The extensive machine shops now located at Gorgona must be moved before the completion of the canal, and they should be established in connection with a dry dock that will be needed for commercial purposes, and utilized as a revenue producer for the canal. This policy also needs Congressional action. With properly regulated tolls, and with facilities for fully equipping, supplying, and repairing ships, the Panama route would offer many advantages and bring to it a sufficiently remunerative return to pay, not only the operating expenses, but to gradually absorb the debt which the United States has incurred by its construction. We shall return to the question of tolls in a later chapter. [Illustration: Pedro Miguel Locks, from Hill on East Bank.] FOOTNOTES: [17] See _ante_, page 71. CHAPTER XV. PANAMA AND THE ISTHMUS. It may be convenient to deal here with a few detached questions before inquiring into the commercial and maritime changes likely to be produced by the canal. The reader understands the position of the United States at the isthmus. They control a zone of territory ten miles wide running across from Panama to Colon. These two towns are, however, not included politically, though they are geographically, within the zone. This narrow strip of territory with its precious canal runs right through a foreign country in which the social and political conditions existing must be a matter of importance to the canal-owners. One cannot help wondering how long this state of things is likely to continue. Panama, the youngest of the South and Central American republics, is no better than the rest in its governmental principles. Indeed, the republic had scarcely got into being when it was threatened with a military revolution. A pompous and polysyllabic self-importance, coupled with a levantine standard of business and financial ethics, scarcely promises a long continuance of the present political relations with a great republic which is not likely to see its achievement at the isthmus in the smallest degree prejudiced or endangered. Some interesting little details of Panamanian manners have been reported. For example, Chinese immigration is forbidden by law, yet, strange to say, most of the retail trade of the isthmus is in Celestial hands. This is because the law against immigration gave the opportunity for the formation of a syndicate with the collusion of the authorities, by which Chinese were introduced at a rate of $200 entrance fee. The judicial standards which prevail in this little Bumbledom may be gathered from another story. The mate of a British ship was recently sentenced to twelve years' hard labour for manslaughter, because he was held responsible on no evidence whatever for the loss of a ship and the lives of several relatives of _those serving on the jury_.