The Prescott daily news., 1909-03-04

trade between this country and the Philippines will be marked upon our sale of cottons, agricultural machinery and other manufactures. The necessi- ty of the establishment of direct lines of steamers between North and South America has been brought to the at tention of congress by my predecessor and by Mir. Root before and after his noteworthy visit to that continent, and l sincerely hope that congress may be induced to see the wisdom of tenta- tive effort to establish such lines by the use of mail subsidies.
 The importance which the depart ment of agriculture and of commerce and labor may play ill ridding the markets of Europe of prohibitions and discriminations against the importa- ton of our products is fully under stood, and it is hoped that the use of the maximum and minimum feature of our tariff law to be soon passed will be effective to remove many of those restrictions.
 &oSN idi 1SiSH0Sos
 The Panama canal will have q most important bearing upon the trade be- tween the eastern and the far west ern sections of our country and will greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern and the western seaboard and may possibly revolutionize the transconti- mental rates with respect to bulky mer chandise. It will also have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern SeabOard of the United States and the western coast of South America and indeed with some of the important ports of the east coast of South America reached by rail from the west coast. The work on the canal is making most sat iSfactory progress. The type of the canal as lock canal was fixed by congress after full consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority of the consulting board and after the recommendation of the war department and the executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that something had occurred on the isthmus to make the lock type of the canal less feasible than it was SUD- posed to be when the reports were made and the policy determined on led to a visit to the isthmus of a board of competent engineers to exam inc the Gatun dam and locks which are the key of the lock type. The re- port of that board shows that nothing has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which should change the views once formed in the original discussion. The construction will go on under a most effective organization controlled by Colonel Goethals and his fellow army engineers associated with him and will certainly be completed early in the next administration, if not before.
 Some tyre of canal must be con- structed. The lock type has been se- lected. We are all in favor of having 1t built as promptly as possible. We must not now, therefore, keep up fire in the rear of the agents whom we have authorized to do our work on the isthmus. We must hold up their hands, and, speaking for the incoming administration, wish to say that propose to devote all the energy possi ble and under my control to the push ing of this work on the plans which have been adopted and to stand behind the men who are doing faithful hard work to bring about the early compile tion of this the greatest constructive enterprise of modern times.
 Free Trade With Philippines.
 The governments of our dependen- cies in Porto Rico and the Philippines are progressing as favorably as could be desired. The prosperity of Porto Rico continues unabated. The busi- ness conditions in the Philippines are not all that we could wish them to be, but with the passage of the new tarin bill permitting free trade between the United States and the archipelago, with such limitations in sugar and tobacco as shall prevent injury to the domestic interests on those products, we can count on an improvement in business conditions ill the Philippines and the development of mutually profitable trade between this country and the islands. Meantime our gov ernment in each dependency is uphold ing the traditions of civil liberty and increasing popular control which might be expected under American auspices. The work which we are doing there rebounds to our credit as nation.
 Words of Friendship For the South.