Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . v-ilege of free passage waslimited to vessels in the?coastwise trade. Under?our navigation laws mar-itime trade between portsin the United States is-confined to ships built inAmerican shipyards. Thisregulation is clearly in-tended to confer upon theUnited States a monop-?oly of the building of?coastwise ships, and thesubsequent exemption of?coastwise ships from Pan-ama Canal tolls was afurther benefaction tothis monopoly. As amatter of fact, our coast-wise trade was at passing intomonopolistic control, andthe wisdom of making so^prodigi
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . v-ilege of free passage waslimited to vessels in the?coastwise trade. Under?our navigation laws mar-itime trade between portsin the United States is-confined to ships built inAmerican shipyards. Thisregulation is clearly in-tended to confer upon theUnited States a monop-?oly of the building of?coastwise ships, and thesubsequent exemption of?coastwise ships from Pan-ama Canal tolls was afurther benefaction tothis monopoly. As amatter of fact, our coast-wise trade was at passing intomonopolistic control, andthe wisdom of making so^prodigious a gift to a:monopolistic combina-tion might have justly?been questioned. Butthe strictly business fea-tures of the Canal have always been decorated with more or less sentimental?declamation about reestablishing the American flag?on the high seas, and it was to contribute to thelatter desirable end that the tolls were to be re-mitted. It seemed to occur to no one that the shipsthus favored were either owned by railroad com-. A PLACID BACK WATER IN CHIRIQUI panics and used largely to stifle competition or bya somewhat notorious organizer of trusts whoseambition was to control water transportation fromMaine to the Mexico border, and who was checkedin the attainment of his aim by a sentence to theFederal penitentiary. It is not only in war timethat the flag is waved most enthusiastically by men who only want the boun-ty that goes with it. Nobody, however, atthe time of the passageof the act regulating tollsthought it had any par-ticular international sig-nificance. Its signatureby the President wastaken as a matter ofcourse and it was not un-til some time afterwardthat the Ambassador ofGreat Britain presentedhis countrys claim thatthe exemption clause wasin violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. Thesection of that treatywhich it is claimed isviolated reads thus: The Canal shall befree and open to the ves-sels of commerce and ofwar of all nations observ-ing these rules on terms
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
