The Panama Canal

THE canal proposed by M. de Lesseps, and intended to pierce the Isthmus of Panama is in many respects a bolder enterprise even than the Suez Canal. The engineering difficulties are far greater, the climate is a much more serious obstacle to labour, and especially to that of Europeans, and, finally, the possibility of a rival plan being carried out is much greater. In the case of the Suez Canal an alternative route was hardly possible. The salt lakes through which for a considerable distance the canal takes its course, marked out the best, if not the only possible, line to take. A unity of power rendered rival schemes unpatronised by the State impossible to be carried out, and a powerful and semi-civilised ruler provided a practically inexhaustible supply of labour, besides very considerable assistance in the way of money.