e Secretary of War, under whose
supervision this great work is going on, adds his opinion, which is
decidedly and unequivocally in favor of a lock canal. In his letter to
the President, Mr. Taft goes into all the important details of the
subject and reveals a masterly grasp of the situation as it confronts
the American people at the present time. He calls attention to the fact
that lock navigation is not an experiment; that all the locks in the
proposed canal are duplicated, thereby minimizing such dangers as are
inherent in any canal project, and he adds that experience shows that
with proper plans and regulations the dangers are much more imaginary
than real. He goes into the facts of the proposed great dam to be
constructed at Gatun and points out that such construction is not
experimental, but sustained by large American experience, which is
larger, perhaps, than that of any other country in the world. He gives
his indorsement to the views of the Isthmian Commission and its chief
engineer that the estimated cost of time and money for completing a
sea-level canal is not correctly stated by the majority members of the
Board, and that the cost, in all probability, will be at least
$25,000,000 more, while, in his opinion, eighteen to twenty years will
be necessary to complete the sea-level project. He also holds that the
military advantages will be decidedly in favor of a lock canal.

This is practically the present status of facts and opinions regarding
the canal problem as it is now before Congress, except that since
January the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals has collected a
large mass of additional and valuable testimony. Restating the facts in
a somewhat different way, Congress is asked to give its final approval
to the sea-level proposition, chiefly favored by foreigners, and to give
its disapproval to the project of a lock canal, favored by American
engineers. Congress is asked to rely in the main upon the experience
gained in the management of the Suez Canal, where the conditions are
essentially and fundamentally different from what they are or ever will
be on the Isthmus of Panama, and to disregard the more than fifty years'
experience in the successful management of the lock canals connecting
the Great Lakes. Congress is asked to pronounce against the lock canal
because in the management of the ship canal at Manchester several
accidents have occurred, due to carelessness or ignorance in navigation,
and