h Panama and Suez present advantages practically
equal; probably the expense of a few hundred miles additional travel
would not cause them to break from the old route, by which there is no
risk of accident or delay from canal-locks. A considerable percentage of
the oversea carrying trade controlled by British bottoms is
geographically independent of canals, and will always be. For example,
the bulk of traffic to and from the west coast of South America--the
rich nitrate trade of Iquique and Valparaiso--will not ordinarily be
altered by the Panama Canal. The economy of distance from the latter
port to England and the Continent by the canal being only about 1,500
miles, this traffic, except under unusual circumstances, will continue
as long as it goes in British vessels to round the extremity of South
America.

Singapore will be the Asiatic port differentiating the attracting power
of the Panama and Suez canals, speaking from the basis of Atlantic and
Gulf ports as points of origin or destination. Cargoes for places west
of the 105th degree of east longitude will logically be sent through the
Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. But the area east of the Singapore
degree of longitude is teeming with opportunity for Panama cargoes. The
isthmian short cut to Oceanica and Asia, comprising the coastal section
of China's vast empire, enterprising Japan, the East Indies, Australia,
New Zealand, and our own Philippine archipelago, is the world's most
potential area. The awakened Orient can use American products to
practically limitless extent. One third of the trade of these lands
would make America great as a world-provider, and could be secured if we
embarked seriously in an effort to obtain it. Students of economics have
never admitted the logic of America's sending cotton to England to be
there converted into fabrics clothing half the people of the East.

Let the reader, content in belief that our manufactures have an
extensive use in the outer world, because America heads the list of
exporting nations, investigate the subject, and his reward will be to
learn that _we export only a trifle more than six per cent. of what we
manufacture_. Let him also study the statistics of our commerce with
South America, natural products and manufactures of every sort--they are
replete with astonishing facts. To discover that our exports to the
southern continent do not equal $2 per capita of South America's
population will surprise the invest