298 THE PROPOSED AMERICAN INTEROCEANIC CANAL 



submitted to Congress, in connection with the reports of exam- 

 inations and surveys of rivers and harbors hereafter made to 

 Congress, full statements of all existing facts tending to show to 

 what extent the general commerce of the country will be pro- 

 moted by the several works of improvement contemplated by 

 such examinations and surveys." But, in the face of this pro- 

 vision of law touching the ascertainment of the commercial value 

 of improvements of navigation within our own borders, the pro- 

 ponents of the Nicaragua Canal in Congress and out of Congress 

 have for years been urging the government to lend them one 

 hundred million dollars for the construction of a canal in a 

 foreign country, more than one thousand miles from our shores, 

 without any official inquiry whatsoever as to its probable com- 

 mercial value. 



In his book entitled " The Nicaragua Canal and the Monroe 

 Doctrine," Professor Keasbey says : " AVhat we need is another 

 board of experts to study the commercial effects of the canal." 

 The Hon. Thomas B. Keed, in his article in the North American 

 Revieiv for May, 1899, in referring to " the possible tonnage which 

 would pass through the Nicaragua Canal," says : " It would 

 seem, therefore, that after the question of cost is determined, or 

 perhaps while it is being determined, a commission of compe- 

 tent persons, uirprejudiced, should be invited to study this part 

 of the subject. We shall then be equipped with the necessary 

 facts to enable us to judge of the commercial success of the 

 undertaking." 



Near the close of the last Congress the fact seemed to have 

 dawned upon the minds of certain leading Senators and mem- 

 bers of Congress that the commercial inquiry should have pre- 

 ceded any appropriation for the construction of the canal; but^ 

 the act of March 3, 1899, appropriating one million dollars for 

 the examination of both the Nicaragua and the Panama routes, 

 refers only to the engineering, the proprietary, and the financial 

 features of those schemes, and contains not a word as to their 

 commercial, economic, or military aspects. Action has, how- 

 ever, been taken whereby a committee of three of the commis- 

 sion of nine has been assigned to the duty of inquiring into these 

 particular aspects of the subject. This is not in terms authorized 

 by law, but it appears to be the beginning of an inquiry of deepest 

 interest to the people of the United States. 



It is the object of this paper to present some of the more im- 

 portant geographic, commercial, and economic conditions which 



