The Washington times., 1911-10-28
SHIPPING FOR THE PANAMA
CANAL.

i
owner and shipping authority, is in
this country on business, and has ven
tured some suggestions about the ef-
feet the Panama canal will have on
currents of world traffic. Mr.. Houlder
is Of opinion that very much depends
on the general policy of the United
States in managing the canal.
He protests that there ought to be
no effort at the outset to make the big
ditch profitable, or even to make it
pay it's way. In this he is undoubt.
edly correct. The most liberal policy
will be the most profitable in the end
Uncle Sam can afford to make the
canal toll-free, if he will. In all proba.
bility this country would derive more
actual benefit from tit would really
PAY better, though indirectly-if no
tolls at all were charged. In that
case, an immense traffic between the
eastern and western coasts of this con-
tinent would develop. 1t would be
hauled at rates far below those which
must now be imposed on this same
business.
1t will not do, to assume that the
development of such traffic would be
accomplished merely by taking the
freights away from the railroads and
giving them to the canal route vessels.
The steamships cannot navigate in
land. The railroads must bring their
freight to the ships side for them, and
must take it from them to the interior
of the country. Proper adjustments
of the combined water-and rail rate
will make great economy in trans
portation costs possible. There will be
a development of traffic between east
and west, such as we cannot now con-
ceive. Lumber, for example, from the
north Pacific forests, will be sent east
by water, to markets it cannot now
reach because the toll is prohibitive.
The transcontinental railroads will not
be under such severe pressure of neces-
sity for increasing their facilities in
the long-distance service, and will be
encouraged to develop their systems of
branches and feeders. That is what
the intermountain and Pacific West,
and the whole Southwest, really needs.
1t needs this vastly more than it needs
to see transcontinental routes double
tracked.
In all probability, the international
traffic of the canal will be disappoint.
ing for many years. Mr.. Houlder
shows some reasons for this, chief
among them the high cost of steaming
coal in the Pacific, which will offset the
shorter distances to some oriental or
Australasian markets. There is, in
fact, very little mileage advantage on
the side of the Panama route, in get
ting from European ports to New Zea-
land and Australia. The Liverpool
shipper may use either of four routes:
by the Cape or by the Horn without
tolls; by Suez or by Panama, with
tolls; and it is rather striking that
despite the much shorter Suez route to
the Indies, vast proportion of British
trade to the east still clings to the
Cape route because it is cheaper than
to- pay the moderate tolls charged at
Suez.
With competition for business ac-
tive; with other countries doing every
thing in their power to maintain their
in merchant marine as COM
pared to the United States, it seems
manifestly good business to use the
canal so that it will do as much as
possible to build up a shipping bust
ness for our own country. If under
the treaty with England it is possible
to give our coastwise shipping free
transit through the canal, it should be
done. If it is not possible to grant
free passage to the coastwise traffic
without making all traffic free, then
more than likely it will be found de-
sirable to make the canal absolutely
free, the great American contribution
tn world cOmmerca and nroanar;fy