It is estimated that the fortification of the canal will cost about $12,000,000. This added to the $375,000,000, the estimated cost of construction, will bring the entire bill up to the round and goodly sum of $400,000,000 or L80,000,000. This puts all other expenditure on artificial water-channels into the shade, as the Suez Canal cost only L19,000,000, the Manchester Ship Canal L15,000,000, and the Kiel Canal L8,000,000. As regards this expense and the possibilities of revenue returns, Colonel Goethals has written an interesting passage:-- Much has been said and predicted as to the commercial value of the canal to the United States. In this connection it must be remembered that the commercial shipping of this country never required the canal. The trip of the _Oregon_ in 1898 settled the question of the advisability of constructing an isthmian canal, and had the canal been built at that time, thereby saving that trip around the Horn, there is no question that it would have been agreed generally that the canal, even at an expenditure of $375,000,000, was worth while. In whatever light the Panama Canal is viewed, it will have paid for itself if in time of war or threatened war a concentration of the fleet is effected without that long, tedious, uncertain route followed by the _Oregon_. It will practically double the efficiency of that fleet, and, notwithstanding the fact that we are a peaceful nation, our outlying possessions make the Panama Canal a military necessity, and it must be so recognized. From this point of view the debt should be charged to the account which necessitated its construction, and whatever revenues are derived from other sources are so much to the good. The traffic that will utilize the canal depends upon the tolls that will be charged, and the President has asked the Congress for legislation which will enable the establishment of rates. There is another policy which, if adopted, will have a material bearing on the revenues of the enterprise. Through the Panama railroad a large expenditure of money has been made for providing the present working forces with supplies of all kinds. Though the railroad has been reimbursed for this plant through fixed charges on sales, it should not be abandoned, but utilized for furnishing shipping with its needed supplies. Suitable coaling plants should be erected for the sale of coal to vessels touching at or passing through the canal. In addition, since oil is now used on a number of ships plying in the Pacific, such fuel should also be on hand for sale by the canal authorities.