The Panama Canal and Its Makers. Vaughan Cornish

in 1850 of the celebrated Clayton-Bulwer treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which was duly ratified by Congress. By this instrument it was agreed that neither Government should ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control of any canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, nor erect fortifications commanding the same.

This treaty remained in force until 1901, and I shall have to refer to it again. Meanwhile the great rush of gold-seekers to California had supplied the needful stimulus to a scheme, already mooted, of an Isthmian railway terminating at Panama. In spite of the enormous difficulties entailed by the pestilential climate, the undertaking was completed in 1855. This achievement, originating in New York, was the work of W.H. Aspinwall, Henry Chauncey, and John L. Stephens.

      

RE-LOCATION OF RAILWAY ABOVE GATUN.

      

MOTOR TROLLEY FOR INSPECTION OF WORKS.

      It was undertaken independently of any canal scheme, but it exercised a profound effect upon the fate of subsequent schemes. The facilities which the railway afforded determined de Lesseps's choice of route, and de Lesseps ploughed so deeply that those who came after him have found themselves constrained to follow his furrow. The "New World" is in fact no longer new, and its statesmen now have to solve problems presenting historical as well as physical factors.

      The American Civil War interrupted the prosecution of canal schemes, but the examination of routes was recommenced by the United States Government in 1866, a Commission finally reporting in 1876^[1] in favour of the Nicaraguan route.

      ^[1] The report, however, was not published until 1879.

      In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened for traffic. Immediately, the route by Panama ceased to be the shortest from Europe to any part of the East Indies. The importance of that route to Asia was thus greatly reduced as far as Europe was concerned, but, relatively, its importance to the United States was increased, for the Suez Canal does not shorten the Asiatic voyage from New York, Boston, or New Orleans to the same extent as it does for European ports.

      The Old World had been severed into halves by the enterprise of one man, and that man no potentate, but merely one possessing the gift of persuasion. By his achievement, which was immediately crowned by financial success, Ferdinand de Lesseps suddenly became possessed of powers such as are not always at the disposal of the Governments even of great countries. He decided himself to sever the barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, convened a "Congress" at Paris in 1879, and inaugurated in 1881 the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Inter-océanique de Panama. He had decided to adopt the Panama route on account of the facilities afforded by the railway. The money was mainly subscribed in France. The American railway company was bought out at the enormous price of $25,500,000, and in the course of the next eight years a large part of the work required for a tide-level canal was well executed on sound lines by the genius of the French, who are excelled by none in the arts of the civil engineer. The exact proportion which the French work bears to that since accomplished by the American Government will be shown later. The engineers now on the Isthmus are full of praise for the work of the French engineers, and their wonder daily grows both at its quantity and its ingenuity. It is only those at a distance, or ill-informed, who have belittled these achievements. Unfortunately, the French engineers were not properly supported. De Lesseps, if he were ever a practical man, had certainly ceased to be so since his first great success. A practical man is one who counts the cost of everything he is about to do. De Lesseps no longer counted cost. He had become as one believing in his star. His actions remind us of those of some of the great conquerors whose early successes have led them to undertake impossible campaigns. The question has been discussed if any human character can stand more than a certain share of success and yet retain a sound judgment. Certainly the character of de Lesseps was not equal to the strain. The expenditure was awful—$300,000,000 in eight years, i.e., more than three times the sum for which the Suez Canal was constructed. The Company went into liquidation in 1889. Much had been embezzled. Much, it is said, had been spent in purchasing the silence of voices which would otherwise have been raised against a Europeanised canal.

      The affairs of the Company were taken over by the New Panama Canal Company, who continued to administer the railway, and, with small means, did excellent work for the next twelve years in keeping the machinery and the works from deterioration, in excavations at the summit, and above all in extending the scientific examination of the country so as to obtain much-needed data for the construction of the high-level canal which was now proposed in place of de Lesseps's project of a tide-level waterway.

      In 1869 President Grant, in a message to Congress, had recommended the construction of an Isthmian canal under the sole control of the United States, and popular opinion since that time, if not before, has always strongly held that if a canal be made it should be exclusively under that control. It was not the least of de Lesseps's imprudences that he proceeded with his project in spite of warnings on this matter. In 1898 an event occurred which made the American nation feel that an Isthmian canal was necessary, and that it must be under their exclusive control. At the outset of the war with Spain, the Oregon, one of the best of America's small fleet of battleships (we write of ten years since), was lying in the Pacific. She had to steam more than 13,000 miles to reach Key West, and the whole nation was in a state of nervous tension for many weeks pending her junction with the main fleet.

      It seemed at the time that the Panama route could hardly be obtained for a canal under purely American control, and a further investigation of the Nicaraguan route was ordered—that route which had been preferred by the American experts before de Lesseps intervened. The New Panama Canal Company had by this time brought their labours to the point where it seemed practicable to appeal to the investing public of the world for funds to construct a high-level Panama canal. To do this in the face of a Nicaraguan canal, undertaken as a national affair by the United States, would have been hopeless: they therefore laid their detailed plans before President McKinley. A Commission was accordingly appointed by Congress to inquire into the best route for an Isthmian canal "under the control, management, and ownership of the United States."^[2] The report was presented to Congress on December 4, 1901, rather more than two years later, and is a document of great historical and scientific interest. The quarto volume of 688 pages is accompanied by a portfolio of 86 maps, plans, and panoramic views. The last of these, showing the mountainous skyline of the Isthmus east of Colon, with altitudes marked, illustrates in a striking manner the conclusion of the Commission that the San Blas route, or any route east of Colon, would involve a ship tunnel. These routes are dismissed as impracticable on account of the altitude of the divide. The Nicaraguan and Panamanian are found to be the only practicable routes, and the details of both are fully discussed. The high-level canal was preferred by the Commission to the sea-level at Panama, and on the Nicaraguan route only a high-level canal is possible, so that in this respect the two routes were considered to be on a par.