THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK. 455 



that the canal presents no insuperable obstacles, and that its comple- 

 tion is a question of time and money. 



Addenda. — In a report dated September 1st, Sefior Armero, agent 

 of the Colombian Government, estimates the whole sum required to 

 finish the canal at 3,012,495,400 francs, equal to 1602,639,080. This 

 fabulous sum he believes will be raised because so many millions are 

 already sunk in the work, and half a million holders of stocks and 

 bonds are interested, and the honor of France is at stake. But at the 

 rate of progress so far attained the work can not be completed, nor 

 can even the temporary canal, with locks, etc., now proposed by M. 

 de Lesseps, be opened to traffic in 1889 or even in 1892, the year in 

 which the concession terminates. 



The proposed plan of M. de Lesseps is to excavate the 60 kilo- 

 metres of lower elevations by present methods, and to form a lake of 

 the 14 kilometres of central mass, to be reached on both the Pacific 

 and the Atlantic sides by locks. By this means he proposes to finish 

 the temporary canal by 1890 at a cost of 1,500,000,000 francs. The 

 temporary canal completed, dredges will continue their work in the 

 lake and gradually deepen the channel till a sea-level canal shall be 

 formed from ocean to ocean. 



THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK— PEESENT AND PROSPECTIVE, 



Bt Hon. DAVID A. WELLS. 

 ECONOMIO DISTURBANCE SERIES, No. VIII. 



PART I. 



THE predominant feeling induced by a review and consideration 

 of the numerous and complex economic changes and disturbances 

 that have occurred since 1873 (as has been detailed in the fores:oin<r 

 papers of this series), is undotibtedly, in the case of very many per- 

 sons, discouraging and pessimistic. What many think but hesitate to 

 say, finds forcible expression in the following extract from a letter 

 addressed to the writer by a large-hearted, sympathetic man, who is at 

 the same time one of the best known of American journalists and 

 leaders of public opinion. After referring to his great interest in the 

 general subject, he says : 



But what a deplorable and quite awful picture you suggest of the future ! 

 The wheel of progress is to be run over the whole human race and smash us all, 

 or nearly all, to a monstrous flatness. I get up from the reading of the articles 

 scared, and more satisfied than ever before that the true and wise course of every 

 man is to get somewhere a piece of land, raise and make what he can for him- 

 self, and try thus to get out of the crushing process. It seems to me that what 

 we call civilization is to degrade and incapacitate the mass of men and women ; 

 and how strange and incongruous a state it is. At the same time tliese masses 

 of men are thrown out of their accustomed employments by the introduction or 



