The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-08

midst OF the gftdttsb Wbeat ptOuuSAo
section of our country. She has IN India,
according to the latest advices. TAOS
English soldiers, and the native India reg
ular army of 10000 infantry, 2l.700 cav
airy, 1000 artillery and l,41l British Off
GERS. For the service OF these she has
there 10, 1856 horses and 31s field guns
From Calcutta to Vancouver, steaming at
thirteen knots, the voyage will take only
twenty-eight days, allowing days stop
at Singapore and another at Yokohama
for coaiing.
A rail journey of week from Van
couver to Winnipeg would place veteran
English army within easy striking dis
lance of Duluth, st. Paul and Minneapo-
lis. In less than twenty days England's
squadron at Esqulmault could be so
strongly reinforced from the English feet
at the Chinese station that the few ships
we have on this coast could offer no effec-
tive resistance. To reinforce our navy on
the Pacific coast requires long and dan
gerous voyage around the Horn.
But suppose the Nicaragua canal was
completed. Then we could rapidly pass
our ships from ocean to ocean in time to
meet attack on either seaboard. Today,
even if we had strong navy completed,
we would be in no condition to use 1t to
advantage to protect the Pacific coast, be-
cause without the Nicaragua canal we
could not shift our ships from our right
hand to our left, and vice versa, in event
of war with a great power. If the Mica
ragua canal is once built it will assure
the building and maintenance OF
strong American navy, for, if built, we
must control it and to control we must be
able to defend it. Its construction by
public or private hands cannot long be de-
ferred. When it is completed unless the
United States controls the canal, as Eng
land does the Suez canal, the United
States is weaker from military and naval
point of view than before, for with the
isthmus pierced by q naval waterway our
TANKS are turned unless we hold the canal.
The only security of our sea coast is the
building of navy yards on both the
Atlantic and Pacific coasts; the building
of the Nicaragua canal and then by this
waterway we can reinforce our right
hand quickly from our left or vice versa.
The Nicaragua canal is necessary, too, to
connect the whole scheme of our naval
defence both on the sea coast and the
great lakes. Chicago must be connected
by ship canal and waterway with the
Mississippi, so that in event of war gun
boats could be sent if necessary from the
Pacific coast via the Nicaragua canal to the
Gulf and up the Mississippi to ship canal
connection with the great lakes. In no
other way under the existing treaty of
1917 could We quickly get our navy into
the great lakes. In recent report of the
House committee on the new militia bill
its author, Congressman Cutting, says:
Great Britain constantly keeps in her squad
ron, which is at Bermuda or Halifax, OF be-
tween these two points, from four to five fine
gunboats OF such a draft as will allow them to
pass through the St. Lawrence system Of canals
into Lake Ontario, and by the welland canal
into Lake Erie These vessels, without infrac-
ton of treaty, and indeed probably without our
knowledge, can pass so far up the st. Lawrence
that the time required for them to enter aud
cross Ontario and pass through the Welland
canal into Lake Erie must be estimated in hours
rather than days. Once there, even If we sue
ceede6 in successfully disputing the passage
through the Detroit river and Lake ST. Clair into
Lake Huron, there would nevertheless lie at
their mercy the cities OF Buffalo, Dunkirk, Erie,
Cleveland, Toledo, sandusky. and other cities
and villages on the south shore OF Lake Erie.
Adjutant-General Kelton writes the
committee that sin fifteen days our north
ern borders could be crossed by $1,000
soldiers, and there could be landed upon
the shores of our lakes and bays, where
there are no forts, 10000 soldiers of all
arms of the service in thirty or forty-five
days" He adds that it is not probable
that England could land over s., 900 men
in this country in fewer than thirty days,
although she could perhaps get go, 900 here
in twenty-five days. General Kelton allows
forty days for the arrival of troops from
India by way of the ocean and the Cana
dian Pacific railroad.
Now the building and government con-
troll of the Nicaragua canal is essential to
the adequate solution of our problem of
the military and naval defense of not only
our Atlantic and Pacific seaboard, but of
our lake frontier. The splendid timber
resources of the Pacific coast will force the
nation to establish great navy yards in
California, Oregon and the Puget Sound
country in order TO rapidly construct the
navy that will be necessary to defend the
Nicaragua canal, and, with that canal
completed, our navy would be able to
shift its ships from ocean to ocean
with sufficient rapidity to defend the
"Sound country" San Francisco or
Portland; to interrupt the transportation
of troops from Calcutta via Yokohama to
Vancouver, or to reach the Great Lakes
with light gunboats via the Gulf of Mex
leo, the Mississippi and its water and ship
canal connection with Chicago.
If this nation assumes that all chance of
foreign war is over for all time. its present
policy is defensible, but otherwise scheme
Of adequate coast and lake defense is nee
essary, and to the effectiveness of this
scheme of lake and coast defense the con-
struction of the Nicaragua canal aud its
control by the United States is as indis-
pensable as the control of the Suez canal
is necessary to the security OF England's
Indian empire.
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ANXIOUS TO BE DECEIVED.