HANDLING THE TRAFFIC
Four or five years before the earliest probable opening date, shipping
interests began to arrange their future schedules with respect to the
Panama Canal.
One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facilities of the canal will
be utilized. At the rate of expansion witnessed in the world's marine
traffic during the past two or three decades, 17,000,000 tons of
shipping will be handled through the canal in 1925, 27,000,000 tons in
1935, and 44,000,000 tons in 1945.
The maximum capacity of 80,000,000 tons assumes a passage of 48
vessels a day through the canal, or one for every half hour of the
twenty-four. Two vessels a day of 4,000 tons each, at the present
charge, will render the canal self-supporting.
While the great Isthmian highway will be completed far enough ahead to
be ready to handle all traffic that offers long before the official
opening date, it will, on the other hand, never reach that stage where
dredges will not be needed. There are 22 rivers which wend their way
from the watersheds of the canal, and pour their loads of sand and
silt into it. Of course, these rivers are small--so small, indeed,
that few of them would be dignified by being called rivers in the
United States. But when the heavens open and the floods descend, as
they do so frequently during the rainy season at Panama, these usually
quiet, lazy, little streams become almost as angry as the mighty
Chagres itself, and they rush down to the canal heavily freighted with
sand and silt. If the water in the great interoceanic channel is to be
kept at its appointed depth of 41 feet, dredging perforce must be
continued from year to year, summer and winter, spring and fall. And
so it is that the dredges will be met by every ship that steers its
course from Cristobal to Balboa, or from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks
ever will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that
sail the seas could go through locks one-half the size of those at
Panama. So far as commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton
vessel plying tropical waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton
ship is an exception. According to the best shipping authorities, the
day when vessels of more than 25,000 tons will find it profitable to
ply on the routes which lead through the Panama Canal is so far in the
future that they are not able to discern it. With reference to the
Navy, naval experts generally agree that the United States will
celebrate many a decade of passing years before a battleship too large
to use the present lock chambers is a possibility.
When a ship makes its maiden voyage through the canal, the
measurements to determine its net register will be taken by the
shipping experts in the employ of the United States. When this work
is completed the master of the ship will be required to pay the toll
before he can take his vessel through the canal. If he should fail to
pay the toll the vessel itself would be put on the block and sold at
auction, if necessary, to reimburse the United States for its passage.
However, it is not to be expected that such contingencies as these
will arise. When once a ship has been measured, the formality will not
have to be gone through with on future visits. It is not expected that
each ship will be actually measured for every dimension as it comes to
the canal on its first trip, since its net register tonnage probably
will have been determined long before, and the canal officials will
only check up the work already done elsewhere to assure its accuracy.
Many ships will go to Panama which will not use the canal. For
instance, there will be those which will leave European ports, loaded
in part with cargo bound to Pacific points and in part with cargo for
Atlantic points on the South and Central American coast. Such ships
will simply call at Colon, discharge their cargo bound to Pacific
points, and take on what additional cargo they can get bound for
points for which they are sailing on the Atlantic side. In stopping at
Colon they will probably replenish their supplies from the commissary
department of the canal.
What the freight department is to a railroad the cargo ship will be to
the Panama Canal--its greatest revenue producer. Such ships will do
comparatively little loading and unloading of cargo at either end of
the canal. The tramp steamer will figure largely in the traffic that
passes from ocean to ocean at Panama. With no schedule of sailing
dates and with no definite routes, the tramps constitute the flying
squadron of the shipping world, moving hither and thither seeking
cargoes wherever they can find them. A tramp steamer may load at
Liverpool for San Francisco, reach that point through the Panama
Canal, and, after discharging its cargo, go on up to Seattle and load
for China. There it may discharge its cargo again and go thence to
India to pick up a load of grain for Liverpool, passing through the
Suez Canal. Its master always will turn its prow to the point where
profitable cargo awaits it, and this may carry it by Panama once or a
dozen times a year. The line steamers will have their regular sailing
dates and will pass through the canal at stated intervals.
The problem of providing coal for passing ships is one of the most
important with which the canal authorities will have to deal. The
cheaper that commodity can be sold to the ships, the more attractive
the route will be. For instance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a
dollar a ton on a thousand tons of coal, saves the equivalent of the
cost of operating the vessel for a period of from 24 to 36 hours, and
this, with the rates at Suez and Panama on an equal basis, gives at
least one day's advantage to the Panama route in figuring on a voyage.
Pocahontas steaming coal costs $2.70 per ton laid down at Newport
News. Under the carrying agreements with shipping interests that
obtained during the construction period, this coal was carried to
Panama for $1.395 a ton. It is estimated that the canal colliers,
which have been authorized by Congress, with a capacity of 12,000 tons
of coal and with a speed of 14 knots, can deliver to the Isthmus a
half million tons of coal a year. The saving which will be effected by
having the coal carried by Government colliers is a large one. A
merchantman would get $368,000 for delivering 264,000 tons of coal,
while the cost of delivery by collier for the same amount would
approximate $184,000. The average life of a collier is 20 years. The
saving effected in these 20 years by the Government carrying its own
coal would be large enough to pay back the million dollars which the
collier cost, and to yield an additional profit of $2,630,000 during
the life of the vessel.
The sale of coal at Suez, where an annual shipping traffic of some
21,000,000 tons is handled, amounts approximately to 1,000,000 tons.
Thus, it will require two colliers to handle the coal when the canal
opens, and two more 13 years later.
Not all the ships which use the canal will coal there. For instance,
the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which was so forehanded in its
effort to get a good share of the trans-Isthmian traffic that it
acquired the Pacific Steam Navigation Company long before the canal
opened, is building a coaling station at Kingston, Jamaica, where its
ships will replenish their bunkers. This coaling station will, of
course, always be at the disposition of the British Government in case
of war, and of such British merchantmen that choose to pass that way.
Some ships will not negotiate the canal under their own power. Many
small vessels steer so badly that their masters would be afraid to
risk them going through without aid. For instance, the skipper of the
Cristobal, one of the 6,000-ton cement-carrying ships bought by the
United States a few years ago, declared, in discussing this phase of
the matter, that he would be afraid to trust his vessel going through
the canal under its own power. To ships not sufficiently responsive to
their helms, Government tugs will be furnished.
Some skippers prefer to have their vessels towed by one powerful tug,
while others prefer several smaller ones. Several tugs are now
building for towing purposes, and they will also be used to tow
vessels through the locks in the early days of operation, pending the
completion of all of the electric towing locomotives.
Two floating cranes will be provided in the permanent equipment at a
cost of a quarter of a million dollars each. These cranes, with a
lifting power of 250 tons, will be suitable for any wrecking
operations in the canal and, also, for lifting the gates in case of
repairs being required.
The canal will probably be the death blow to the sailing ship of
international commerce. Not being able to negotiate the canal under
their own power, and because of the dead calms which prevail in the
Gulf of Panama, sailing ships will be stopped from using the Isthmian
waterway. When they attempt to journey around Cape Horn and the Cape
of Good Hope in competition with steam vessels which pass through the
Panama Canal, the operation will afford such little profit that in
the course of a few years they will have to surrender what little
share of international commerce they have succeeded in keeping.
The Panamans are inclined to think the United States drove a hard
bargain when the provision was inserted in the treaty that all
supplies for the building and operation of the canal, and for the
demands of shipping using it, when imported by the United States,
should be free of duty. This practically gives the United States a
monopoly of the business of catering to the needs of ships passing
Panama. The present duty on imports is 15 per cent, and the local
merchant who would sell supplies to the passing ships would be under
the necessity of adding 15 per cent to his buying price before he
could compete with the United States Government on equal terms. This
advantage is made all the more marked by the reasons of the fact that
the United States often can make much money out of the operation by
selling at actual cost, the profit arising from the extra shipping
which is thereby attracted to the canal.
The United States will reimburse the owners of any vessels passing
through the locks of the canal, under the control of its operatives,
for any injury which may result to vessel, cargo, or passengers.
Provision is made under the permanent canal law that regulations shall
be promulgated by the President which will provide for the prompt
adjustment, by agreement, and immediate payment of claims. In case of
disagreement, suit may be brought in the district court of the Canal
Zone against the governor of the Panama Canal. The law says: "The
hearing and disposition of such cases shall be expedited and the
judgment shall be immediately paid out of any moneys appropriated or
allotted for canal operation."
The character of misrepresentations made concerning the canal was
illustrated in a story published in the midsummer of 1913. This story
originated in London and declared that all of the big shipping
interests were afraid of the Panama Canal, and that Lloyds would
insure vessels and cargo only at much advanced rates. The article went
on to state that the representative of one of the biggest European
lines had visited the Isthmus and had returned with the announcement
that his company could not afford to trust its vessels in the canal.
As a matter of fact, with the United States Government standing
responsible for any damage sustained in the canal, no shipping
interest could sensibly regard it as extra hazardous to pass through
it; rather, it would be less hazardous than to negotiate the tortuous
Strait of Magellan, where thousands of wrecks tell of unseen dangers,
or to round Cape Horn with its fierce storms and its grave perils.
Much has been said about the probability of injury to the canal by
persons of evil intent, and the Panama Canal law imposes heavy
penalties on anyone attempting to inflict such an injury. The law
provides that the governor of the Canal Zone shall make rules and
regulations, subject to the approval of the President, touching the
right of any person to remain upon or pass over any part of the Canal
Zone. "Any person violating these rules or regulations shall be guilty
of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction in the district court of the
Canal Zone, shall be fined not exceeding $500 or imprisoned not
exceeding a year, or both penalties in the discretion of the court.
Any person who, by any means or any way, injures or obstructs or
attempts to injure or obstruct any part of the Panama Canal, or the
locks thereof, or the approaches thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a
felony and on conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed
$10,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed 20 years, or by the
infliction of both of these penalties. If the act shall cause the
death of any person within a year and a day thereafter, the person so
convicted shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished
accordingly." As a further precaution, individuals will not be allowed
to approach the locks with any sort of packages unless they are
properly vouched for.
The possibility of serious injury to the locks will be carefully
guarded against. They will be lighted at night by electric lamps of
large candlepower and the whole lock structure will be kept as light
as day throughout the night. Men will be always on sentry duty, and an
adequate system of intercommunication will enable the sentries to call
out a guard large enough to repulse any attack of any small surprising
party.