Rates, not heating nor sacking, are the real cloud in the Canadian mind regarding Panama; and if Canada continues to stand twiddling her hands over rates when she should be hustling preparations, the inevitable will happen--Portland, which sends millions of bushels of her own wheat to Liverpool, is ready to take care of Canada's traffic; so is Seattle. There is nothing these cities hope more than that Canada will continue to shun the question of rates. V Let us look at this question of rates! Ordinarily the rate on wheat from Chicago to New York is about ten to twelve cents a bushel; from New York to Liverpool about three to seven cents. That is, for one thousand miles (roughly) the rate by rail is ten cents. For three thousand miles the rate by water is three cents. That is, one cent buys the shipper one hundred miles by rail. One cent buys him one thousand miles by water. Get out a chart and figure out for yourself what the saving means on wheat via Panama to Liverpool on a crop--we'll say--of one hundred million bushels, Alberta's future share alone, leaving Saskatchewan and Manitoba crops to continue going to Liverpool by Fort William and Montreal. You can figure the distance to Liverpool via Panama twice or even three times as far as via Atlantic ports, long as water rates are to rail, as one to ten, the saving on a one-hundred-million-bushel crop for a single year is enough to buy terminals, build elevators and run civic ships as Boston and New Orleans and St. Louis and Kansas City and Portland are doing. Via Tehuantepec the saving was eight cents a bushel. At that rate your saving in a year would be eight million dollars for Alberta wheat alone, not counting dairy products, which are bound to become larger each year, and coal, which will yet bring the same wealth to Alberta as to Pennsylvania, and lumber, on which the saving is as one to four. Please note one point! It is a point usually ignored in all comparisons of water and rail rates. While sea and lake are the cheapest method of transportation in the world, canals (unless some other nation builds them as the United States built Panama) are not so cheap as sea and lake. When you add to the cost of canals, the interest on cost, the maintenance, and charge that up against traffic--for it doesn't matter, though the government does maintain canals; you pay the bill in the end--canal rates come higher than rail rates. But in Canada's use of Panama, Canada is not paying for the building of the canal; and the Lord pays the upkeep of the canal of the sea.