urt our railroads?
And if Panama does divert traffic from land to water, won't that divert
a share of shipping away from Montreal and St. John and Halifax?

There is no use ever arguing with a cross questioner. Mr. Hill once
said there was no use ever going into frenzies about the rights of the
public. The public would just get exactly what was coming to it. If
it worked for prosperity, it would get it. If it were not sufficiently
alert to see opportunity, it certainly would not be sufficiently alert
to grasp opportunity after you had pointed it out. Your opinion or
mine does not count with the churlish questioner. You have to hurl
facts back so hard they waken your questioner up. Here are the facts.

How can Panama turn the Pacific Coast into a front door instead of a
back door?

Almost every big steamship line of England and Germany, also a great
many of the small lines from Norway and Belgium and Holland and Spain
and Italy, have announced their intention of putting on ships to go by
way of Panama to the Orient and to Pacific Coast ports. Three of those
lines have explicitly said that they would call at Pacific ports in
Canada if there were traffic and terminals for them.

The steamers coming from the Mediterranean have announced their
intention of charging for steerage only five to ten dollars more to the
Pacific Coast ports than to the Atlantic ports. It costs the immigrant
from sixteen to twenty-five dollars to go west from Atlantic ports. It
can hardly be doubted that a great many immigrants will save fare by
booking directly to Pacific ports. Of South-of-Europe immigrants,
almost seven hundred thousand a year come to United States Atlantic
ports, of whom two-thirds remain, one-third, owing to the rigor of
winter, going back. Of those who will come to Pacific ports, they will
not be driven back by the rigor of winter. They will find a region
almost similar in climate to their own land and very similar in
agriculture. Hitherto Canada has not made a bid for South-of-Europe
immigrants, but, with Panama open, they will come whether Canada bids
for them or not. They are the quickest, cheapest and most competent
fruit farmers in the world. They are also the most turbulent of all
European immigrants. We may like or dislike them. They are coming to
Canada's shores when the war is over, coming in leaderless hordes.

The East has awakened and is moving west. The West has always been
awake and is mov