308 THE PROPOSED AMERICAN INTEROCEANIC CANAL 



Company, of which the late Count de Lesseps was president), 

 presented to Congress and to the President of the United States 

 certain picturesque and elaborately prepared documents with the 

 object in view of proving that it would be much better for the 

 government of the United States to grant large financial aid for 

 the completion of that enterprise than to construct the Nicaragua 

 canal. Under the title " The Traffic of the Panama Canal," the 

 report presented b} r this company merely states that it'has adopted 

 a new method of computing the probable tonnage of the proposed 

 canal and that the results obtained are most exact. But, strangely 

 enough, like all the deliverances of the Nicaragua Canal pro- 

 ponents, it fails to state what those results are. from what par- 

 ticular commercial movements the expected tonnage is to come, 

 or of what products its traffic is expected to be composed. The 

 amount of shipping which would probably pass through either 

 of the proposed canals is the vital point upon which the practi- 

 cability of any American isthmian canal must turn. Failure to 

 state it, at this time, must therefore stand as a confession of the 

 commercial unworthiness of an}^ trans-isthmian scheme until the 

 question as to its commercial possibilities has been placed beyond 

 all doubt. Nevertheless the proponents of the Panama Canal 

 were able to lead Congress to order a new American interoceanic 

 canal commission, at the enormous outlay of one million dollars, 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the cost of the two rival projects 

 and the practicabilit} r of placing either one of them " under the 

 control, management, and ownership of the United States." Un- 

 fortunately,' in this statutory enactment, no provision was made 

 for the investigation of the many and difficult economic and com- 

 mercial problems upon the proper solution of which depends the 

 vitally important question as to the commercial value of any 

 American interoceanic canal. 



The important question as to the military value of an Ameri- 

 can interoceanic canal has never }^et been determined by any 

 thorough and impartial governmental inquiry. Thus far pro- 

 ponents of canal schemes have been able to prevent such inquiry 

 by order of Congress. The governmental reports touching upon 

 this feature of the proposed canals are, on the whole, unfavor- 

 able. It is now seen that if the Nicaragua Canal had been com- 

 pleted before the outbreak of the late war with Spain the U. S. 

 battleship Oregon would not have passed through it, for the rea- 

 son that the warships which would have been required for the 



