REPRINTED FROM THE FORUM
FOR NOVEMBER. 1888.
Waterways to the Pacific.
By COMMANDER H. C. TAYLOR.
WATEEWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
In an article entitled " The Control of the Pacific," in a former
number of the Forum, the writer presented some of the principal
facts concerning the Nicaragua Canal enterprise, as it existed at
that time. The year and a half which has elapsed since then
has been full of events bearing upon the Canal question, and for
the most part favorable to its solution. A brief account of the
present condition of the undertaking may interest the public.
When the former article was written an association of Aineri-
can gentlemen had just obtained from Nicaragua a concession of
great value. In the act of securing this concession, news was
received of the death of that distinguished inventor and engi¬
neer, Captain Fads, and it was quickly recognized that now
the project of a ship railroad across Tehuantepec in Mexico
must be given up. This fact could not fail to strengthen the
prospects of a Nicaragua Canal. It was at about this time also
that the hopelessness of M. de Lesseps's Panama scheme began
to dawn upon the business men of the United States. A favor¬
able time for action having thus arrived, and ample funds for all
preliminary work having been provided, active movements were
begun in the various directions necessary to make the inception
of the enterprise worthy of its great future. To secure this
future properly and beyond doubt, it was desirable, first, to sur¬
vey with minute exactness the route whose general location had
already been decided by the exhaustive governmental examina¬
tions of the past years ; secondly, to conclude with Costa Eica
such a contract or concession as should be mutually advanta¬
geous and should bind together the interests of Nicaragua, Costa
Eica, and the Canal ; and thirdly, to publish a just and temper¬
ate statement of the enterprise in all its details, and to circulate
this information among the best engineers and capitalists of this
country and of Europe.
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
m
A well-equipped expedition left New York in November,
1887, for Nicaragua, and has completed the exact location of the
Canal, and mapped the line and its vicinity with engineering ex¬
actness. Careful borings have been made along the whole dis¬
tance, and the nature of materials to be excavated is now clearly
known. The drawings which show the results of these surveys
are completed, and they indicate a length of about 29 miles of
canal to be excavated. The total distance from sea to sea being
169 miles, the remainder, 140 miles, in Lake Nicaragua, the Eiver
San Juan, and their adjacent basins, will, by the use of dams and
natural basins, become free navigation. Without going into the
details of the engineering features, it may be said that former
estimates were 50 millions of dollars for the work, and 15 mil¬
lions for contingencies, making 65 millions in all ; while the pres¬
ent revised estimates, based on absolute data, are about 55 mil¬
lions for the work and contingencies.
The second point was the Costa Eica concession. This has
also been happily arranged, and a concession from that repub¬
lic has been secured, granting valuable lands and privileges, and
guaranteeing to the Canal the assistance and good will of. the
Costa Eican nation and its government.
Thirdly, the dissemination of correct ideas concerning the
Nicaragua Canal has continued unceasingly, and has been much
aided by our newspapers, which have grasped at once the national
and international bearings of the undertaking. Thus with every
chance of failure guarded against, the enterprise now stands ready
to take the final step of organizing the Maritime Canal Company
of Nicaragua. An act of incorporation for this company has
been introduced in Congress, and having passed the Senate last
February, has since then awaited patiently the action of the House
of Eepresentatives. It is undoubtedly fitting that a work of such
magnitude, of so national a character, should be initiated under
the authority of Congress, and it is to be hoped that the House
of Eepresentatives may find the time to grant this authority. But
w^e should remember that this action, though beneficial, is not in¬
dispensable, and that under a charter from a State legislature this
undertaking will go forward to unquestioned success, as did the
Panama Eailroad under a charter from the State of New York,
328
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
receiving always, tliougli without a national charter, the .
nance and protection of the national government.
Whether with or without a national charter, the enterprise
has already received such assurance from this country and from
Europe that it may be considered as having passed successfully
through its earlier stages, bringing before us for immediate solu¬
tion the problems of practical construction, and, later, those col¬
lateral circumstances of commerce, politics, and war which have
hitherto been vague and shadowy, but which, with the certainty
of a canal, will quickly take definite shape.
As to the construction of the Canal, it is in its engineering
aspects a work of great magnitude but of remarkable simplicity.
Nature has done almost everything here, and the able engineer,
Mr. Menocal, whose admirable plans will doubtless be adopted,
has worked always with nature and never against her. A few
large pieces of work present themselves. There is a long stretch
of dredging back of Grey town, a deep rock-cut at the Divide, a
strong dam across the San Juan; but when we examine the
American Dredging Company's work at Panama, when we observe
the ease and quickness with which the tunnel of the Northern
Pacific Eailroad in the Cascade Eange was lately bored through
difficult rock, and when we realize the number of dams vastly
larger than the San Juan dam which have been and are being con¬
structed throughout the world, we become aware that in the Nicar¬
agua Canal we confront a large work, but one having no elements
of doubt or mystery in its engineering features. The total length
of route from Greytown on the Atlantic to Brito on the Pacific
is 169.67 miles, and as a result of the exact final surveys, that
distance is divided as follows :
Free Canal in
Navigation. Excav
Miles. Miles.
From Greytown to Deseado Basin, dredging in
swamp, lagoon, and low ground 12.37
Deseado Basin, formed in valley of stream Des¬
eado, by a dam 4.00
From Deseado Basin to San Francisco Basin, a
cut through rock 3.07
San Francisco and Machado Basins, formed by
embankments across those streams and
some auxiliary embankments 11.00 1.73
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
329
Free Canal in
Navigation. Excavation.
Miles. Miles.
River San Juan 64.00
Lake Nicaragua 56.50
From Lake Nicaragua to Tola Basin, excavation
through ordinary ground 8.22
Tola Basin, formed by dam across Rio Grande
Valley 5.28
From Tola Basin to Brito, excavation through
low ground 3.50
140.78 28.89
Outside of the engineering work many questions present them¬
selves—questions of labor, climate, transportation, food, hygiene,
police—and it is upon the intelligent solution of these ques¬
tions that the work of construction largely depends for success.
That the ability of the engineers may produce its proper fruit,
all their needs must be foreseen and carefully provided for.
The number of laborers they desire must be always ready for
them at designated hours and places, and when not at work, the
men must be fed, lodged, doctored, policed, and amused. Dredges
and drills must be at the engineer's hand at a moment's notice.
Machine shops must be ready for work day and night, in order to
keep in repair the plant, or to manufacture such new forms of
plant as the ingenuity of the engineers may from time to time
devise to meet the necessities of special occasions. All that seems
necessary to complete success is a proper arrangement and method¬
izing of the collateral and auxiliary branches of labor, machin¬
ery, transportation, hospitals, and repair shops, and the careful
maintenance of a thorough and kindly discipline. This method
and management have been conspicuously lacking in some of
the great construction works of the present day, and the finest
engineering talent has failed to save them from the losses and
confusion due to a vicious system, or to the total absence of sys¬
tem. It would be invidious to name specific cases. Suificient
be it for us that they exist as useful warnings, and that on the
other hand we have in some of our Western railroads, lately,
and let us hope in the coming Manchester Ship Canal, examples
of method and energy combined which cannot fail to instruct the
Nicaragua Canal Company and excite its emulation.
330 WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
Some mention should be made of the Panama Canal. About
the time the writer s former article appeared in the Forum,
M. de Lesseps had by a partially successful loan increased his
company's debt to about three hundred and sixty millions of
dollars. Becoming again short of funds, he obtained last spring
from the Corps Législatif authority to issue a lottery loan. It
was thought by some that the reputed fondness of the French
people for lotteries would overcome the bad name which some
years of failure had given to the Panama project. Such wâs not
the case. Their suspicions were at last aroused, and the lottery
loan has proved a failure. About sixty millions of dollars in
bonds were sold, and with all discounts deducted, a sum of be¬
tween thirty and forty millions was realized. It^is believed that
after paying debts there will be enough left to pay one year's in¬
terest on the w^hole loan, and to make such outlay on the Isthmus
as will keep the work from going backward, but will not advance it.
The company's obligations to-day amount to about 420 millions
of dollars, and the annual interest and fixed charges to about
22 millions. M. de Lesseps has recently adopted the idea of a
lock canal, claiming, however, that it is only a temporary ex¬
pedient, and that he will somehow dredge it down to sea level
while ships are using it. No doubt exists that, for the first few
years of the work, M. de Lesseps sincerely believed that the
Canal would be built. But as time goes on, with unvarying
failures, it discredits his intelligence to suppose that he any
longer expects success. It seems probable that he will now de¬
vote himself to the task of placing upon the shoulders of the
French government the heavy load of debt incurred by the com¬
pany, and leave to it the problem of paying at least some little
interest to the unfortunate holders of the company's obliga¬
tions. However this may be, we cannot withhold our admira¬
tion for the energy and dauntless spirit of this gallant old gentle¬
man. His vigor and daring, though sadly misdirected, have
constituted a substantial force in shaping even is, and will pro¬
cure for him a great though sad prominence in the history of
France during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
The general effect upon commerce would be approximately
the same whether the Canal had been opened at Panama, or, as
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
331
now seems determined, at Nicaragua, but with one exception. If
the Panama route had been possible, it would have made imprac¬
ticable the general use of sailing ships, on account of the windless
area which extends into the Pacific from the vicinity of Panama
Bay, resembling in some degree those vexatious calms at Suez
which have embarrassed navigation in the Eed Sea in all ages.
There will doubtless be much encouragement for steamers upon
the completion of the Nicaragua Canal, but this will be caused
by the increase of general traffic, not by any disadvantages for
sailing ships. The position of Nicaragua, in the heart of the
Northeast trade winds, offers especial convenience to all sailing
craft, both in the Atlantic and the Pacific, and though the in¬
crease in steam tonnage may be greater than that of sail tonnage,
there will quite surely be some increase in the latter. A study of
the maps and of the various conditions which govern sea freight¬
ing will indicate the probable effects upon steam and sail freights
via Nicaragua. Between New Orleans and Peru the trade will
be by steamer; between New Orleans and Mazatlan, on the west
coast of Mexico, the same conditions apply. Taking greater
distances, say between Brunswick, Georgia, and Santa Monica,
California, which promise to be the principal ports of important
sections, we may expect the trade to be divided, though per¬
haps not equally, between sail and steam vessels. Looking
further north, on both sides of the continent, it seems quite likely
that, for a time at least, sailing ships will carry half the freights
between New York and Newport News on the Atlantic, and San
Francisco and Portland on the Pacific, while all the ship yards
of the Atlantic coast will probably have their ship timber brought
to them by sailing craft from the Alaskan and Columbian forest
belts, whose inexhaustible supplies of valuable woods closely
border the coasts and inlets of the North Pacific. We must think,
also, of that large traffic which will pass through the Canal, in¬
dependent of this continent, between Spain and Manila, France
and Tonquin, England and New Zealand, and Holland and part
of the East India Colonies. The finer and quicker freights of
this trade will move by steam through the Suez Canal, but the
heavy and slow freights will be largely by sail through the
Nicaragua Canal and across the Pacific ; and this will be insured
332
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
not by the distances saved but by the circumstances of winds,
currents, and weather, which so signally favor the route by way
of ISTicaragua. Vessels from European ports have but a short
distance to sail before entering the belt of Northeast trade winds
in the vicinity of Madeira. Then shaping their course to the
westward, they carry with them the most favorable winds and
perfect weather across the Atlantic, through the West Indies and
Caribbean Sea, and into the eastern entrance of the Canal. Again,
when issuing from the Nicaragua Canal into the Pacific, the same
conditions will accompany them to within a short distance of the
Chinese coast and the East Indies, or to the vicinity of Australia
and New Zealand, with the slight delay of crossing the narrow
Equatorial belt of calms and variable winds known to the sailors
as " the Doldrums."
The return voyages from China and Japan across the Pacific
can secure favorable winds from the west by following the great
circle routes, which, while not increasing the distances, will carry
ships into the higher latitudes where westerly winds prevail.
From Australia and New Zealand vessels could return by sailing
to the eastward with the westerly winds of the South Temperate
Zone, until they should arrive at a point from which the southeast
trade winds would bear them to the vicinity of the Canal entrance.
The distance and the favorable winds from Australia and New
Zealand to Europe by way of Cape Horn are, however, so nearly
equal to the Nicaragua route that return voyages will frequently be
made on that line ; the dangers and expense of wear and tear of
a voyage by Cape Horn being considered balanced, perhaps, by the
Canal tolls through Nicaragua. And although tramp steamers will
be much used, the large traffic by means of sailing ships between
Europe and the western shores of the North and South Pacific
will continue and increase after the Canal is completed.
The details of the commercial changes resulting from the Canal
need not be presented here, but without considering any of the
trade which the completion of this Canal would bring into exist¬
ence, there would be in 1894, at the opening of the Canal, a ship¬
ping of between six and seven millions of tons annually ready
and anxious to use the Canal, and paying in tolls a gross sum
of over $16,000,000. Allowing generously for maintenance and
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
333
repairs, there would be a net annual revenue of $15,000,000. It
is needless to discuss the vast gains destined to result from the
growth of trade fostered by the existence of such a canal. A
prominent member of President Cleveland's Cabinet has said :
"The profits which can now be exactly calculated of the Nicaragua Canal
are very large, and it is unwise to consider the additional gains which must
come from the rapid increase of its business, for to those who have not
studied the question, these gains would seem fabulous."
The mind dwells with interest upon the various problems
which confront us, now that the Canal is an assured fact—ques¬
tions auxiliary and collateral, but whose importance grows as we
approach them, and which may in time overshadow the Canal
itself. The possible changes are worthy of deep study. Com¬
mercial centers have in the historic period moved from, point to
point, with a certain regularity and with a constant regard for
geographical position. Constantinople was the great entrepot for
a time. Later, Venice centered in herself the exchange of the
commodities of the East and West, and held it with imperial
grasp until the scepter passed to Genoa. Still later, passing fur¬
ther to the westward, it halted for a time about Cadiz and Lisbon,
and thence, after a short delay in the Netherlands, it moved from
Amsterdam and Antwerp to London. Here the heart and center
of trade has long remained, as is natural, for its next leap to the
westward must be across 3000 miles of ocean, and to a new nation.
For this, much preparation is needed, and when that is completed,
there is still needed the immediate cause for the change. This
preparation has long been going on, and no one will deny that
New York is now ready, when the change shall come, to assume
the position of a world's entrepot. The immediate cause will be
provided by the opening of the Nicaragua Ship Canal. But not
alone will a great change be thus effected and a long leap of the
world's center of trade, but a phenomenon new in history will be
witnessed, whose far-reaching results can only be vaguely fore¬
told. The currents of trade will be reversed in their direction.
Hitherto from the dawn of history the products of Asia have
moved westward, and European products have gone eastward in
return. Some slight indications of change are to be noticed
lately in the movement of a few commodities from China eastward
22
334
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
across the Pacific, America, and the Atlantic, to Europe ; but a
complete reversal of circulation through all the veins and arteries
of commerce will be established by the opening of the Canal.
There is much food for thought in this fact, and he would be a
wise man who could foretell the many important results which
will flow from this unprecedented and singular occurrence.
Who shall grasp this great opportunity? What group of
capitalists, what nation or race, shall absorb the profits of this
vast increase of trade, the advantages of these great physical
changes in the position of trade centers and in the direction of
trade currents? Shall the sagacious Germans, already intrenched
upon the shores and islands of the Pacific, seize and hold this
power? Or shall a second East India Company grow up in Lon¬
don and Liverpool, with another center in Australia and New
Zealand, controlling the wide trade of the Pacific and pouring its
gains into the already swelling money bags of the merchants of
England? Or is there at last a sufficient foundation for com¬
mercial greatness to build upon in this country? Llave we
among our financiers, whose keenness of vision and business
ability is unexcelled, a few men of such broad and comprehen¬
sive grasp of mind as to realize how simple is the problem of
drawing to themselves and to their nation these sure and steady
currents of commercial supremacy? Practically, New Orleans
will be a closer neighbor to Ecuador than to New England; New
York will be nearer to the Pacific than to Europe. If these sig¬
nificant facts do not now impress our merchants, the near ap¬
proach of the Canal's completion must soon awaken them.
The political aspects of the matter may be summed up, for
the present, by saying that the completion of the Canal and the
daily passage through it of our great coastwise shipping, must in
the nature of things extend our interests and influence to the
southward, even to the Canal itself. There will come upon us,
with the responsibility of our own interests, some duties with
reference to those nations of Central America whose military
establishments are too limited to enable them properly to defend
themselves. Upon the Llnited States must undoubtedly fall
the duty of sustaining their autonomy and defending them from
oppression. This result must come, but until it does come we
WATERWAYS TO THE PACIFIC.
335
have only to insist that the Canal shall be neutral, and that all
nations shall be welcome to it. Such being the case, the military
and naval view of the situation becomes less important. Occa¬
sion for armed intervention could arise only in the event of our
being called upon by Nicaragua and Costa Eica to guarantee and
defend their neutrality and that of the Canal. Then, indeed, the
impregnable strength of the Canal line with its great interior sea
shows out in bold relief. But, as was said in the article, " The
Control of the Pacific,"
"It is the lake that gives to this route a political and international im¬
portance unique and significant. The nation that controls this canal under
terms of amity with Nicaragua will here find rest and refreshment for its
fieets. Here may the delays of warlike complications, so injurious in sea-
water to the iron-hulled frigates of our time, so fatal to their speed, be
safely endured without loss of eíRciency; the crews growing healthier, the
ships more clean-limbed and speedier, in this great fresh-water sea. Hence
may issue squadrons in the height of vigor and discipline, striking' rapid
and effective blows in both oceans, and returning to refit in this sheltered
strong-hold, and to draw from it nourishment and fresh strength for a re¬
newal of hostilities. There cannot be imagined a more potent factor in de¬
ciding threatened difficulties, or in securing- an honorable peace with a
powerful enemy, than the presence in this healthy and capacious water-
fortress of a strong fleet, prepared, at a moment's notice, to issue fully
equipped from either entrance for instant service in the Atlantic or Pacific."
We hope, and may with reason expect, that this strategic
advantage will not have to be utilized in the presence of warlike
demonstrations. No such strong factor, making for peace, has
ever been known, as the existence of this commercial highway
between the oceans. Nor will the world for a long time feel
again an influence so powerful as the Canal in bringing about
that unitv of nations and brotherhood of races which fill the
*j
mind of the philosopher and the dream of the poet.
H. C. Taylor.
Press of The Publishers' Printing Co., York.
3 5556 041 949744