The Panama Canal will have a most important bearing upon the trade
between the eastern and far western sections of our country, and will
greatly increase the facilities for transportation between the eastern
and the western seaboard, and may possibly revolutionize the
transcontinental rates with respect to bulky merchandise. It will also
have a most beneficial effect to increase the trade between the eastern
seaboard of the United States and the western coast of South America,
and, indeed, with some of the important ports on the east coast of
South America reached by rail from the west coast.

The work on the canal is making most satisfactory progress. The type of
the canal as a lock canal was fixed by Congress after a full
consideration of the conflicting reports of the majority and minority
of the consulting board, and after the recommendation of the War
Department and the Executive upon those reports. Recent suggestion that
something had occurred on the Isthmus to make the lock type of the
canal less feasible than it was supposed to be when the reports were
made and the policy determined on led to a visit to the Isthmus of a
board of competent engineers to examine the Gatun dam and locks, which
are the key of the lock type. The report of that board shows nothing
has occurred in the nature of newly revealed evidence which should
change the views once formed in the original discussion. The
construction will go on under a most effective organization controlled
by Colonel Goethals and his fellow army engineers associated with him,
and will certainly be completed early in the next administration, if
not before.

Some type of canal must be constructed. The lock type has been
selected. We are all in favor of having it built as promptly as