Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/340

326 with lottery drawings attached. It was by just this method—a lottery loan—that the Suez Canal was finished, but the French legislators of 1886 hardly took the degree of interest in the Panama scheme which those of 1868 did in the Suez. Only eight votes were cast against the bill of 1868, and this enactment carried the work through to its completion. The result in the present case has been that De Lesseps was obliged to go upon the market and raise about one third—200,000,000 francs—the amount asked for, upon comparatively onerous terms. This sum, added to 75,000,000 francs, the last quarter of the stock capital, called in in September, will enable him to continue the work for one or two years. It remains to be seen whether, prior to the expenditure of these sums, a renewed application to the French Government will meet with better success. It should be remembered, after all, that the French Government favored the application of the company. It introduced a bill based in its essential features upon the bill of 1868. Opposition existed not in the ministry but in the Chamber, and it is possible, to say the least, that upon a subsequent occasion the ministry and Chamber may find themselves in accord.

It may, perhaps, be considered doubtful whether the present company is to complete the work, and whether the French are to maintain the financial control they at present possess. But it can not be denied that powerful incentives must influence the French Government and the French people toward the support of the company, and the keeping of the work in De Lesseps's hands. In no way can the weight of such considerations be shown better than by the following extract from the late report of Rousseau, the commissioner of the French Government. He inspected the work in February, 1886, and at the close of his report says:

"In fine, I consider the cutting of the Isthmus of Panama a possible work, and that at present it has been carried so far that it can not be abandoned. ...

"Such an abandonment," he goes on, "would be in fact a veritable disaster, not only for the stockholders, who are nearly all French, but as regards French influence all through America. ...

"It does not seem to admit of doubt that, if the affair failed in the hands of the French company, it would be immediately taken up by a foreign company to prevent the fruits being lost of the enormous sacrifices made and the results obtained. ...