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Show forty-five years in practically driving our flag fr.Jin the tea, and our government aits impotently by and ace this) going on, sees the trade of the world taken from u, diverted under other flags to other lands, and we in our - helplessness make no move to recover re-cover the lost ground, and we are not making any now even when the great canal ia nearing completion comple-tion and when the nations will (rather and as it looks now,-will itak "For what purpose did the United States build this great work, just for our convenience? We see no sign of her ships, none of her flag." ; THE PANAMA CANAL. I i President Taft invited 1500 engineers to visit ; tfce Panama eanal in March. They were there .; three weeks. One who ia described aa rery eminent, i Mr. Mnrtangh, considers it one of the most mag-l'; mag-l'; ' aificent achievements ever set on foot and carried I; ' on so far that its complete triumph ia assured. He .lays ilj great prebleiawBsla desiiwjajon8tryt:tio.n j; ; iteeeseary for protecting the whole works and in-!', in-!', suring constant guarantees for unmolested naviga- , tion against the torrential and violent floods which, i I frequently, during the Tainy season rush from the : drainage area of the Eiver Chagres into the aection ! of valley traversed by its waters, while seeking its outlet to the sea. This will be accomplished by the ,.' , huge dam now at Gatun. With the plains and hills ' ' oo both sides' of this dam there will be ereated the ; largest artificial inland lake, an area of 175 square I miles, an inlnnd harbor plenty large enough to I i maneuver the navy of the United Statea. He does ' ' not doubt the entire sufficiency of the foundation J .of the dam. All the difficulties have been over-! over-! -, come. His final conclusion ia that the canal is aucb j ' a triumph of engineering aa the world never saw, . and that it will remain for all time the glory of its ' builders. There ia only one thing about it that ; i - may create doubt, and that ia that one of those : I cataclysms may come which change entirely the ; . face of nature, but they are liable to come any-' any-' - where at any time.. An ordinary earthquake could . . not affect the canal. It would have to be some-I some-I thing that would absolutely rend the isthmus. ! ' When one thinks back and considers that huge ' work,' it looks like a direct decree of fate for ! 'it was made possible simply by medical ; . science, because if the specific cause of Panama fever had not been discovered and subdued, that .". .work never could "have gone, on the destruction ..... . of life would have, been so terrible that the Araey.- can government would have been forced to do what - - the French did abandon the place as plague spot too fearful for human nature to bear. ' Everything combines to make clear that by the time tbe great work is finished and the nations gather to do honor to the stupendous enterprise, it will be a pity beyond desoriptior if the United States is not represented there by some as splendid splen-did merchant ships as ever sailed the seas. One , would think that the congress now in session . , in 'Washington would sometimes cast their eyes forward three or four years and imagine for themselves them-selves how humiliating the position of the United fefatea will be if when that great day cornea we have no splendid merchant ships to give the world t-j understand that the canal waa not built altogether alto-gether aa a war measure, but that the purpose was, by the time it -would be finished the United Ktstes would be ready to take up her share of tbe world's ocean commerce. There should be a line of steamers there ready to inaugurate traffic between Panama and Valparaiso; other steam.r ought to be there belonging to the line between New York or Baltimore and Braxil and Buenos Ay res; there should be trans-Atlantio and transpacific trans-pacific ateamers there, all carrying the old flag, all . giving notice to the world that the building of that ' , canal by our government waa but a preliminary . task, that never would be completely finished untU . ' our flag fills over every sea and Hashes back the light from every dawn. We ought to enter upoa a new career of octan commerce. Up to 1860 we held our own against the world, except that the first attempts to establish trans-Atlantic steam lines were killed by the administration that went out of power on the 4th of March, 1861. The Colline ahipa, the Vanderbilt ships that had sailed acrosa the aea had to cease running or change their ships over to the California line, which still supplied some commerce, inasmuch as foreign ships cannot trade" between two American porta. In sailing ahipa the total- of the American merchant marine exceeded ex-ceeded that of Great Britain herself, and in sliipa, ' ours were always the finer snd the faster. Hut in . T9 Great Britain obtained the right to build the - American engine, known as the compound marine engine, which changed the use of steam from low pressure to high, which reduced the fuel one-ha!f, the space occupied by the engine good deal, aud increased the apeed largely. And so industrious was Great Britain in building new ships and in . converting old shipa .to be run by these engines. that by the time the blackade was announced in , 15.1. Great Britain had many Kieumers agrniiiKt which no ships in the world eould compete,' and they pursued blockade running for two years thereafter. there-after. It was then that her ahipa took the mastery or the ocean and ours begun to disappear. It is a slisiiieful fact that with all our trade, our trade in rsw materials, when our merchant marine was t (he very head of the world's merchant marines, tl.i-. Mow was struck whkh has eventuated after |