The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-10-21

would have brought the amount up to
about three hundred million dollars.
The first subscription was not sue
cess. De Lesseps then came TO Amer
lea, first to the Isthmus and then to
the United States.
On returning to France he again
tried to start the canal company.
The first subscription of sixteen mil
lion dollars was covered five or six
times over. That was the only stock
that was ever issued. Various issues
of bonds came until the last or lottery
bonds, and those were what caused
all the trouble. The authorization for
these lottery bonds had to receive the
sanction of the Government, and as
soon as it reached the point where it
had to be authorized by the Govern
ment the commotiOn began. They had
been digging all right until the year
! 1888, but in 1889 everything stopped.
You gentlemen may ask what be-
came of so large a sum of money,
sum of two hundred and sixty millions
of dollars from 1881 to 1888. Let me
say there were five hundred thousand
persons who held one share each or
one bond each. Hence the burden was
not very heavy on any one person
| This was demonstrated by the fact
| that there was little or no commotion
in the bourse of France when this mat
| ter came to a standstill. There was
no financial disturbance at all. The
! French people believed in the PLAN
they believed in De Lesseps, and they
| believe in the plan now. Most of them
| held on to their bonds, and today these
! lottery bonds are selling very high
All of this goes to show that the
scheme is not downed. You cannot
kill the plan. 1t is impossible. 1t
must go on until finished.
But, of this money, this two hundred
and sixty millions. About seventy
millions was spent in paying interest
| That was not a loss. 1t ran on for
eight years, and the interest from 1881
! to 1888 amounted to some seventy mil
! lions of dollars. Add to this seventy
millions, the amount spent in purchas-
/ ing the Panama railroad and the as
sets remaining when the work stopped
and it will run it close to
j hundred million. Then there is the
work done on the Atlantic side of the
Isthmus, some fifteen miles of digging,
and then some ten miles on the Pacific
side, and more or less work on the
twenty miles of the interior. In fact
almost every line along the entire
route has been worked more or less,
and is done to a certain extent. That
work represents another hundred mil
lion.
Then there is some sixty millions
you can add in figuring in the immense
plant, the machinery, transportation,
the insurance and commission to the
houses. The plant is fifty millions,
and the buildings and hospitals and
other things of that kind would make
it amount to sixty millions which gives
you the whole amount.
{ AS to the future. 1t is now two years
since I went to Paris. The Panama
Company has been in liquidation, and
+ in the charge of the official liquidator
There was a company formed called
the New Panama Canal Company, and
that company exists today. Mr.. Boz
nardel was made president of it. Some
one had to step in for the Honor of
/ France so this company was formed,
and they got together about sixty mil
lions of francs. This money was paid
mostly in large sums.
AS to the cost of completing the
canal: for labor there today you only
have to pay fifty cents in gold, and you
can accomplish much.
There is an invention that came into
use last year that will be of much i'm.
portance in completing this work, and
that it is the system put in operation
for the Chicago drainage canal. 1t is
that of removing the dirt from over
head instead of on the ground. The
old system as used in Panama was
very expensive, but, with this new
method very fast progress could be
made, the dirt simply being lifted up
a hundred feet or more, and then car
ried several hundred feet to the side
and dumped. Dredging is very cheap
The excavating there at the present
time would cost at least fifty per cent
less.
The tidal level canal could be finish
ed for not much over a hundred mil
lion dollars in addition to what it
would cost to buy the plant of the old
company.
1 want to state that, if our govern
ment desires to own canal Il do not
say whether or not it would be the best
thing to do) we cannot do anything
better than to buy the whole outfit and
put on force of men and finish it
( under government engineers.
We could pay the French stock and
bond holders fifty cents ON the dollar
for the money they have put into it,
and, it would be good thing for them,
and we would be getting the plant at a
fair figure.
Here is the Suez canal, worth four
hundred millions of dollars. What
would the Panama canal be worth
The tonnage through the Panama
would be larger than we could dream
Of Panama you can reach from all
quarters of the globe, and easily too.
1t would be such vast saving in time.
Notice the saving of distance between
the great world centres Liverpool
and Sydney, New York and San Fran
cisco. Havre and Yokohama, ETC., etc,
and the distance from these places to
your own Islands. 1t does, indeed
seem strange that we have not gone
at it long ago; that we have not done
something about it before this. There
is a fascination about building canals
that is not to be found in the con-