THE PANAMA CANAL. 331 



outlay, including interest till the opening of tlie canal in 1888, was fixed under 

 either alternative at £26,000,000. 



This scheme, entrusted to the person whose name was so happily associated with 

 the Suez work, has ended in financial disaster. So far from being completed, the 

 works along the greater part of the line are still at ths initial stage of projects and 

 counter-projects. The part actually finished is variously estimated at from one- 

 third to one-fifth of the whole ; officially it is put at one-third, the Colombian 

 Government having surrendered to the company the 375,000 acres of land agreed 

 to on copipletion of so much. Small steamers can ply on the canal for a distance 

 of 10 miles, and rowing-boats nearly four miles farther. About 1,050 million 

 cubic feet of matter have been removed, while what remains represents at least a 

 total of 5,250 millions, for the original plan has had to be modified to lengthen the 

 curves and give the banks a more gentle slope than had been provided for in 

 the first estimates. 



The outlay already incurred amounts to £60,000,000, of which, however, not 

 more than £18,000,000 have been expended on the actual works. But experts 

 now estimate at £120,000,000 the sum still needed, including £18,000,000 for the 

 purchase of the works already finished, quays, piers, sections of the canal, various 

 cuttings, embankments and buildings. The main cutting itself represents an 

 expenditure of probably £52,000,000. 



Ten years have passed from the date of the concession to that of the catastrophe, 

 and it is calculated that the completion of the work would take at lea.st another 

 twenty years of continuous labour. The date fixed by the Colombian Government for 

 the opening of the canal was January 31, 1893, while the company promised to have 

 everything finished by the year 1887. 



Such an enterprise would, no doubt, be a mere trifle for a comity of nations 

 working in harmony for the common good. But under the actual conditions, where 

 the civilised nations of the earth incur a yearly expenditure for military purposes 

 of twice the sum needed for this enterprise, international ri\*alries naturally prevent 

 the interested Powers from making a collective outlay which might benefit one 

 more than another. 



Hence the latest and relatively less ambitious projects contemplate a navigable 

 way in successive stages, each stage being regulated by a system of locks. But 

 a tremendous difficulty still remains, that of the excessive flood waters, which wash 

 down vast quantities of alluvial matter equally daugeious to any canal, whether at 

 sea-level or with locks. According to a plan proposed «by the first engineers and 

 since diversely modified, it wall be necessary to store the overflow by vast dams 

 capable of retaining as much as ten or eleven billion cubic feet. These embank- 

 ments Avill transform to a chain of lakes the whole middle course of the Chagres as 

 far as a point above Cru ces. 



To protect the canal from the floods, it has even been proposed to deflect the 

 course of the river itself, and send it through some tunnel not yet planned to the 

 Gulf of Panama. Thus, even for a simple canal with locks, enormous works have 

 still to be executed. And when all is done, the economic value of the undertaking 



