قراءة كتاب The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterprise
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The Panama Canal: A history and description of the enterprise
Suez Canal. These three great things I should like to live to see, and it would almost be worth while for their sakes to hold out for some fifty years.
Many projects for canal construction, chiefly by the Nicaraguan route, were started and failed during the first half of the nineteenth century. The second decade of that century witnessed the revolt one by one of all the Spanish provinces in Central and South America. The Colombian Confederation, comprising Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada, achieved their independence in 1821. Panama quickly followed, and allied itself with New Granada (now Colombia). In 1825 the Central American envoy to the United States urged the American government to co-operate in the canal enterprise with the states he represented. The result was that Henry Clay, the American Secretary of State, ordered an official survey at Nicaragua, and scheme followed scheme in quick succession. In 1829 the King of Holland was granted a canal concession by the Nicaraguan government. This enterprise was frustrated by the outbreak of the revolution in the Netherlands and Belgium. It would be tedious to enumerate the many projects started during the following years. But it is worth recalling that Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then a prisoner in the fortress of Ham, became interested in the subject, and while still a captive obtained a concession and franchise for a canal company from the Nicaraguan government. He published a pamphlet on the Isthmian Canal question which aroused a good deal of attention, though its author's interest was soon diverted to political events nearer home. A passage from his little book is interesting for its strong advocacy of the Nicaraguan route by the San Juan River and the lakes:—
The geographical position of Constantinople rendered her the queen of the ancient world. Occupying, as she does, the central point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she could become the entrepot of the commerce of all these countries, and obtain over them immense preponderance; for in politics, as in strategy, a central position always commands the circumference. This is what the proud city of Constantine could be, but it is what she is not, because, as Montesquieu says, "God permitted that the Turks should exist on earth, as a people most fit to possess uselessly a great empire." There exists in the New World a state as admirably situated as Constantinople, and we must say, up to this time, as uselessly occupied. We allude to the State of Nicaragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the Ancient World, so is the town of Leon the centre of the New, and if the tongue of land which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were cut through, she would command by virtue of her central position the entire coast of North and South America. The State of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, the necessary route of the great commerce of the world, and is destined to attain an extraordinary degree of prosperity and grandeur. France, England, and Holland have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans, but England has more than the other Powers—a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America becoming a powerful and flourishing state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a feeling of nationality, and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachments from the north.
The idea of a trans-isthmian canal seemed likely in the 'fifties of last century to prove a cause of discord, if not of war, between England and the United States. Under the rather "pushful" foreign policy of Lord Palmerston, England rapidly increased her influence and possessions in Central America. In 1835 "British Honduras" was practically constituted a British colony, and British influence was subsequently extended into Nicaragua and Mosquitia, thus covering the favourite route for an isthmian waterway. The United States were establishing themselves on the Pacific through their encroachments on Mexico. In 1846 they acquired the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, and naturally began to attach more importance to the canal project and to feel more sensitive as regards rival ambitions in Central America. Soon after they had acquired these Pacific territories, began the great rush for gold to California, and some shorter way from east to west became necessary than the sea-trail round the Horn or the weary wagon-trek over the broad North American continent. Already in 1846, before the Mexican War and the discovery of gold in California, the United States had made a treaty with New Granada, by which the former secured rights of transit over the isthmus "upon any modes of communication that now exist or may hereafter be constructed," and by which they guaranteed the sovereignty of New Granada over all the territories at the isthmus.
It was under this treaty that the Panama Railway was constructed which brought the town of Colon (formerly Aspinwall) into existence, and was subsequently taken over by the United States government. This railroad made the isthmus for the first time a highway of world-traffic. It had a monopoly of isthmian transportation, and was able to make any charges it pleased. Steamship services to the southern and northern coasts of America from Panama were developed, and the railway succeeded so well that it paid down to 1895 an average dividend of 15 per cent. It was bought by the first French Panama Company for the outrageously high sum of £5,100,000. The existence of the railway really determined De Lesseps' choice of the Panama route, and the immense amount of excavation done by the French had a great deal to do in turn with the American choice of the same route, so that the construction of the Panama Railway was a highly important event at the isthmus. The United States took over the railroad from the French with the unfinished canal, together with a steamship service from Colon to New York, owned by the railroad.
The rivalry between England and the United States along the Nicaraguan route became so acute and dangerous that a very important treaty was concluded between the two countries in 1850, when we may say that the Panama Canal question entered the domain of modern politics. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, so-called from Mr. John M. Clayton, the American Secretary of State, and Sir Henry Bulwer, British Minister at Washington, who negotiated it, held the field for fifty years, and became the subject of endless discussion between England and the United States.
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