The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterpriseMills, J. Saxon (John Saxon)
Philosophy
The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterprise
Mills, J. Saxon (John Saxon)
Panama Canal (Panama)
4. Liverpool is brought on an average about 2,600 miles nearer to
Pacific ports of America _south of Panama_. The shortening of distance
varies from 6,046 miles at Panama itself down to zero at a point
between Punta Arenas and Coronel (the most southerly commercial port of
Chile).
5. All the Pacific ports of the Americas are, _via_ Panama, 2,759 miles
nearer to New York than to Liverpool.
6. The Panama Canal will not bring any port in Australia or the East
Indies, nor any ice-free port in Asia or Asiatic islands, nearer to any
European port. Of all ports on the western Pacific coasts, only those of
New Zealand and a few very chilly ones in Siberia will be brought nearer
to Liverpool.
7. All of Asia and all of Australia, with the exception of New Zealand,
will be nearer Europe by way of the Suez Canal than by way of the Panama
route.
8. Nearly all Japan, Shanghai, Hong-kong, the Philippines, New Guinea,
all Australia (save a far western strip), and all New Zealand are
brought nearer the Atlantic and Gulf ports of the United States and the
Atlantic ports of Canada.
9. The relative distances from New York and Liverpool to the Atlantic
coast of South America (nearly all way down), to Africa, and to Asiatic
ports south of Hong-kong are unchanged.
10. It is New York and not Liverpool which is now nearer to Yokohama,
Sydney, and Melbourne. Wellington, in New Zealand, formerly equidistant
between the two great ports, is now 2,739 miles nearer to New York than
to Liverpool. Sydney, which was formerly over 1,500 miles nearer
Liverpool (_via_ Suez) than New York (_via_ Cape of Good Hope), now
becomes 2,424 miles nearer New York (_via_ Panama) than Liverpool (_via_
Suez).
11. Nearly the whole of the Atlantic seaboard in the Old World and the
New is brought nearer to the Pacific ports of the United States and
Canada.
12. The Panama Canal cannot invade the main traffic field of the Suez
route--the countries of Southern Asia, East Africa, the Red Sea, and the
Persian Gulf. The competitive region of the two canals lies east of
Singapore.
[Illustration: THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA]
The reader will gather from the last proposition that the scene of the
new battle of the routes will lie in the Western Pacific, and this
probably will also be the scene of the main industrial and commercial
competitions of the future. It is in these regions, Australasia and
the countries along the Pacific Asiatic coasts, that the traffic zones
of the Suez and Panama Canals touch or overlap. The positive effect on
relative distances from American and European ports is of great
importance to commercial developments in these regions. Let us look at
the geographical results of the Panama Canal a little more closely. On
pages 252, 253 are two tables transcribed from the official report of
1912 on Panama Canal Traffic and Tolls, by Mr. Emory R. Johnson.
The following tables are given by Dr. Vaughan Cornish:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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