Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/623

Rh second, we are gathering data which will be useful in future estimates of the cost of canal construction. In the Culebra work 2,600 men are now employed. We are also building railway tracks and yards, and are dredging at both ends of the canal, so far as advisable, until the question of type of canalis decided. This should be determined within the next ninety days. It should be understood that all the work we have done is appli- cable to any type of canal.

The question of labor is a grave and perplexing one. We have advanced far enough to know that we can secure a suf- ficient supply of labor from the tropics, so far as numbers are concerned. The question of quality is a very different matter. Unless a much greater efficiency can be developed than is secured at pres- ent, we shall have to look elsewhere. Probably I can best convey to you a just estimate of the quality of this labor by relating an incident which came under the observation of Senator Millard dur- ing his visit on the Isthmus. Sitting on the deck of the steamer Havana, he was watching the unloading of a heavy piece of machinery from the hold of the ves- sel. The tackle got caught in the rig- ging on the deck above ; the foreman in charge of the gang of laborers sent one of them above to free the tackle. The laborer went to the place to which he was sent and did what he was told to do. The foreman, paying no attention to him after he started on his errand, missed him a few minutes later, and looking around for him, discovered him sitting peace- fully at the spot to which he had been sent. " What are you doing there? " yelled the foreman. " You told me to come here, sah." "Well, why didn't you come back?" "You didn't tell me to, sah."

It is to this class of labor that we are paying from 80 cents to $1.04 per day in gold, and out of which it is estimated we do not get more than 25 per cent of the efficiency of labor in the United States. This is the kind of labor to which we are compelled to apply the eight-hour law — 'that is, to aliens, who know nothing of the law's existence until they arrive on the Isthmus. Such application will increase the labor cost of canal construction at least 25 per cent and will ad 3 many millions unnecessarily to the total expenditure. In my opinion, it is a mistake to handicap the construction of the Panama Canal by any laws save those of police and sanitation. I want to go on record here that the application of the eight-hour law, of the contract-labor law, of the Chinese exclusion act, or of any other law passed or to be passed by Congress for the benefits of American labor at home, to labor on the Isthmus, is a serious error. Over 80 per cent of the employes of the canal will be aliens. A majority of the other 20 per cent employed will be in a clerical or supervisory capacity. The application of these laws on the Isthmus will benefit a very small number of American laborers, but will enormously add to the cost of construction, and American labor at home will have to pay its share of the consequent increase in taxation. As business men, you will understand the force of this statement. That is the story, gentlemen, of what we have been doing on the Isthmus. In line with this, let me add that Chief Engineer Stevens, a man well equipped for the great task he has undertaken, is preparing three complete sets of plans applicable to as many types of canal, so that when a decision shall have been reached as to what type will be used, no delay in beginning work will ensue. It is our confident belief that by the 1st of July next the plant as purchased will be installed and working to its fullest practical capacity. In other words, by that time the dirt will begin to fly in earnest.

The canal will be built — rest assured of that — and it will be built at Panama. Those two phases of the problem have