tics say the canal
will draw 10,000,000 tons of shipping a year; others, conservative of
opinion, say half this volume. Taking the mean of these estimates, I
hazard the statement that six years after the canal is opened, the
tonnage will be 7,500,000. The Suez Canal was operated more than thirty
years before its business aggregated 10,000,000 tons; and to attract
this volume, several reductions in tolls were necessary. The American
government cannot properly levy a heavier tribute at Panama than is
demanded at Suez, for the fact is, our canal will not be as essential as
that uniting Europe and the East. A like tariff would produce for Uncle
Sam, on the hypothesis of a business of 7,500,000 tons, only $12,750,000
a year; a higher tariff would probably produce less. And here is an
unpalatable truthlet--Panama's earnings from passengers can never be
considerable, compared with that constant ebbing and flowing of humanity
between the home countries of Europe and their dependencies in Asia,
Africa and Australasia. As a highway of travel, Panama can never have a
quarter of the income from passengers as that yearly accruing to the
Suez company. It may be unpopular to here record the opinion that the
_direct_ increment of the American canal cannot for many years yield
what in a commercial enterprise could be called a profit.

The way to compel the canal to pay _indirectly_ is to make it incidental
to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry
American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under
the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will
indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under
way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion
throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to _create_
the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening?

We have populated the country, developed resources of field, forest and
mine, and devised matchless ways of translating natural products into
finished articles appealing to all mankind. Now, let us cease sending
these products of soil and workshop to market in British ships; let us
forward them in vessels constructed in American shipyards, thereby
making the transaction independently American. Already have we produced
ocean carriers equal to the best; while American war-ships, native from
keel to topmast truck, are the envy of the world.

Not for a d