TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 735 



between the East and the West which affect this country more nearly, perhaps, than 

 any other European state. The changes have been in three directions. 



First. An increasing proportion of the raw material and products of the East is 

 carried direct to Mediterranean ports, by ships passing through the Canal, instead of 

 coming, as it once did, to England for distribution. Thus Odessa, Trieste, Venice, and 

 Marseilles are becoming centres of distribution for Southern and Central Europe, as 

 Antwerp and Hamburg are for the North ; and our merchants are thus losing the 

 profits they derived from transhipping and forwarding Eastern goods to Europe. It 

 is true that the carrying trade is still, to a very great extent, in English hands ; but 

 should this country be involved in a European war the carrying trade, unless we 

 can efficiently protect it, will pass to others, and it will not readily return. Con- 

 tinental manufacturers have always been heavily handicapped by the position 

 England has held since the commencement of the century, and the distributing 

 trade would doubtless have passed from us in process of time. The opening of the 

 Canal has accelerated the change, to the detriment of English manufactures, and 

 consequently of the national wealth ; and it must tend to make England less and 

 less each year the emporium of the world. We are experiencing the results of a 

 natural law that a redistribution of the centres of trade must follow a rearrange- 

 ment of the channels of commerce. 



Second. The diversion of traffic from the Cape route has led to the construction 

 of steamers for special trade to India and the East through the Canal. On this 

 line coaling stations are frequent, and the seas, excepting in the Bay of Biscay, are 

 more tranquil than on most long voyages. The result is that an inferior type of 

 vessel, both as regards coal-stowage, speed, endurance, and seaworthiness has been 

 built. T'hese ' canal wallahs,' as they are sometimes called, are quite unfitted for 

 the voyage round the Cape, and should the Canal be blocked by war or accident 

 they would be practically useless in carrying on our Eastern trade. Since the 

 Canal has been deepened they have improved, for it has been found cheaper to 

 have more coal-stowage, but they are still far from being available for the long 

 voyage round the Cape. Had the Canal not been made a large number of fine 

 steamers would gradually have been built for the Cape route, and though the sail- 

 ing ships which formerly carried the India and China ti-ade would have held their 

 own longer, we should by this time have had more of the class of steamer that 

 would be invaluable to us in war time, and our trade would not have been liable, 

 as it is now, to paralysis by the closing of the Canal. 



Third. Sir William Hunter has pointed out that, since the opening of the 

 Canal, India has entered the market as a competitor with the British workman ; 

 and that the development of that part of the empire as a manufacturing and food- 

 exporting country will involve changes in English production which "must for a 

 time be attended by suffering and loss. Indian trade has advanced by rapid strides, 

 the exports of merchandise have risen from an average of 57 millions for the five 

 years preceding 1874 to 88 millions in 1884, and there has been an immense ex- 

 pansion in the export of bulky commodities. Wheat, which occupied an insignifi- 

 cant place in the list of exports, is now a great staple of Indian commerce, and the 

 exporthas risen since 1873 from IJ to 21 million hundredweight. It is almost 

 impossible to estimate the ultimate dimensions of the wheat trade, and it is only 

 the forerunner of other trades in which India is destined to compete keenly with 

 English and European producers. 



The position in which England has been placed by the opening of the Canal is 

 in some respects similar to that of Venice after the discovery of the Cape route ; 

 but there is a wide diflerence in the spirit with which the change in the commercial 

 routes was accepted. Venice made no attempt to use the Cape route, and did all 

 she could to prevent others from taking advantage of it ; England, though by a 

 natural instinct she opposed the construction of the Canal, was one of the first to 

 take advantage of it when opened, and so far as the carrying trade is concerned she 

 has hitherto succes-sfully competed with other countries. 



It is only natural to ask what the result of the opening of the Panama Canal 

 will be. To this it may be replied that the Canal, when completed as a maritime 

 canal, without locks, will promote commercial intercourse between the eastern and 



