Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

of that city and to fill in the surrounding swamps. The French, however, dumped it close to the sides of the cuttings. Now the cuttings are not all through rock, but chiefly through clay, marl, and other comparatively soft and yielding soils. They are so soft that the sides of the cuttings cannot be left nearly as steep as they would be in a firmer soil. A steeper slope than one of forty-five degrees is likely to be marked with trouble, the side wall presently bulging and sliding down into the cut. That is why the canal must be made so wide at the surface in comparison with the width at the bottom. Now the French, not appreciating these conditions, and seeking to save time and labour as much as possible, did not cart the excavated earth away, but piled it up on the high ground at each side of the cutting, where, of course, its weight, superimposed upon the earth which belonged there, greatly increased the tendency of the sides to bulge and slip into the cutting, and thus greatly aggravated the natural conditions. It is to avoid this error and its consequent mischief that the American engineers have ruled that no earth shall be deposited within a certain and very considerable distance of the cutting. This rule necessitates the building of many miles of railroad, to carry the material away, but it will in the end greatly facilitate and expedite the completion of the canal.

With all these and various other errors to handicap them, we can but wonder that the French accomplished as much as they did. In fact, they really did a vast amount of admirable work, most of which is now being utilised by the American engineers. They also, with all their consignments of snow-shovels and petroleum torches, and with all their improvident experiments with untried and impractical devices, took to the Isthmus a vast amount of excellent machinery, tools, and hardware supplies, which is still, much of it, in first-rate condition. Our engineers, on taking possession of the works, found vast storehouses stocked with hardware of all kinds, practically as good as when it was shipped from France. Moreover, astounding as it may seem, in view

ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED

107

of popular impressions of Isthmian climate and of its effect upon metal work of all kinds, they found locomotives and other steam engines, which had been standing neglected since De Lesseps's day, some of them actually in the open jungle, which needed only a little oiling and new leather belting to be set to work, as good as new. The dredges down in the submerged parts of the canal were chiefly rusty junk. But up on the highlands, around Culebra and Empire and Matachin, machinery has been preserved from ruin in a surprising and gratifying way.

It would be ungracious to dwell too long upon the errors of the French, and it would be vainglorious to exploit too highly the manner in which Americans are avoiding them. It was not strange, perhaps it was inevitable, that the French should make some serious blunders, in undertaking so vast a work, and a work so unlike, in some fundamental particulars, any they had ever undertaken before. It would be inexcusable for Americans to fall into the same errors. The French, too, as we have seen, suffered from certain unfortunate conditions beyond their control, to which we are not subject. We have the advantage of the great advance which has been made in the last score of years in medical science, and we were not prevented by the Monroe Doctrine from securing control of the Canal Zone. Much more, almost immeasurably more, is properly to be expected of us than of the French. That we shall meet those expectations in a satis factory manner is to be hoped, but is yet to be proved. The first year and more of our work there, as we shall presently see in greater detail, was by no means free from errors, serious, though happily not disastrous. There are at the present time, moreover, potentialities and even menaces of further complications of an embarrassing and even discreditable character. The lesson of the French failure is, therefore, not one of vaunting on the part of Americans, but rather one of prudence, circumspection, and that eternal vigilance which is the price of honesty and efficiency as well as of liberty.

CHAPTER VIII

NICARAGUA OR PANAMA?

THE French did not propose, however, to lose all they had done and spent at Panama without a struggle. They realised as fully as the most censorious of their critics the blunders which had been made and the appalling corruption which had prevailed. They knew, however, that much good work had been done, and their confidence in the practicability of the enterprise was not diminished. Resolute and resourceful, they rose from the ruins of the De Lesseps company with splendid determination. The receiver of the bankrupt company, M. Brunet, promptly organised a committee to study the situation and to devise ways and means to rehabilitate the enterprise and to push it to completion. This committee was composed of nine Frenchmen, one Belgian, and one Dutchman. It met in October, 1889, and two months later five of its members visited Panama for personal observation and investigation. In May, 1890, it reported to M. Brunet that the canal could be completed, on the highlevel plan, with locks, and recommended the organisation of a new company to undertake the work. M. Brunet accepted the report and decided to act according to its recommendations. His first step was to send Lieutenant Wyse to Bogotá to secure an extension of the franchise. The original concession dated from May 28, 1878. On December 26, 1890, Lieutenant Wyse secured an extension of it for ten years, on condition that the new company should be fully organised by February, 1893. This condition it was found impossible to fulfil, but the Colombian Government complaisantly-for a substantial consideration-extended the time little by little, until on August 4, 1893, it gave a

108

THE NEW FRENCH COMPANY

109

concession running until October, 1904, at which date the canal must be opened to commerce. Finally, in December, 1898, it added six years more to the time allowed, giving until October, 1910; though it was afterward said this last extension of time had not been legally made and was invalid.

Meantime, on October 21, 1893, the New Panama Canal Company was organised, under French laws. It had a capital of $13,000,000, and expected to complete the canal for a total of $180,000,000. Under its agreement with the receiver of the old De Lesseps company, it was to take as its own all the material assets of the latter, and when the canal was completed, forty per cent. of the profits was to be retained by the new company, and the remaining sixty per cent. was to go to the old company, for its liquidation. A Technical Committee was formed, of distinguished membership, consisting of one Colombian, one Russian, one Belgian, two German, two American, and seven French engineers. Work then proceeded, on the lines established by the original company, until in 1898 the Technical Committee estimated that ten years more would be sufficient to finish the canal, at a cost of $100,000,000. By this time, however, the funds of the new company had been exhausted, and in accordance with its statutes a commission of five members-one American and four French engineers—was appointed to consider the question of further procedure. This committee canvassed the situation and prospects thoroughly, and in February, 1899, unequivocally approved the report of the Technical Committee and advised the continuation of the work. That course was thereupon adopted, and the work of constructing the canal was incessantly pushed.

The rivalry of Nicaragua was, however, by no means ended. It was indeed entering upon a new and more strenuous phase. A most important step toward the construction of a canal at Nicaragua was taken in 1884, when Mr. Frelinghuysen, the American Secretary of State, and General Joaquin Zavala, the Nicaraguan Minister at Washington,

negotiated a treaty, which provided that the United States should construct such a canal, to be owned by it and Nicaragua jointly, that there should be a perpetual alliance between the two countries, and that the United States should guarantee the territorial integrity of Nicaragua. This was obviously a bold challenge to Great Britain. It violated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and was doubtless intended so to do, as an offset to Great Britain's former violations of it; and its probable result would have been to drive Great Britain to abrogation of that treaty, and then to precipitate a diplomatic struggle between the United States and Great Britain over control of the Mosquito Coast. The treaty would also have made the United States to some extent a partner of Nicaragua in the possible and not improbable wars of that country with its neighbours, or else, and more probably, would have established a practical American protectorate and control over Nicaragua.

The treaty was negotiated in the last months of President Arthur's administration, and was still before the Senate awaiting ratification when Mr. Cleveland succeeded to the Presidency. One of the early acts of the incoming administration was to withdraw several treaties from the Senate, this one among them, and so it failed of ratification. Mr. Cleveland made it plain that he withdrew and suppressed it, not because he was opposed to a canal, but because he was opposed to a purely American canal, and because he regarded the alliance with Nicaragua and the guarantee of that republic's territorial integrity as an entanglement contrary to the traditional policy of this country. He said:

"I do not favour a policy of acquisition of new and distant territory, or the incorporation of remote interests with our own. . . . I am unable to recommend propositions involving paramount privileges of ownership or right outside of our own territory, when coupled with absolute and unlimited engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the State where such interests lie. . . Whatever highway

« ÎnapoiContinuă »