Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-11-27
WORK ON PANAMA CANAL
Engineers, It Is Said, See No
 Insurmountable Obstacles.
TASK LOOKS EASIER TO THEM DAILY

Inat COnfrOnts CnHe1 EnB1neer st0e
 vens and His Men-He Is Believed to Favor Employment of Chinese
 CooIies-How Insane Are Cared For, pear to be at all discouraged by the situation on the Panama canal, says special correspondent ofsthe New York Herald, writing from Panama. His di- rect way of doing things has worked wonders in the short time he has been in Panama. The employees give him the entire credit of greatly improving their condition and look up to him as their leader and friend. To them Mir Shonts is a chief apart, Stevens the hope of their existence To saddle MT. Stevens with so much office work would seem to be mistake. The engineers in the field regret it perhaps more than he.
 They, too, have the utmost confidence in his ability in his principal duty-that of pushing the main work of construc- tion. This is not neglected by the ac- z tive chief, who daily is working far beyond the government hours and is up and down the line whenever he can leave the duties of which a chairman on the isthmus or good clerk would z entirely relieve him.
 ] As they study the route the engi- neers are disposing of difficulties and agreeing with MT. Stevens that there is no insurmountable obstacle in the way of a transisthmian canal It looks ] easier to them every day. Most of \ them now see only the removal of 222,- 100000 tons of rock and dirt To the chief engineer the sole problem is that of labor Neither the Jamaicans nor the Martiniques are satisfactory. From the amount of work that so far it has s been possible to get out of either, counting days lost through laziness as well as sickness, the average cost of ' each black laborer, who is paid 80 cents : gold, compared with the cost of similar g labor in the United States, is $5 gold a day. When it is considered that 30,- 900 laborers may be necessary to build the canal, to which must be added the cost of a high salaried chairman and commission in Washington and of the two great administrative establish ments there and on the isthmus and . the expense of sanitation and the re- construction and rebuilding of Panama for the Panamans, 1t will be seen that labor in the ditch has got to be reduced
 1t isn't, however, the price paid for . labor. but the quality of it, that enters 2 into the calculations of the canal build CTS. Doubling the pay of the Jamaican or Martinique negro would only make him work half as long each week. They are like the Panamans in that respect. Formerly the fishermen here made about $3 a week. The price of fish has doubled. Has the fisherman doubled his income? Not a bit of it. Three dollars is all he needs to live on, and he can see no sense in working more than three days when he makes as much as he used to receive when he worked six The same philosophy prevails among the negroes of the zone. Eighty cents a day is about twice as much as they got at home, and there fore three days is long enough to work at a time. The result is that no fore man can tell how many of his gang will be at work on any one day. It is safe to say that not more than half of the laborers so far brought here are at work every day.
 While the chief engineer will not talk on the subject, it is quite certain he has represented to the commission that a change must be made from the labor now in use He is believed to be in favor of having the canal dug by Chi. nese coolies, and it is reported that a
 labor agent at Canton has received an order to send several hundreds of Chi < namen to the isthmus. The employ ment of Italians, Hungarlans and Poles in large numbers has been urged, but it has been decided they would not stand the climate so well as the Chinamen.
 Negroes from the States, 1t is urged
 by many, would do more work with less sickness than all the others. It is advanced that they built the Missis- sippi jetties and do similar work in the southern states, where conditions, according to many judges, are worse than at Panama IL is said the diff culty of making a sufficient number of southern negroes believe this would make the effort to engage them q waste of time. If the Chlnamen do we'll they will replace the West Indian negroes now at work. In the meantime the ne groes are leaving almost as fast as others can be brought to the isthmus. To make them happier the commission decided to provide them with wives and sweethearts. The first shipioad cf women from Martinique arrived re sently and was quickly distributed along the zone. The women were vel -omed by the American families. for antil they might set mp housekeeping t was thought they would make excel lent cooks and general servants. They aid not work very long. Most of the first shipment soon found mates
 IL was regretted by Dr. Bartlett and stan that Secretary Taft did not visit the well kept camp at Miraf1res and see how the most unfortunate of all the canal employees are cared for. In- sanity among them is g-stluaIIy in- creastnz. but not at an alarming rate. There are thirty who have to he re- strained. ell but two of whom are re