Four or five years before the earliest probable opening date, shipping interests began to arrange their future schedules with respect to the Panama Canal.

One can scarcely realize how rapidly the facilities of the canal will be utilized. At the rate of expansion witnessed in the world's marine traffic during the past two or three decades, 17,000,000 tons of shipping will be handled through the canal in 1925, 27,000,000 tons in 1935, and 44,000,000 tons in 1945.

The maximum capacity of 80,000,000 tons assumes a passage of 48 vessels a day through the canal, or one for every half hour of the twenty-four. Two vessels a day of 4,000 tons each, at the present charge, will render the canal self-supporting.

While the great Isthmian highway will be completed far enough ahead to be ready to handle all traffic that offers long before the official opening date, it will, on the other hand, never reach that stage where dredges will not be needed. There are 22 rivers which wend their way from the watersheds of the canal, and pour their loads of sand and silt into it. Of course, these rivers are small—so small, indeed, that few of them would be dignified by being called rivers in the United States. But when the heavens open and the floods descend, as they do so frequently during the rainy season at Panama, these usually quiet, lazy, little streams become almost as angry as the mighty Chagres itself, and they rush down to the canal heavily freighted with sand and silt. If the water in the great interoceanic channel is to be kept at its appointed depth of 41 feet, dredging perforce must be continued from year to year, summer and winter, spring and fall. And so it is that the dredges will be met by every ship that steers its course from Cristobal to Balboa, or from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Few ships large enough to tax the dimensional capacity of the locks ever will go through the canal. Full 90 per cent of all the ships that sail the seas could go through locks one-half the size of those at Panama. So far as commercial shipping is concerned, a 15,000-ton vessel plying tropical waters is considered large, and a 20,000-ton ship is an exception. According to the best shipping authorities, the day when vessels of more than 25,000 tons will find it profitable to ply on the routes which lead through the Panama Canal is so far in the future that they are not able to discern it. With reference to the Navy, naval experts generally agree that the United States will celebrate many a decade of passing years before a battleship too large to use the present lock chambers is a possibility.

When a ship makes its maiden voyage through the canal, the measurements to determine its net register will be taken by the shipping experts in the employ of the United States. When this work is completed the master of the ship will be required to pay the toll before he can take his vessel through the canal. If he should fail to pay the toll the vessel itself would be put on the block and sold at auction, if necessary, to reimburse the United States for its passage. However, it is not to be expected that such contingencies as these will arise. When once a ship has been measured, the formality will not have to be gone through with on future visits. It is not expected that each ship will be actually measured for every dimension as it comes to the canal on its first trip, since its net register tonnage probably will have been determined long before, and the canal officials will only check up the work already done elsewhere to assure its accuracy.

Many ships will go to Panama which will not use the canal. For instance, there will be those which will leave European ports, loaded in part with cargo bound to Pacific points and in part with cargo for Atlantic points on the South and Central American coast. Such ships will simply call at Colon, discharge their cargo bound to Pacific points, and take on what additional cargo they can get bound for points for which they are sailing on the Atlantic side. In stopping at Colon they will probably replenish their supplies from the commissary department of the canal.

What the freight department is to a railroad the cargo ship will be to the Panama Canal—its greatest revenue producer. Such ships will do comparatively little loading and unloading of cargo at either end of the canal. The tramp steamer will figure largely in the traffic that passes from ocean to ocean at Panama. With no schedule of sailing dates and with no definite routes, the tramps constitute the flying squadron of the shipping world, moving hither and thither seeking cargoes wherever they can find them. A tramp steamer may load at Liverpool for San Francisco, reach that point through the Panama Canal, and, after discharging its cargo, go on up to Seattle and load for China. There it may discharge its cargo again and go thence to India to pick up a load of grain for Liverpool, passing through the Suez Canal. Its master always will turn its prow to the point where profitable cargo awaits it, and this may carry it by Panama once or a dozen times a year. The line steamers will have their regular sailing dates and will pass through the canal at stated intervals.

The problem of providing coal for passing ships is one of the most important with which the canal authorities will have to deal. The cheaper that commodity can be sold to the ships, the more attractive the route will be. For instance, a 10,000-ton ship which saves a dollar a ton on a thousand tons of coal, saves the equivalent of the cost of operating the vessel for a period of from 24 to 36 hours, and this, with the rates at Suez and Panama on an equal basis, gives at least one day's advantage to the Panama route in figuring on a voyage. Pocahontas steaming coal costs $2.70 per ton laid down at Newport News. Under the carrying agreements with shipping interests that obtained during the construction period, this coal was carried to Panama for $1.395 a ton. It is estimated that the canal colliers, which have been authorized by Congress, with a capacity of 12,000 tons of coal and with a speed of 14 knots, can deliver to the Isthmus a half million tons of coal a year. The saving which will be effected by having the coal carried by Government colliers is a large one. A merchantman would get $368,000 for delivering 264,000 tons of coal, while the cost of delivery by collier for the same amount would approximate $184,000. The average life of a collier is 20 years. The saving effected in these 20 years by the Government carrying its own coal would be large enough to pay back the million dollars which the collier cost, and to yield an additional profit of $2,630,000 during the life of the vessel.

The sale of coal at Suez, where an annual shipping traffic of some 21,000,000 tons is handled, amounts approximately to 1,000,000 tons. Thus, it will require two colliers to handle the coal when the canal opens, and two more 13 years later.

Not all the ships which use the canal will coal there. For instance, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which was so forehanded in its effort to get a good share of the trans-Isthmian traffic that it acquired the Pacific Steam Navigation Company long before the canal opened, is building a coaling station at Kingston, Jamaica, where its ships will replenish their bunkers. This coaling station will, of course, always be at the disposition of the British Government in case of war, and of such British merchantmen that choose to pass that way.Some ships will not negotiate the canal under their own power. Many small vessels steer so badly that their masters would be afraid to risk them going through without aid. For instance, the skipper of the Cristobal, one of the 6,000-ton cement-carrying ships bought by the United States a few years ago, declared, in discussing this phase of the matter, that he would be afraid to trust his vessel going through the canal under its own power. To ships not sufficiently responsive to their helms, Government tugs will be furnished.

Some skippers prefer to have their vessels towed by one powerful tug, while others prefer several smaller ones. Several tugs are now building for towing purposes, and they will also be used to tow vessels through the locks in the early days of operation, pending the completion of all of the electric towing locomotives.

Two floating cranes will be provided in the permanent equipment at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars each. These cranes, with a lifting power of 250 tons, will be suitable for any wrecking operations in the canal and, also, for lifting the gates in case of repairs being required.

The canal will probably be the death blow to the sailing ship of international commerce. Not being able to negotiate the canal under their own power, and because of the dead calms which prevail in the Gulf of Panama, sailing ships will be stopped from using the Isthmian waterway. When they attempt to journey around Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope in competition with steam vessels which pass through the Panama Canal, the operation will afford such little profit that in the course of a few years they will have to surrender what little share of international commerce they have succeeded in keeping.

The Panamans are inclined to think the United States drove a hard bargain when the provision was inserted in the treaty that all supplies for the building and operation of the canal, and for the demands of shipping using it, when imported by the United States, should be free of duty. This practically gives the United States a monopoly of the business of catering to the needs of ships passing Panama. The present duty on imports is 15 per cent, and the local merchant who would sell supplies to the passing ships would be under the necessity of adding 15 per cent to his buying price before he could compete with the United States Government on equal terms. This advantage is made all the more marked by the reasons of the fact that the United States often can make much money out of the operation by selling at actual cost, the profit arising from the extra shipping which is thereby attracted to the canal.

The United States will reimburse the owners of any vessels passing through the locks of the canal, under the control of its operatives, for any injury which may result to vessel, cargo, or passengers. Provision is made under the permanent canal law that regulations shall be promulgated by the President which will provide for the prompt adjustment, by agreement, and immediate payment of claims. In case of disagreement, suit may be brought in the district court of the Canal Zone against the governor of the Panama Canal. The law says: "The hearing and disposition of such cases shall be expedited and the judgment shall be immediately paid out of any moneys appropriated or allotted for canal operation."

The character of misrepresentations made concerning the canal was illustrated in a story published in the midsummer of 1913. This story originated in London and declared that all of the big shipping interests were afraid of the Panama Canal, and that Lloyds would insure vessels and cargo only at much advanced rates. The article went on to state that the representative of one of the biggest European lines had visited the Isthmus and had returned with the announcement that his company could not afford to trust its vessels in the canal.

As a matter of fact, with the United States Government standing responsible for any damage sustained in the canal, no shipping interest could sensibly regard it as extra hazardous to pass through it; rather, it would be less hazardous than to negotiate the tortuous Strait of Magellan, where thousands of wrecks tell of unseen dangers, or to round Cape Horn with its fierce storms and its grave perils.

Much has been said about the probability of injury to the canal by persons of evil intent, and the Panama Canal law imposes heavy penalties on anyone attempting to inflict such an injury. The law provides that the governor of the Canal Zone shall make rules and regulations, subject to the approval of the President, touching the right of any person to remain upon or pass over any part of the Canal Zone. "Any person violating these rules or regulations shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction in the district court of the Canal Zone, shall be fined not exceeding $500 or imprisoned not exceeding a year, or both penalties in the discretion of the court. Any person who, by any means or any way, injures or obstructs or attempts to injure or obstruct any part of the Panama Canal, or the locks thereof, or the approaches thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and on conviction shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $10,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed 20 years, or by the infliction of both of these penalties. If the act shall cause the death of any person within a year and a day thereafter, the person so convicted shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished accordingly." As a further precaution, individuals will not be allowed to approach the locks with any sort of packages unless they are properly vouched for.

The possibility of serious injury to the locks will be carefully guarded against. They will be lighted at night by electric lamps of large candlepower and the whole lock structure will be kept as light as day throughout the night. Men will be always on sentry duty, and an adequate system of intercommunication will enable the sentries to call out a guard large enough to repulse any attack of any small surprising party.