New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1907-02-07
LABOR At PANAMA..

Nothing could be more encouraging than one
feature Of the report which the President has
Just received from Panama, to wit. that relating
to the number and source Of the laborers who
are now being secured. The question whether
the work is TO be done by contract or by the
government itself IS one of administrative eX-
pediency, which, important as it may have
seemed at times. may be regarded by the nation
at large with comparative Indifference There is
no doubt that the canal can be constructed
economically and expedtiously under either sys-
tenn. The report of the actual amount of ex-
cavatiOn now being done in month IS highly
gratifying, but il is not, after all, the most sig
nificant thing, for, given the necessary amount
and quality of labor, the amount of work done
follows as a matter of course. The question of
Iabor-the rank and file of common, unskilled
labor-has been, as we have contended from the
beginning. the real crux of the entire situation.
We need not rehearse what has already been
said concerning the various kinds of labor-the
impossibility Of getting it from the United
States, the disappointing inefficiency of West
Indian Negro labor, the undeSirability of Chinese
labor except as a last resort, and then under the
most exacting and rigid safeguards, and the
supreme desirability, from all points OF view
of sufficient supply from that very stock which
has furnished the best elements of the existing
population of Panama. The hopeful, we might
indeed, say the exultant, feature of the present
news, confirming some former but recent intima
lions, is that such a supply is at last being Sc
cured. Spanish and Italian laborers, we are
told, are now pouring into the canal zone at the
rate Of a thousand month At that rate there
will soon be as many as are needed, for we may
expect the number not to decrease but rather
TO increase, when we consider what vast multi
tudes are steadily pouring into other Latin
American countries from the two great Latin
peninsulas Of Southern Europe.
This influx of Latins, and especially Of Span
iards, is highly gratifying for a number of rea-
sons. The first is, OF course that it will enable
us to get the canal dug promptly. for there Is
probably no more efficient workman in the world,
at any rate, for such a country as that than the
sturdy and enduring Northern Spanard. An
other. scarcely less important-and, indeed, Of
more lasting importanCe-is that these Span
iards are not mere wageseekers, who Will work
there for a time and then go home again or
somewhere else Most of them Will remain on
the isthmus as permanent cOlonsts. Now. there
is nothing more needed by Panama and by the
canal zone than an increase Of permanent popU-
latiOn, to settle the unoccupied lands and to
develop the rich resources Of the country, and
because both of their intrinsic character and Of
their close kinshp with the dominant element
Of the existing population there could be no
more desirable settlers than those who are now
said to be going thither. An army Of twenty
thousand or thirty thousand lusty and energetic
Spaniards will indeed, make the dirt fly" on
the great canal, and after that canal is finished
and opened to the commerce of the world they
and their families. and their friends who will
follow them, will greatly help to make the zone
and the whole Republic Of Panama the produc-
tive and prosperous region which nature appar-
emily intended them to be.