A provision of the canal toll law forbids any railroad to be directly or indirectly interested in any ship passing through the canal, carrying freight in competition with that railroad. This provision was inserted to prevent the railroads from controlling the steamship lines using the canal, and through that control fixing rates between the two coasts on such a basis as to prevent effective competition with the railroads themselves. The result was that a number of railroads had to dispose of their steamships engaged in coastwise trade. This provision affects several Canadian railroads, and after it was made the British Government served notice on the United States that it intended to take up this question and consider whether or not the law in this particular does not infringe upon British rights. Nothing seems more certain than that, in the course of years, canal tolls will be materially lowered from the $1.20 fixed by the President. It seems inevitable that the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal will enter into a lively battle for the great volume of trade between eastern Asiatic and Australasian points and western European ports. On this dividing line between the two great interoceanic highways there originates many millions of tons of traffic, and this will be largely clear gain to the canal which gets it. The considerations which will draw this trade one way or the other are the rates of toll, the convenience of coaling stations, the price of coal, and the certainty of the ability to secure proper ship stores. This spirit of competition will probably serve to lower rates more rapidly than they otherwise might be reduced. With some 10,000,000 tons of traffic on the great divide between the two canals, ready to be sent forward by the route which offers the best inducements, it is certain that good business policy will call for some hustling on the part of both canals. As the business of the Panama Canal expands, it can afford to reduce rates. With an ultimate capacity of 80,000,000 tons a year, as the canal stands to-day, the rate of toll could be cut down to 25 cents a ton when that capacity is reached, and still afford the United States an income large enough to take care of the operation and maintenance of the canal, and sanitation and government of the Canal Zone, to meet the interest on the cost of building it, and to amortize the entire debt in a hundred years. It is certain that the United States made a good investment at Panama. Assuming that the coastwise traffic is worth to the Government the amount of the tolls it is exempted from paying, the canal becomes a self-supporting institution from the day of its opening, leaving all the military and trade advantages it affords the United States as clear profit. CHAPTER XXVI THE OPERATING FORCE