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 Eastern coasts of the British Dominion of Canada or of the United States. It is stated that between Great Britain and her colony of New Zealand the passage round Cape Horn is longer by more than 1,100 miles than the route across the Isthmus. I need not stop to give you further instances, the advantages to trade are obvious. It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that the project of a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has long been under the consideration of the world. As far back as 1550 the matter was brought to the attention of the Spanish Government, and proposals of various kinds have been made and discussed ever since. At that early time four routes were suggested, those of Darien, Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, and Panama—a fifth has since been added, that by way of the Atrato and Tupica Rivers in Colombia; and there may be others. The failure of the Darien Company, formed by William Paterson in 1695, is a matter of history: the same project was renewed at a later time, but only to fail again, and it need not further occupy us. Along the Tehuantepec route there is now a railway running: it was opened in 1907, and does a considerable trade: it will compete, and probably not unsuccessfully, with the Panama Canal for the traffic on certain lines, since it effects a considerable saving in mileage on such journeys as those from New York and New Orleans to Chinese and Japanese ports and to San Francisco. The Atrato project has come into notice within the past few weeks in connexion with an industrial concession granted by the Colombian Government. But it is the Nicaraguan and Panama routes which are alone material for our purpose to-day. That by the Panama has now been adopted, but I ask you to take note that throughout all the earlier negotiations between Great Britain and the United States, and indeed until 1901, the Nicaraguan