The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1896-10-23

1908, out IN 1889 everything stopped.
You gentlemen may ask what be-
came of SO large 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.
I 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
hons of dollars. Add to this seventy
millions, the amount spent in purchas
eng the Panama railroad and the as
sets remaining when the work stopped
and it will run it close to a
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 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 l went to Paris. The Panama
Company has been in liquidation, and
in the charge of the official liquidator
There was company formed called
the New Panama Canal Company, and
that company exists today. Mr. b.
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 mill
lions of francs. This money was paid
mostly in large sums.
AS to the cost of completing the
| for, lob or III ORC todau uO,f IN Irr
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
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.
| want to state that, if our govern
ment desires to own canal q 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 a 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.
It 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, Hayre 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 fascination about building canals
that is not to be found in the con-
struction of railroads. There is no
distinctive charm in the building of a
railroad these days. 1t is an old story.
On one occasion here l passed two
hours at the Bishop Museum of the
ethnology of the Pacific islands, and
one of the most interesting things 1 saw
there was a map of the Pacific ocean,
taking in all the islands
The increase of tonnage through Pa
] mama would be on much larger scale
than that of SueZ. l do not think that
any one person was more astonished
at the success of the Suez canal than
was De Lesseps himself
Comparatively few poems have ever
been written on the subject of the Pa
mama canal, but 1 have stanzas, one
here written by Prof. Francis Lieber,
which l desire to read to you