The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-26
TWO GREAT ENTERPRISES.
Projects the Dutchman and the Yankee
 Have on Hand

Projects the Dutchman and the Yankee
 Have on Hand.
 While the United States is Scheming, to build vast reservoirs in the noun tains of the desert region to be used as water source for the irrigation of large areas of farm land, the govern ment of Holland is engaged in the no less interesting work of retaining from the sea great tracts of land which will be used for agricultural purposes. This Dutch enterprise is almost worthy of comparison with our build ing of the Panama canal, at least so far as cost is concerned. It involves the draining of the great Zuyder Zee through a step-by-step process that eventually will make dry land of the whole of it.
 First. dke will be built across the mouth of the sea, distance of twenty four miles, at cost of $16,000,000 After this dike has been completed and the inflow of sea water is under control, corner of the imprisoned sea will be surrounded by dikes and the water pumped out from an area of about 52,000 acres. This step in the work is figured at a cost of $5,00O.00O and it is to be followed by the diking of another area of the sea to the extent of 249,000 acres, and then the remainder of the sea Is to be pumped out, adding 250,000 acres to the total. The cost of the enterprise is fixed at S78,000000. The work is to be performed by the government and it will be financed by the issue of bonds bearing 2.6 per cent. interest The land reclaimed is to be held by the govern ment and rented to farmers at a rate sufficient to pay interest and main- tenance, which is figured at about $7 an acre per year.
 We have compared this Dutch work to our own enterprise of building the Panama canal and it leads naturally to comparison of the method of the two countries. For ten years commission appoined by the Holland government has been weighing the Zuyder project. With the proverbial caution of the Dutch everywhere, the commissioners have pondered over every phase of the undertaking and each year found them drifting little nearer to the final report which the government has adopted. Here in America ten months was all too long for our canal commission to de- eide upon the preliminaries of that greater undertaking. We went at it with slapdash that would have given the slow-moving burghers of Holland case of nervous prostration. Further more we expect to finish the canal, even though it involves twice the work 1.,,sa .s. against the thirty-three which have been estimated as the shortest possible time in which the Holland project can be brought to completion.
 But Is it certain that in throwing eau ton to the winds and dashing helter- skelter at every task which presents it. self, either public or private, we are to be admired above our Dutch friends across the sea, who proceed about their business with such contemplative slowness of motion that one might
 think time crawls instead of running away. When Jack, embalmed in pre- cious memory by Mark Twain, de- clared to the guide who had been tell ing him about Moses and the Israelites, Forty years! Why, Ben Halloday would put 'em across In forty hours" he touched the most vibrant chord of national pride and glory, but is it true note which we hear sounded? In these blistering July days, when drinking water calls and the unbrageous moun- tain shades seem to beckon. it is hard to work up much enthusiasm over the spirit of push which puts 'em across in forty hours. In truth, for the time be- | ing, so long as the strenuous sun is do- ing such strenuous business, we must envy the deliberative Dutchman who talks ten years before beginning g. job which we would do in three, and whose calm life flows always in such low and placid currents.-Kansas City Journal