north- 

 ward up the coast by the canal to North American 

 ports. The ocean-mileage from Valparaiso to the 

 Atlantic ports of the United States is two thousand 

 miles less than from Buenos Aires to the same ports, 

 but the land-carriage from sea to sea would more than 

 consume any slight reduction in cost on account of the 

 shorter distance by water. 



The new canal will give easy access from Atlantic 

 ports to the ports of Ecuador, Peru, and Chili, but the 

 exports of food-stuffs from these states are certain to 

 be relatively small. Ores, nitrates, and hides may be 

 shipped in increased quantities from these regions, but 

 the Panama Canal does not reach out to the great food- 

 making centers of the southern continent, and the 

 result of its opening to commerce will not in all 

 probability reduce the cost of bread and meat in the 

 United States. If half of what the canal has cost the 

 nation had been devoted to a systematic upbuilding of 

 the shipping industries of the United States, the result, 

 so far as the development of commerce and the low- 

 ering of prices for staple commodities is concerned, 

 would have been much greater. But the building 

 of the canal was not undertaken for the purpose of 

 reaching South America, rather or the purpose of 

 reaching quickly and cheaply our own empire on the 

 Pacific coast. 



I would like to revisit South America in the year 



