The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-05-14
CANAL AND TRANSPORTATION
Boston Transcript.

From Boston to San Francisco via
the Strait of Magellan is 1900 miles
five months for a sail vessel, which
has TO go around Cape Horn, or 1we
months for cargo steamer. The open.
ing of the canal will reduce this dis
lance to $500 miles and the time for a
cargo steamer to twenty days. The re-
suit of the canal, in reducing distance
and reducing cost of transportation,
will be little short of magical upon
American commerce and American ship
ping between the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts of the United States.
It is in this great domestic trade, even
more than in foreign or overseas trade,
that the isthmian canal viii justify all
that it may cost in money, labor and
anxieties to the American people and
their government. The great factor
in the long stunting of our national de
velopment on the Pacific Slope has been
the ugly problem of transportation. The
people of California especially, and to
a less extent of Oregon and Washing
ton, believe that the growth of their
States has been dwarfed by the DELHI
crate selfishness and greed of the rail
road managers, through excessive rates
on both the goods which they have pro-
duced for, and the goods they have
brought from, the great markets to the
eastward of the Mississippi.
To this charge the railroad magnates
have always replied that it was the
vast length of haul-one-third of it
through country still almost desert
and uninhabited-which imperatively
fixed the rates of freight, and not the
extortionate spirit of monopoly. What |
ever the exact cause, the Pacific Slope |
has until now been strangely isolated
from the rest of the nation. But all |
this viii be changed in a way most
when economical cargo /
steamers can, without one breaking of /
bulk, lay down on the wharves of San
francisco goods loaded at Boston
wenty days before. This quick, cheap Il
will transform these
hinly settled States into great, popu-
Gus, prosperous commemorative, ere
ting rich new market for the man
fractures of New England on the one
land, and on the other enabling the
imber, fruits and breadstuffs of the
Pacific to reach the Eastern States
7ithout having their profits absorbed
4 cost of carriage. Splendid as may
e the overseas commercial question
hitch the isthmian canal will bring, the
OLDEST work of the canal will un-
be the building up of the
acifc Slope, which has the natural /
sources to sustain ten times its pres
1T population. /.
This commerce between eastern and
estern America must be conveyed an
er our laws In American ships. Bes-
IN long led in the Pacific trade-so
that many years ago
Boston men, was the vernaeular ON
lie coast for Americans. Boston of
day has the ability both to build
MS new fleet and to freight it with II
lie products of the skilled labor of New
ngland. Our factories near the sea-
oard are in position to profit by
reap water transportation through the |
thmian canal far beyond their com
stitors of the Middle West and the up
er Mississippi valley.
Illinois is now nearer California than
Massachusetts. But with the canal,
$ twenty-day voyage and it's low
eight rates, Massachusetts will be
.tually nearer the Pacific Slope as well
] nearer the overseas markets of the
acifc Ocean.
--a.%.e.-