The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-02-20
HIGH-LEVEL LOCK CANAL
REPORTS ON TYPE OF WATER
 WAY SENT TO CONGRESS.

President Transmits the Documents
 and Adds His Advocacy to That of
 Secretary Taft, the Isthmian Canal
 Stevens in Favor of u Lock CanaI--
 Majority of the Board of Consulting
 Engineers, Including the Foreign
 Members, for the sea-Level Type.
 Washington, Feb. 10. - President Roosevelt to-day transmitted to con- gress the report of the board of con- sulting engineers on the Panama canal, together with a letter of Secretary Taft, the report of the Isthmian canal com mission, and a letter by Chief Engin- ger Stevens. The letter of the president was as follows:
 To the Senate and House of Repre-
 sentatives,
 l submit herewith a letter of the sec- retary of war, transmitting the report of the board of consulting engineers on the Panama canal and the report of the Isthmian canal commission there on, together with letter written to the chairman of the Isthmian canal commission by Chief Engineer Stevens. Both the board of consulting engineers and the canal commission divide in their reports. The majority of the board of consulting engineers, eight in number, including the five foreign en- gineers, favor 8 sea-level canal; and one member of the canal commission, Admiral Endicott, takes the same posi- ton. Five of the American members of the board of consulting engineers, and five members of the Isthmian can al commission favor, the lock canal, and so does Chief Engineer Stevens. The secretary of war recommends a lock canal pursuant to the recommendation of the minority of the board of consult- ing engineers and of the majority of the canal commission. After careful study of the papers submitted and full and exhaustive consideration of the whole subject, I concur in the recommends ton.
 It will be noticed that the American engineers on the consulting board, and on the commission by more than two to one majority, favor the lock canal, whereas the foreign engineers are a unit against 1t. I think this Is partly to be explainel by the fact that the great traffic canal of the old world is the Suez canal, a sea-level canal, whereas, the great traffic canal of the new world is the Sault Ste Marie canal lock canal. Although the latter, the Soo, is closed to navigation during the winter months it carries annually three times the traffic of the Suez canal, In my judgment the very able argument of the majority of the board of con- sulting engineers is vitiated by their failure to pay proper heed to the les sons taught by the construction and operation of the Soo canal. It must be borne in mind, as the commission points out that there is no question of building what has been picturesqueiy termed "the straits of Panama" that is a waterway through which the larg- est vessels could go with safety at un- interrupted high speed. Both the sea- level canal and the proposed lock can- al would be too narrow and shallow to be called with any truthfulness a strait, or have any of the properties of wide, deep water strip. Both of them would be canals, pure and simple.
 Each type has certain disadvantages and certain advntages. But in my judgment the disadvantages are fewer, and the advantages very much greater an the case of a lock canal substantial ly as proposed in those papers forward ed herewith and call especial atten- ton to the fact that the chief engineer,