The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-20

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 pool by onc-hah. Nor is the trade of
 the west coast of South America to be
 despised In 1ess 1t had come to be s1so,-
 oOcyoo, having increased nearly s5o,oOoo oOo
 in ten years. The trade of Chile, the most important part of that coast, had in fifty Iyears multiplied tenfold, although even
 nfty years ago 1t was an old settled coun-
 try; & The trans,Andsan ran trade is worth
 that trade of the Philippines, for which 3 we have spent thousands of lives and
 hundreds of millions of treasure. not to Ispeak of the wreck of traditional policy
 and constitutional scruples.
 OCEAN FREIGHT ROUTES.
 Next to consider Is the establishment of
 short routes for al ocean freight between
 our Atlantic and Gulf ports and the ports of Japan and China. Today New York Is l1.oe0 miles from Yokohanas around Cape Horn, or 16,200 around the Cape of Good Hope. By the Panama Canal the dis tance Is about 9600 miles Today New
 York Is distant from Hong Kong Is 200
 miles by Good Hope. which is the shorter I route; by the canal the distance will be
 about II ,250 miles. Japan, therefore. and China will be brought nearer to our At
 iantic and Gulf ports than they are now by distances from 40oo to 1000 miles. New
 Orleans and Mobile will be about as near
 Hong Kong and the central Chinese ports I as are Liverpoof and London. and will be I nearer the ports of Northern China, Corea
 and Japan by from 1.soo to 2.5oo miles. To i, than London.
 Then there is the improvement of our
 trade facilities with the Southern Pacific, will be brought within 10000 miles of Melbourne, the fine metropolis of the
 Southern hemisphere, and its sister city
 Sidney, a saving over either the Cape
 Horn or Cape Of Good Hope route of 5000
 miles and more. New Zealand will be dis tant from New York but 5000 miles a saw
 ing of 5000 c1iies, Those splendid and
 rising commonwealths of the southern
 Pacific will be nearer to New York than to Liverpool, and 700 or 800 miles nearer
 New Orleans than New York. We often
 forget that the trade. of England with
 their 5,ooooeo or 6ooo,ooo Anglo-saxon peo- pie surpasses her trade with the 350,0oO- 600 people of East India. We need not
 wonder that Mir. Chamberlain should be eager to build wall to keep us out. Even
 if the wall be built, as I do not believe | 1t will. 1t will be effectively preached by our Isthmian Canal
 Nor ought we to Ignore the lesser ad- vantage the canal will bring to Europe 1 America and other coasts of the Pacific. | Patriotic as we are, we ought to be wise and liberal enough to see that, in the long run. whatever will promote the wel- fare of another great country Is likely l also to promote the welfare of ours. The dominant character of the new canal in I its commercial relations will however, be American. Europe will in future. as now, l reach the Orient by the Suez Canal; and
 the intimacy of trade between the west l ern coast Of South America will not be effected. Almost the entire South Arneri- l can continent, as it rather surprises | most Americans to realize, lies to the east
 of the meridian running through Charles ton, South Carolina. GuayaQuti, the chief l Pacific port Of Ecuador. and Charleston have the same longitude-S0 degrees west | A NNsuA agfnt lA@ f1Ata H1A.. | and Para on the cast coast of South \ America must forever be commercially as near England as to our Atlantic or Gulf i coast. And Calcutta. the Straits Settle- l to come be part of the Peninsular and I Oriental route tributary to MarselIles or I other Mediterranean ports, or to northern
 DEGREE OF MATURE.
 The Istbmian canal. is therefore. Amer,. l can by irreversib1e decree of nature l honor the courage of M. de Lesseps and his associates and their long unauenched hope to make this American canal Gal
 nc glory. We must generously concede | enat 1t represents a great effort of France l to serve mankind as we'll as herself l Though the money of her peasants and ! bourgeois was feclSlessly spent it was fl,
 something more than provincial or sor- I did venture But, even if the French had l succeeded. the commercial character of | the Panama Canal could not have been either French nor European. The mo-
 ment De Lessepss genius in promotion was crowned with success by the opening of the Suez Canal, the European interest l In Panama or Nicaragua became subordl-
 nate for all time. The connection of the
 M Medfts rranean | and Red Seas might will \ the cancellation of the Clayton-8ulwer 1 treaty. To our country the canal through 1 the American Isthnus must. for all time, belong; and with It's ownersiip will come a inu
 I believe that no part of the United States will fall to reap a large material as well as moral and sentimental benefit from the opening of tiIe canal. That western empire of ours on the other side of the Rockies-nearly all of it the crea- ton of the last half century-win no long CT be dependent upon railroad transpor- tation which must for all time to come be more costly than water carriage In- deed, in the economies effected by the now competition established against existing carriers of merchandise or existing we shall find a capital part of our profit from the canal. The ports of our eastern and northeastern States and their in-
 dustrtes will be put into new and impor- tant relations with peoples with whom 1 their trade today Is slight. if 1t exists ut all And, no doubt. trade relations as yet unimagtned win be established by the
 new canal It has been the experience
 Of the world that with every opening of different and better route for com inerce, whether by canal or railroad, new
 centres of industry and new sources of trade have arisen very different from those which have been foreseen. Human precedence eaRnot therefore, forecast all the effects of the Isthmian canal or iden- tify the sites of all the cities and all the | lines of commerce which it will bring into being. But with respect to one de- velopment-and I believe the greatest de velop9nent-of industry and commerce by the canal. it Is impossible to doubt, That will be here upon the Gulf of Mexico and in the Mississippi Valley tributary to the Gulf of Mexico. Here will be the largest single result of the trans-Isthmian canal Here the canal will have It's best prac- tical vindication.
 The famous hydrographer M F Maury, half century ago eloduently and with much truth compared the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Mexico. the great eastern arm of the Atlantic with It's great western arm. Here. upon this cen trai sea of the Americas, he said ma ture had with lavish hand grouped and arranged in juxta-position all those phy- sical circumstances which make nations truly great. Here she has laid the foun- datlons for commerce the most magnif- cent the world has ever seen. Here she has placed fin close proximity the natural outlets of her grandest river ba- sin. With unheard-of powers of produc- ton. these valleys range through all the producing attitudes of the earth They embrace every agricultural climate under the sun; they are capable of all variety of production which the world besides can afford On their green bosom rests the