in width to 300 feet until, through the Culebra Cut, the bottom width will be 200 feet. Roughly speaking the canal is formed by two artificial lakes, one at Gatun and one at Miraflores, connected by a cut through the Culebra divide; a channel 5,000 feet wide and 40 feet deep from the Caribbean to Gatun, three miles inland, where a flight of three locks rise to the 80-foot level of the lake formed by the Gatun dam across the Chagres River; then 25 miles of lake to the Culebra Cut 7 miles long, thence into the second lake and a descent to the Pacific level through the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. Fiveeighths of the entire distance is the lake formed by the Gatun dam.

The estimated cost of the completed work as given in the latest report of the canal commission is $375,000,000 and to date Congress has expended $300,000,000 in round numbers; subtract from this the millions expended of necessity in sanitation and the construction work accomplished bears the same relative proportion to the entire amount required. In other words, for every dollar expended in canal construction the United States has one hundred cents worth of work to show for it. It is a record in which we should should take pride. The canal is being built rapidly, honestly and well, and its completion in the near future will mark the beginning of a new era of development in the United States and in this wise directly influence the his

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tory of the world. The opening of Suez forced a readjustment of traffic lines, and the resultant development of European trade showed plainly the effects. The long record of vicissitude through which the Panama canal has struggled is evidence of the world-wide effect its completion will demonstrate. Europe, with its older civilizations and greater experience, sees further ahead than America, and Great Britain, France and Germany have at one time or another, in open or secret manner, sought control of the isthmus and the canal which was bound to come; but a full view of the advantages to the possessor is only half understood even by these astute nations. Could the future of the canal be clearly and accurately forecast today it is conceivable that despite the strength of the United States the peace of the world might be rudely shattered. That Panama will directly influence the entire commerce of the world in a wider and broader way than Suez cannot be doubted. Midway, north and south, of two mighty continents and midway practically of the east and west transportation of civilization, its geographical position makes its importance universal. It is the gateway of the world and the United States is beside the gate and will control the opening and shutting thereof. What this means is stimulating even to the dullest imagination. The advantage to America is incalculable. Our South American

neighbors, who alone could compete with us in advantage of position, are so heavily handicapped in the race by youth and undeveloped resources as to be negligible quantities. America will be not only without a competitor but where she has been handicapped by distance she will be placed at once on an equal footing and where she is now equal will obtain a lead of from three to four thousand miles in almost every case. New York and Liverpool are today practically equidistant, via Cape Horn, from the west coast of South America and Liverpool, through the Suez has the advantage of distance to Yokohama, Shanghai and other Eastern ports. Panama will place New York over 4,000 miles nearer Valparaiso and practically equidistant with Liverpool from Yokohama, the Orient and even Australia. Where this means a colossal advantage to New York and the North Atlantic ports its means even more to the South for while the canal brings the rich markets of the west coast of South America nearer to New York it brings them to the very doorway of the South Atlantic and Gulf States. The raw and cheap cotton. goods and hardware manufactures of the Southern States will enter the markets of western South America and the Orient with the enormous advantage that a short traffic haul gives; properly handled they can monopolize the entire field. With the steamships of the entire world pass

ing through the canal the market of the century for the soft coal of the South lies at Panama; for the world will send its steamships through Panama as there is hardly a voyage of greater length than 5,000 miles which will not use the canal en route. A deep-water channel the length of the Mississippi would give Chicago advantage of position over London in the East Indies. Possession of the canal may come to mean the naval dominance of the world and prove the balance of power whereby the peace of the world is maintained. It is certain to strengthen the United States against future attack by completing her interior line of defense and permitting the cordon of her battleships to be drawn closely about her. Great opportunities for good and for evil lie in the canal; it rests with America as to how they shall be used. For four hundred years this work has struggled toward completion and that completion is now close at hand; through its narrow channel there is to come an era of expansion and development as mighty as that which followed after the day Columbus landed upon the beach of San Salvador.

The question of Cuba again became acute during the early months of 1903. This arose with regard to a reciprocity treaty, which had been ratified by the Cuban Congress on March 11. The Sugar Trust as usual made its influence felt and the result was an endeavor to prevent the rati

fication by the United States Senate, but public demand was so emphatically in favor of the treaty that if was ratified March 19, with an amendment to the effect that "This treaty shall not take effect until the same shall have been approved by the Congress." This unprecedented action called up a storm of criticism in the daily press. The New York Evening Post called it ratification by burial, and the New York Times, more emphatic still, characterized it as "a shameful chapter of pure selfishness and greed." President Roosevelt was determined that this treaty should be ratified, and accordingly called an extra session of Congress to convene November 9, for the purpose of considering the same He thus checkmated the plans of the enemies of the treaty, whose intentions were to defeat it by indirect methods. As it was, the usual wail of the infant beet sugar industry was so loud that the legislation failed of passage during the extraordinary session, and it was not until after the convening of the regular session of the Fifty-eighth Congress that the treaty was finally ratified (December 16, 1903). This agreement gave Cuban commodities imported into the United States an average reduction of 25 per cent. on the rates of the Dingley law.

When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, a controversy with Great Britain was also acquired that had remained unsettled since the Anglo-Russian treaty defin

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ing the boundary line between British and Russian territory was ratified in 1825. This treaty was somewhat obscure in its wording, the French term, sinuosités (windings) used in defining the line being variously translated by the two powers. The contention of Russia, and later of the United States, was that the word signified that the boundary line comprehended a parallel with the true indentations with the coast, ten marine leagues inland. This, of course would carry the line ten leagues from the headwaters of every bay and estuary. The Canadian authorities, on the contrary, claimed that the term referred to the general contour of the coast, thereby placing points at the headwaters of these inlets in British territory.

As long as Alaska was looked upon as a barren waste, valuable only for its furs and fisheries, the question was allowed to remain unsettled, although President Grant, foreseeing the possibilities of international misunderstanding in the situation, strongly advised in his message to Congress, December 2, 1872, that the line be surveyed and the question settled. But owing to the expense the survey was not made until 1892 and then no recommendations were made. Each nation seemed to think that the survey would settle the controversy, yet lack of interest prevented the project from being pushed to a conclusion. The discovery of gold, however, in 1896, put an

The

entirely new complexion on the affair. Alaska and upper British Columia assumed new and immense importance, and the boundary question rapidly approached a crisis. overland trails leading into the gold fields of the upper Yukon started at two settlements, Dyea and Skagway, on the headwaters of the long estuary known as Lynn Canal. Acting upon their theory of the position of the line, the Canadian authorities advanced their outposts to these points, which had long been considered within United States territory. Conflicts of jurisdiction arose which tended to become so serious that the necessity for an immediate settlement of the question became imperative. It was therefore referred to the Joint High Commission composed of representatives of the two powers which met in 1898 for the settlement of all differences between Canada and the United States.* The

* Commissioners appointed by the governments of the United States and Great Britain, respectively, were as follows:

On the Part of the United States.- Senator Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, chairman; Senator George Gray, of Delaware; Representative Nelson Dingley, of Maine; John W. Foster, former Secretary of State; John A. Kasson, of Iowa, and T. Jefferson Coolidge, of Massachusetts.

On the Part of Great Britain and Canada.-Lord Herschell, ex-Lord Chancellor of England, chairman; Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier of Canada; Sir Richard J. Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce; Sir Louis H. Davies, Minister of Marine and Fisheries; John Charlton, M. P., and Sir James T. Winter, Premier of Newfoundland.

Senator Gray resigned in September, 1898, to accept the appointment of member of the Span

point at issue was the proposal on the part of the British authorities to submit the matter to a disinterested arbitrator after the precedent set by the Venezuela case. The American members, however, asserted that the

ish-American Peace Commission, and Senator Charles J. Faulkner, of West Virginia, was ap pointed by the President to fill the vacancy.

Lord Herschell was chosen president of the Joint High Commission.

The principal questions submitted for the consideration of the Commission were as follows:

1. The questions in respect to the fur seals of Behring Sea and the waters of the North Pacific Ocean.

2. Provisions in respect to the fisheries off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the waters of their common frontiers.

3. Provisions for the delimitation and establishment of the Alaska-Canadian boundary by legal and scientific experts if the commission shall so decide, or otherwise.

4. Provisions for the transit of merchandise in transportation to or from either country, across intermediate territory of the other, whether by land or water, including natural and artificial water-ways and intermediate transit by sea.

5. Provisions relating to the transit of merchandise from one country to be delivered at points in the other beyond the frontier.

6. The question of the alien labor laws, applicable to the subjects or citizens of the United States and of Canada.

7. Mining rights of the citizens or subjects of each country within the territory of the other.

8. Such readjustment and concessions as may be deemed mutually advantageous, of customs duties applicable in each country to the products of the soil or industry of the other, upon the basis of reciprocal equivalents.

9. A revision of the agreement of 1817 respecting naval vessels on the lakes.

10. Arrangements for the more complete definition and marking of any part of the frontier line, by land or water, where the same is now so insufficiently defined or marked as to be liable to dispute.

11. Provisions for the conveyance for trial or punishment of persons in the lawful custody of the officers of one country through the territory of the other.

12. Reciprocity in wrecking and salvage rights.