The Washington herald., 1910-10-06

New York, Oct. 5.-Lieut. Col. George
w. Goethsls, chairman OF the Panama
Canal Commission and chief engineer Of
the Panama Canal. arrived to-day by the
Colon for brief visit. He has come Up
for the marriage of his son. which IS to
take place at Watertown. y. Y. next
Tuesday, and he expects TO leave New
York the next day for the Canal Zone.
Col. Goethals says that If ne still has
anything TO do with ii. the canal viii
surely be opened on January l, 1915. He
feels pretty sure that the actual work OF
construction will have been completed
considerably before that time, but there
will be tubing TO DO and a lot Of machin-
cry to try out, because ne does not want
anything TO break down after the canal
has been officially declared open. So
even If the canal seems quite ready be-
fore that time. he proposes 10 take no
risks so the date already set for the
opening. January /, 1915. still stands.
Pushing Concrete Work.
We are pushing the concrete work in
the locks along very rapidly" said Col
Goethals at the Hotel Wolcott to-day.
and the excavation is going along now
more rapidly than at any time during a
wet season. We have some 30000 yards
to dig out in the Chagres River section.
north of Culebra cut, and we are work
ing at that when the floods will let US
The river has stayed up pretty Well this
season. but the floods have not been so
bad as during other seasons. This 300O.-
600 cubic yards Is scattered over about
eight miles OF the canal route.
"Culebra cut Will be the last thing An
ished. 1t is the most gigantic of all the
difficulties 10 overcome IN the canal con-
sTuction, and It is by many times the
biggest piece OF excavation work yer un-
dertaken. An Englishman by the name
of DR.. Vaughcornish. the representative
OF an English scientific body. who has
recently been on the canal for his third
visit, told me that on his two previous
visits he had considered the Gatun dam
as the really great experimental feature
Of the canal project, but that after seeing
the dam in its present stage he was sur
prised that he had ever regarded il in the
nature of an experiment. and had come
TO the conclusion that the experiment was
really the Cllebra cut.
You have heard a great deal of the
increased cost of living here" continued
Col. Goethals, with smile we have
also heard something about It on the
isthmus. II led US to make an lnvesti-
cation and We found that the cost of
living on the isthmus is exactly the same
as il was in 1907. No, to the best of my
knowledge, we had no inquiries on the
subject from the recent Lodge commits
sion"
Ask for Higher Wages.
But it is a fact that when the me-
chanics-what we call our hourly men
heard of the higher cost of living I'D
here. and understood that wages had
gone up, they made a demand for an in
crease in wages of 20 per cent. based on
the cost of living. Now during the hard
times of 1907 We had not reduced the pay
OF the employees on the canal, but I
thought if the cost of living down there
had gone up, the demand was worthy of
consideration, so l got Mai Wilson. who
is in charge of the commissary, to make
a thorough inquiry into the cost of arti-
cles sold on the isthmus and the cost TO
the men-in fact. to prepare full statis-
tics on everything pertaining thereto
and the result might astonlsh anybody
up here who has TO pay more for his
food than he did three years ago. The
major produced figures that demonstrate
absolutely that the cost of living on the
isthmus had not gone up in the three
years fraction OF per cent. One rea-
son is that we buy in such tremendous
quantities. buy from competitive bid
Doors ~ Inches Thick, S1.5O Apiece.
Frank Lbbey & Co. 6th & n Y. Ave