Rocky Ford enterprise., 1912-01-12
MAKE LAWS FOR
PANAMA CANAL
RULES FOR GOVERNING WILL BE
DISCUSSED BY THE HOUSE
COMMITTEE.
2 APPROPRIATION BILLS
MONEY FOR DISTRICT OF coLUM.
BIA AND PENSIONS WILL
BE ALLOWED.

Western Newspaper Union News Service.
MISUNDERSTANDING machinery
machinery to provide for operation of
the Panama canal and control of the
canal zone will be started soon, when
the House committee on interstate
commerce will hold its first meeting
to frame a program for hearings and
other preliminary work as a basis for
the bill which will be reported out to
the House later in the session.
Chairman Adamson and his commit
tee have just returned from trip to
Panama, where they conferred with
Chief Engineer Goethals and other Of
ficers who are working to put the
great isthmian ditch into active oper-
alton by January /, 1915. and. per-
haps as they say. year earlier.
Mr.. Adamson has voiced the opinion
that the progress and quality of the
work done there is entirely satisfac-
tory.
The question of the treatment to be
accorded American shipping. whether
to give craft flying the American flag
preferential rates in connection with
the passage through the canal and
whether to vest wide discretion in the
President as to the amount of tolls. or
to make specific legislative provisions
for the rates, will be fought out in the
committee.
Two appropriation bills are about
ready to emerge from committee of
the House. The District o' Columbia
bill, which last year carried S12,0oO,-
900, will be completed and reported to
the House and it will be followed
quickly by the pension appropriation
bill, which runs usually close to $780,
100000.
Even with this big pension supply
measure, formidable supplement to
the pension expenditures, the Sher-
wood so-called ''dollar-a-day" bill will
be considered in the Senate commit
tee on pensions.
The Sherwood bill. which already
has passed the House. has few friends
in the Senate. and the disposition is to
cut any expenditures along that line
10 at least s25.0O0.000 or s30,O00,0o0.
Chairman McCumber of the Senate
committee on pensions has a bill of
his own embodying both age and
service features. which he will urge as
a substitute. His estimate of the an
nual cost under his bill is approx
mately S17,000,000. while the cost un-
der the Sherwood bill is estimated at
s75,OO0.000.
The arbitration treaties with Great
Britain and France probably will be
called up in open session of the SEN
ate within fortnight. Friends of the
treaties have held up action pending
a marshaling of the strength neces-
sary for their ratification. This
strength has not developed sufficiently
yet but there are indications of a
gain among the Democratic senators
and of a sentiment increasingly ia
vorable to Senator Roots proposal to
provide directly that nothing in the
treaties shall be construed to bind the
United States to arbitrate such ques-
tions as the Monroe Doctrine or con
troll of immigration.
The House sugar investigating COM
mittee is scheduled to resume hear
ings and the national monetary COM
mission will make its final report to
Congress. Senator Dupont will speaN
in the Senate on a bill to raise volun-
teer military forces in time of actual
or threatened war and the House for
eign affairs committee the same day
will act on the bill making effective
the international protection of fur seal
and others in the North Pacific.