Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1914-06-10
COMMERCIAL ASPECT
OF THE PANAMA CANAL
Some Wonderful Opportunities
Will be Opened Up
Views of a Country Editor Who Wis
tied 1t interestingly Written
for The Herald.

What will happen when the canal
is opened?
This question is agitating the
minds of the great majority at the
present time.
Those VINO are not in position to
know exactly the situation as it IS are
somehow of the opinion that a great
commercial awakening will at once
be manifest.
Those in a position to know are of
the contrary opinion.
GRADUAL INCREASE OF TRADE.
/ have talked with harbor masters,
sea captains, shippers and engineers
and they are not looking for a great
upheaval in the paths of commerce.
In time, yes. But not at once. The
country will have to be developed
first, and lines of trade opened up.
South and Central America are as
yet unacquainted with the United
States There are in these countries
thousands and thousands of acres of
undeveloped land which can be made
to produce abundantly. All the way
down the Pacific coast extends a vast
desert, backed up and screened from
the rainfall by the Andes mountains.
This desert only lacks water to make
it the richest producing ground IN
the world. The mountain streams at
the back make possible all kinds of
irrigating schemes. 1t has been
found that cotton will grow in paying
quantities on this land and of staple
which at present is one of the most
valuable on the market.
SOUTHERN STATES WILL BENEFIT
No region in the United States can
feel the immediate benefit of the new
route to the same extent as the
Southern States and the vast valley
OF the Mississippi. The latter ter
ritory, the richest in all the world,
one and quarter million square miles
in extent, intersected by five thousand
miles of navigable waterway, with
prolific soil and energetic people,
will find new markets and a new
outlet for it's varied products other
than expensive railroad transporta-
ton. Chicago is nearly the same
distance from New Orleans as from
New York, but ST. Paul, Omaha,
Dubuque, Evansville and Denver are
nearer to the former than to the
latter. 1t is quite probable that the
present generation will see ocean
steamships coming down from Duluth
through the great lakes, an inland
canal, and the Mississippi river, to
the Gulf of Mexico and passing on to
the Pacific and Asian ports.
MUST GET ACQUAINTED WITH SOUTH
AMERICA.
But all this will take time. There
will be no immediate increase in
trade for the route will be new and
it will take time to attract the at
tention of shippers to the advantages
of this route Another thing which
will hinder is the evident disregard
of American exporters of the advan-
tages of South American trade. The
average American is as ignorant of
true conditions south of the equator
as he is of the laws of the Hotten-
tots. We will have to learn that if
we get their good will we will have
to approach them in different man
ner than we do now. We must study
their ideals and learn to approach
them on a common ground of under
standing. We will first of all have
to learn to speak Spanish and how to
approach cheese people and show some
common understanding of things as
they are, and be able to talk it over
in their own language.
Germany and Great Britain have
learned this lesson long ago and they
are enjoying a fine trade with South
America. We send our children to
school and teach them Latin and
Greek and possibly a little French,
if we desire to be real fashionable,
and when they get all through they
are about as useful as golf stick at
the breakfast table. If we followed
the German idea we would learn the
language of the fellow who could do
us the most good and then go after
him.
COSTA RIGA A LAND OF PROMISE.
met a lady on the boat whose
home was in Plainfeld, New Jersey.
She was returning from a visit to her
son in Costa Rica. Costa RIGA is
one of the first countries to the west
of the Panama Canal Zone and one
that will greatly benefit by the in
creased transportation facilities
which are bound to follow the open