These schemes have been frustrated. Sir Henry never stood higher than after his services in the recent campaign. With one or two notable exceptions, the more decided anti-war Liberals have got back, in some cases with increased majorities. Mr. Perks, a recent addition to the wealthy Nonconformists in the House, who knows more about company promoting than politics, with one or two unknown lieutenants have erected themselves into an "Imperialist Council" to prescribe a policy and to "drum out" everybody who does not bow the knee to Jingo. They have been promptly snubbed into silence by Sir Henry, who clearly means to have no nonsense in the party if he can help it. It is hard to see why Mr. Perks and his friends should have done Lord Rosebery this sorry unkindness, when he is still smarting under the sting of having his own manifesto set aside, and his chosen Imperialist candidate, Captain Hedworth Lambton—the man who had saved Ladysmith and was now to save the Liberal party-promptly "snowed under" at Newcastle by a Conservative majority of 4,609!

This, then, is the present situation. The Liberal party has been deprived of a great victory, at one time nearly within reach, partly by Mr. Chamberlain's Khaki election and grand disfranchisement juggle, and partly through the dislocation of normal party action, by the erratic course of Lord Rosebery, and by the ceaseless intrigues of his Imperialist friends to cripple and destroy any other possible leader. Unity of action must, the figures of the polls demonstrate, win a Liberal victory in the end; but unity of action is still " "proscribed," like Sir William Harcourt. Aut Cæsar, aut nullus!

It is to be feared that the Liberals will return to the House next February more intent on a trial of their own strength than on trying conclusions with the enemy. It is hard to predict the result. On the one hand is a graceful, imposing personality, a brilliant writer and speaker, a man of immense wealth, who has attached to him a circle of wealthy men, who is backed by the press of both parties, supported in the House by a few men of striking ability, with a creed all the more attractive because it is so imperfectly understood, with dreams of places, power, and promotion for young and ambitious Liberals in the House and country, and with the unpleasant, sordid side of commercial imperialism wrapped out of sight by a sympathetic though autocratic strain of socialism. That looks like winning, and it has vast and somewhat brutal forces for its support.

On the other side, though some of the leaders are way-worn and

broken, and the creed of austere self-restraint seems an anachroni in modern society, there are two vast groups of forces which have be reckoned with, and which look like a formidable counterpoise to the Jingo cult. There is the one great, undeniable law of Liberal thought that there is a national conscience, and that the secret of Liberal triumphs in the past has been the assertion that morality holds for the nation as well as for the individual. No one who has really worked among the stalwarts of Liberalism in the Midlands or the north of England or in Wales can doubt that this is the cornerstone of the faith which makes Liberal victories possible by keeping these stalwarts what they are.

Then there is the law of reaction, of the common prudence of the people against financial extravagance. This law will operate with tremendous force in the coming months of rising taxation and falling trade, and will stimulate a wave of exasperation against this government and all its ways.

The simplest and most obvious reason why the scales must turn the Liberal tactics against the Imperialists is that the Ministry must be fought, if Liberals are to do anything, and that it can best be fought by a direct challenge of the Jingo spirit, which has brought with it this enormous and unbearable waste of national resources. The Liberal Imperialist stands on an illogical and slippery footing. The facts will fight him down little by little, and a rational Liberalism, welcoming the close attachment of the Colonies, but steadfastly opposing further expansion, and demanding the concentration of policy and revenue, alike in completing the equipment and in insuring the solid welfare of the British people at home, will win its way to victory at the next election.

There is no reason why Lord Rosebery and other brilliant men who now seem opposed to this solution should not join heartily in the work and its results. But they will have to learn the conditions under which this union and this triumph can be won with the forces available. Whether Liberals, then, will be able to roll away the great stone Lord Rosebery tried to roll away in vain, and whether they can hold power when they have got it, is a far-off problem.

AN ENGLISH LIBERAL.

hig'

PANAMA AND NICARAGUA CANALS COMPARED.

THE problem of connecting the oceans by a waterway across the American isthmus has attracted the attention of the world ever since the existence of the isthmus became known. Various routes have been advocated from time to time, but none has been surveyed except the two known as the Panama and Nicaragua routes.

The Panama route, though not the narrowest part of the isthmus, has a natural harbor on each coast, with a depression in the backbone of the cordillera only 363 feet above sea level. These natural advantages led to the construction, in 1851, of the Panama Railway, from Colon on the Caribbean to Panama on the Pacific, to accommodate the heavy traffic induced by the discovery of gold in California. In 1878 De Lesseps inaugurated his celebrated attempt to cut a sea-level canal through here, without having made any adequate estimate of the cost, or even of the physical obstructions to be overcome. A large amount of work was actually done, the canal having been practically completed for seven miles on its northern end, and quantities of heavy excavation were made in the upper and southern portions of the route. The sums actually subscribed and put into this work are variously stated at more or less than $260,000,000, not more than one-fifth of which is represented by actual construction, the balance having been squandered in corruption and reckless extravagance. The scandals occasioned thereby led to the bankruptcy of the company and the suspension of the work.

On the reorganization of the company a balance of about $20,000,000 remained available for surveys and construction. The new company very wisely sought the advice of a committee, known as the Comité Technique, composed of fourteen eminent engineers, of whom seven were French, the others being selected from Germany, England, Russia, Colombia, and the United States. Our own country was represented by Gen. Henry L. Abbot, U. S. A., and Alphonse Ftelley, chief engineer of the New York Aqueduct Commission. Under the direction of the Comité Technique more complete surveys were made;

the sea-level plan was abandoned; and plans were drawn up for a lock canal, to be supplied with water from reservoirs to be constructed on the Chagres River. A small force is, and has been for several years, at work on construction.

The same influence which prompted the construction of the Panama Railway led to the establishment of a transit route across Nicaragua, partly by water and partly by stage road, and surveys for a ship canal along this route were made by the transit company, and afterwards by the United States Government, under Commander Lull. Later the Maritime Canal Company modified the plans, extended the surveys, and began construction on a ship canal. Financial difficulties, however, stopped the work before it was fairly under way, and agitation was carried on for some years to induce the United States Government to finance the project.

In 1895 Congress provided for a board of engineers to ascertain the feasibility, permanence, and cost of the canal, and appropriated the sum of $20,000 for the purpose. Col. William Ludlow, of the Army; Civil Engineer M. T. Endicott, of the Navy, and Mr. Alfred Noble, were appointed by President Cleveland to constitute it. Considering the time and funds at their disposal this board made a very thorough examination of the route. They reported that while the canal was feasible, the information possessed by the company was entirely inadequate to serve as a basis on which to make final estimates of cost, or even to determine approximate plans. They recommended, therefore, that an appropriation of $350,000 be made for further surveys and investigation. Accordingly, a commission was appointed by President McKinley, consisting of Rear-Admiral J. G. Walker, Col. Peter C. Hains, and Lewis M. Haupt, for the further survey and examination of the canal route.

This commission inaugurated thorough surveys, which demonstrated the impracticability of certain features of the company's plans. In 1899, before the commission's work was completed, Congress provided for increasing it, and appropriated funds for the thorough examination, survey, and comparison of all the possible routes for an interoceanic canal across the isthmus. The engineering portion of the commission was reinforced by Colonel O. H. Ernst, Alfred Noble, George S. Morison, and William H. Burr. Prof. Emory R. Johnson and Hon. Samuel Pasco were appointed as experts on the commercial and political aspects of the problem, respectively. Explorations were made of the lower isthmus, east and south of Panama,

can

which added largely to the topographic information there, but failed canreveal any favorable canal route; so that the problem was finally mo rowed down to a comparison of the Panama and Nicaragua routes. coll The route adopted by the Nicaragua Canal Commission in 1899 silkts near Greytown, on the Caribbean, runs in a general southwesterly direction across the swamps and lowlands, north of Lake Silico, along the San Juanillo, through two locks, reaching the left bank of the San Juan River above the head of the San Juanillo, about twenty miles from Greytown. It then follows near the left bank of the river, but not in it, to a point about a mile above the mouth of Rio San Carlos. A high dam near this point will raise the waters of the San Juan to the level of Lake Nicaragua, and the canal will enter the basin through two locks and follow the course of the river for the most part to Lake Nicaragua. Several cut-offs on the natural course of the river will be made. Above Castillo a large amount of dredging will have to be done to secure the required depth, and this will be continued far out into Lake Nicaragua. West of the lake the line runs by way of the valley of Las Lajas, cuts through the divide, and follows the Rio Grande valley through four locks to the Pacific, where a harbor is to be constructed. The total length is about 190 miles, of which 59 miles are in deep water in Lake Nicaragua, leaving 131 miles of canal proper. It is to have ten locks. The level of Lake Nicaragua, and of all the canal between Boca San Carlos and Bueno Retiro, the extremities of the summit level, are to be controlled between the limits of 104 to 110 feet above sea level. Twenty per cent of the surplus water will be discharged through the canal into the Rio Grande, and thence into the Pacific, and the remaining eighty per cent into the Caribbean by way of the Rio San Juan.

The Panama Canal follows the line originally adopted by the old company from Colon to Panama, is about 47 miles long from deep water to deep water, and is to have four locks on each side, on the project recommended, with summit level at 98 feet. There is to be a large storage reservoir constructed at Alhajuela, on the upper Chagres, 12 miles from the canal line, and a large aqueduct is to convey feed water from the reservoir to the summit level. Surplus waters are to be stored until safely discharged.

There are many heads under which to compare these routes, in some of which the Panama is preferable, while in others Nicaragua has the advantage. The only practicable method of making the