THE UNITED STATES AND THE PANAMA CANAL. "Right and Duty are twin brothers; they are like the two electric flames appearing at the yard-arms of the Mediterranean, called by the ancient mariners Castor and Pollux. When both are visible, a fair and pleasant course is expected, but one alone portends stormy mischief.. Liberty, without conscientiousness of action, rights, without acknowledged obligations necessarily lead to absolutism, first to Democratic and through it generally to monarchic." FRANCIS LIEBER. THE International Scientific Congress of Paris, May 15th-26th, 1879, composed of ninety-eight eminent geographers and other scientists, merchants, naval officers and engineers from England, France, Holland, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and the United States, &c., decided by seventy-eight to eight -twelve not voting. that "Le Congrès estime que le percement d'un canal interocéanique à niveau constant, si désirable dans l'intérêt du commerce et de la navigation, est possible; et que ce canal maritime pour répondre aux facilités indispensables d'accés et d'utilisation que doit offrir avant tout un passage de ce genre, doit être dirigé du golfe de Limon à la baie de Panama." The funds deemed necessary for the accomplish 1 ment of this project have been guaranteed. Still fresh in mind is the brilliant success of the subscription opened Dec. 7th, 8th, and 9th, 1880, when, on M. Lesseps' call for six hundred million francs, he was offered twelve hundred millions! Now the work is being pushed forward with energy by thousands of workmen suitably equipped, cared for by the best physicians, and guided by some of the ablest engineers of the age, such as Armand Reclus, commander in the French navy; Mr. Dirks, chief engineer of the Waterstaat (dyke system) of Holland, who conducted the building of the great Amsterdam Canal; United States Col. of engineers, Totten, who constructed the Panama railroad in conjunction with Colonel Trautwine United States General Wright, former chief of General Sherman's staff; M. Bontan, a prominent engineer in the corps des mines of France; and M. Hersent, the famous contractor for the works on the Suez Canal, the diminution of Danubian floods, and the enlargement of the Antwerp harbour. And the presiding spirit of the work is M. Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the man, now seventy-seven years old, who, after more than ten years' struggle with scientists and engineers, against Turkey and England, in the teeth of Lord Palmerston's and Stratford de Redcliffe's official veto to the enterprise, dug the Suez Canal through the "shifting sands" of Egypt. He has said that the Panama project offers less difficulties than did the construction of the Suez Canal; that he has greater confidence in its success than he had in the Suez undertaking; he has promised to build it and to open it to traffic in 1888. If constructed with the goodwill and guarantee of the great commercial nations, the canal cannot fail to become a blessing to the world's commerce and a great financial success. Most of the rapidly increasing trade between Europe and the Pacific shores, would prefer a passage-of at the most but two days' length-through the canal, assisted largely by the gulf stream, in employing that route and saving three thousand miles, to the tedious, stormy and dangerous rounding of Cape Horn. The yearly increasing trade of Japan and China with the East Coast of the Americas, with Cuba and the West Indies, as well as with a great portion of Europe, would largely patronize the canal, and the greater portion of the traffic between the Atlantic and Pacific shores in both Americas would find the Isthmian canal route advantageous above all others. North Canadian commerce between both its shores and the immense South American trade of Rio Janeiro and Buenos Ayres with Valparaiso and Lima, would not generally use the canal, but the great bulk of the world's trade would prefer to pass between the two Americas. The official estimates made by Captain Davies, 1 * |