Mr. STEVENS. Not all along; we are building others.

Senator SIMMONS. You are going to have it connected with all parts of the canal strip?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. I have seen the statement in the press very frequently that an American going there soon finds that the climate takes all the energy out of him. Is there anything in that statement? Mr. STEVENS. That may be the result of individual experience. I have myself thought no man born and raised in the Northern States can go down there and retain the same liking for work and retain the same amount of ambition that he has up here.

Senator SIMMONS. Does that go so far as to affect his labor efficiency?

Mr. STEVENS. I do not know that it has done so yet, except possibly in some cases.

Senator SIMMONS. Or in the conditions you hope to produce there? Mr. STEVENS. The general supposition is that a white man ought to spend a month or six weeks out of the twelve months of the year in a colder country. I do not believe the average white man will go down there and stay four or five years and feel as ambitious as he does up here. I would not expect myself to do so if I remained there long. Senator SIMMONS. What per cent of the population there is white? Mr. STEVENS. In the Zone, I believe, we have upward of 3,000 whites out of 15,000 or 18,000 altogether on the Zone-that is, of all classes.

Senator SIMMONS. Are they coming in to any extent?

Mr. STEVENS. We are sending people there all the time; yes.

Senator SIMMONS. I mean outside of those who go there to engage in work for the Government.

Mr. STEVENS. A few. There are no settlers because there is no farming; but you occasionally see whites in there that are not brought in by the Commission.

Senator SIMMONS. Why do you pay the whites in gold and the blacks in silver? You may have gone into that, but I was not here when you began your statement this afternoon.

Mr. STEVENS. I replied, I think, that I do not know. This policy was established before I had anything to do with the Isthmus.

Senator SIMMONS. You said that the gold was United States gold, or rather paper money-gold certificates. Is the silver you speak of our silver?

Mr. STEVENS. No; it is the Panamanian issue.

Senator SIMMONS. What is the value?

Mr. STEVENS. Fifty per cent.

Senator SIMMONS. And that is $1.80 a day you pay, then?

Mr. STEVENS. $1.60.

Senator SIMMONS. And they pay 30 cents in gold for board and quarters

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. Why do you pay them in silver and charge them in gold?

Mr. STEVENS. I was reckoning on a basis of gold; you might say that we charge them 60 cents in silver, to make that clearer.

Senator MORGAN. Has the Government of the United States the exclusive control of quarantines in Panama and Colon?

Mr. STEVENS. I understand they have, by treaty.

Senator MORGAN. By treaty?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, sir; that is what they call a treaty.

Senator MORGAN. Panama is to us in the United States, financially and politically and commercially, and in every way, one of our most important possessions or interests; would it not be better if the quarantine authorities in the Zone should have the right not only to declare a quarantine as against other countries, but as against itself? For instance, some plague gets in there, coming from these nationalities, in spite of all you can do; a case of bubonic plague or yellow fever gets in and the world gets alarmed about Panama and commences quarantining against her. Would it not be wise to enact a law by which the authorities of Panama would prevent the outgoing from an infected center there-of course, under regulations which the quarantine board would establish?

We have plenty of laws as to excluding persons from coming into our own country, but I do not know of any that authorizes us to exclude people from going out to other parts of our country, and I think if such a law as that is feasible it ought to be enacted for Panama, so when the disease appears there and starts to get a foothold you could prevent egress from that country of people-not of material, not ships, but of people. I did not know how far we had exercised the right of quarantine, whether it extended over the cities of Panama and Colon or whether we had ever attempted there to prevent the egress from the Zone or from Colon, or Panama of persons from a district that was infected.

Mr. STEVENS. I can not answer that, of course, but my understanding is (and of course the records will show) that the Zone authorities have, by treaty or arrangement or whatever it may be called, all of the quarantine and sanitary powers over the towns of Panama and Colon that they possess on the Zone, or all that the proper authorities possess in New York or New Orleans or anywhere else.

Senator MORGAN. There is one other question I would like to call to your attention in preference to anything else. Some of the plans that are submitted to Congress require the putting in of a dam at Alhajuela and one at Gamboa, making two large lakes, with a mouth toward the Atlantic and a tunnel toward the Pacific Ocean. Now, the point I wanted to direct your attention to is this: Would it not require as much to control the locality on which you would build the dam at Alhajuela, which is outside the 10-mile limit, as it would, for instance, to build a dam at Gamboa or anywhere else? If you constructed a dam at Alhajuela now, would you not want the power of controlling that locality within definite limits, so as to exercise all necessary police power, and the right to establish commissaries and everything of the sort? It would be a job that would last five or six or seven or eight years.

It occurs to me that in the draft of the Hay-Varilla treaty the provisions made in favor of the United States as to the condemnation of land and the like do not extend as far as they ought to extend, and I am inquiring of you now, as the practical constructor and engineer, whether it would not be better in case we had to build a dam at Alhajuela that you would have as much power over the forces there and population as you already have, if you build a dam at Gamboa.

Would you think it was necessary to have the same amount of power in building the Alhajuela dam that you have at Gamboa ?

Mr. STEVENS. We would have to have the same sanitation provisions, the same police precautions. But my understanding is that outside of the 10-mile belt that gives that power.

Senator MORGAN. I merely wanted to call your attention to that to get your opinion on that, and the opinion of the members of the committee also, as to whether there was any necessity for any action on that subject. At any rate, we want the dam at Alhajuela outside of the Zone.

Mr. HOPKINS. How far is that from Gamboa?

Senator MORGAN. About 11 miles, I think, or 10 miles. It is outside of the Zone.

Senator SIMMONS. I had not quite finished with the questions I wanted to ask Mr. Stevens in connection with labor conditions down on the Isthmus. How many unskilled laborers are you working there now?

Mr. STEVENS. I have had no report since I came up as to the number, but I should say in the neighborhood of 10,000.

Senator SIMMONS. How many can you work when you get this preparatory work in readiness to begin the work of excavation?

Mr. STEVENS. We can not work very many more men than we are working now when we first start; but we will gradually increase as appliances are installed, until, I would say, during the maximum that will be employed, we will be working from 15,000 to 20,000. That is is a wide limit.

Senator SIMMONS. Is it contemplated to work that many?

Mr. STEVENS. It is contemplated to work whatever our experience shows it necessary to work the maximum number of machines which we can handle.

Senator SIMMONS. How are they worked-in squads?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes, in gangs.

Senator SIMMONS. Under a foreman?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. What is the treatment-is it kind or harsh?
Mr. STEVENS. It is supposed to be kind, but men are men.
Senator SIMMONS. Generally speaking?

Mr. STEVENS. As a matter of fact, it is kind, generally; yes.
Senator SIMMONS. As laborers are treated here?

Mr. STEVENS. Yes. The West Indian negro is childlike in his disposition, and the ordinary white man. if he treated one of those negroes harshly, would feel toward him, I suppose, if he had any manly feelings, as he would feel toward a child if he treated a child harshly. Senator SIMMONS. I have heard that they are not always treated justly in the courts down there; how is that, do they get impartial justice?

Mr. STEVENS. As far as I can see, they do. I have known a case when they seemed to be partisan on one side, and then another case where they seemed to be partisan on the other side. I had a black man from Jamacia, who was a foreman. He was arrested by a Zone policeman because he swore at one of his laborers, and he was taken before the nearest justice and fined. You can hear of those things, and you can hear something of the other cases.

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Senator SIMMONS. He was a foreman?

Mr. STEVENS Yes.

Senator SIMMONS. As a rule, in the South a negro does not make a successful overseer.

Mr. STEVENS. No, I know he does not.
Senator SIMMONS. He does there, though?

Mr. STEVENS. Fairly good; yes, sir.

Senator SIMMONS. I understood you to say a while ago that you were in favor of Chinese labor on the Isthmus?

Mr. STEVENS. I have always favored that, yes; I think that if they will stand the climate we will get a more effective force of labor from them, by one-half or two-thirds, than we can get from colored laborers.

Senator SIMMONS. Do you think you would get them for the same rate of wages?

Mr. STEVENS. I hardly think so.

Senator SIMMONS. Did the French use the Chinese?

Mr. STEVENS. They had some there.

Senator SIMMONS. You do not know how their wage rate compared with that of the negro?

Mr. STEVENS. No..

Senator SIMMONS. You expressed the opinion that possibly our American white men might work there and do twice as much work as the men now employed there. You would not suggest that they be paid this low rate?

Mr. STEVENS. Oh, no; they would have to be paid as well as they are paid here, or probably better, but I have not considered white labor seriously because we have not the men here in this country to take there in fact, the United States needs all the men she can get here.

Senator MORGAN. The other day when Secretary Taft was here we were discussing the question of the effect upon transportation across the Isthmus and upon commerce generally of the abrogation of the contract between the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and the Panama Railroad Company going from New York to San Francisco, and he suggested that since that has gone into effect the Pacific Mail Line had not rendered as efficient service as formerly in transporting goods and passengers, and so on, between San Francisco and Panama, and he mentioned that perhaps you knew better about the practical effect of that than anyone else, as you had been connected with them, and especially in the matter of the cost of goods, and so on, across the Isthmus. If there is any statement you could make about that we would be glad to have it.

Mr. STEVENS. I could not make any statement as to what happened before I went there, and I went there after the abrogation of that arrangement, but the service has not been what I think it should be to serve our best interests, as I remarked this morning. The conditions that exist to-day are to me intolerable when we handle freight through to Panama and then can not get rid of it.

Senator MORGAN. That is what I understand. Have you any suggestions to make as to how to get rid of that trouble? It seems to me we must get rid of it in some way.

Mr. STEVENS. Well, I think we ought to continue as long as the Panama Railroad is a common carrier to do the business if we can.

That entails on us getting a connection that will handle that end of the business.

Senator MORGAN. By purchasing steamers, for instance, and putting on a line?

Mr. STEVENS. I am not prepared to go to that length.
Senator MORGAN. Or by starting coastwise lines?

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Mr. STEVENS. I do not know what amendments should be required, but I think we should do one of three things: Find some way to make the Pacific Company furnish boats enough to do that business, get some other line in there to compete, or put on boats of our own. think I even suggested that we might get transports as an object lesson to them, and a relief to us. I have always found that an object lesson is a good thing to get what you want.

Senator MORGAN. You think the necessity is great enough to require active provision by Congress to meet it?

Mr. STEVENS. By some one, yes; I am ignorant in regard to those things; I look at the practical end of it. I am supposed to handle that freight and my hands are tied. I am criticised, and yet I can not do anything, and it is not pleasant. I think I have made that plain.

Senator GORMAN. Has the board of directors considered that?
Mr. STEVENS. Not to my knowledge; no.

Senator SIMMONS. One other question, which I neglected to ask: With the kind of labor you have got, can you construct that canal within the limits of the estimated original cost?

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Mr. STEVENS. That is a pretty hard question, Mr. Simmons. would not want to be pinned down, because, in the first place, I do not know what sort of a canal we are going to build.

Senator SIMMONS. I am speaking about a lock canal-the original idea.

Senator GORMAN. Ninety feet.

Senator SIMMONS. That is the one upon which an estimate was made.

Mr. STEVENS. You mean the estimate of what?

Senator SIMMONS. I do not know what it was

Senator GORMAN. The Walker Commission-the 90-foot canal? Mr. STEVENS. Yes; I would be inclined to say yes to that question; but that is only an opinion and it may be away off.

Senator GORMAN. The question was whether it could be constructed within the original estimate of cost.

Mr. STEVENS. Well, I have been endeavoring to educate this labor up to somewhere what I considered ideal, even for that class of labor. While my efforts have not gone for nothing, still the results are not what I wish they were, and when I say the labor proposition is the big one I mean from strictly the business point of view.

Senator GORMAN. If this labor is only half as efficient as the labor you have been accustomed to in this country, would it be possible to construct the canal within that limit?

Mr. STEVENS. Well, it is merely a matter of opinion; I would hardly care to say.

Senator GORMAN. You say the great problem there is the labor problem, and you have looked into that question carefully. If the restrictions were removed as to eight hours, and you could work ten hours a day, and the contract feature was abrogated, and you would