POSTSCRIPT. THE LATEST REPORT OF M. DE LESSEPS. SINCE the foregoing pages have been written, the annual meeting of the Panama Canal Company was held on July 29, and M. de Lesseps has presented his Report for the year ending June 1885. It is a long document, accompanied by a memoir about the undertaking, and by the usual “Inventaire," or financial statement, for the preceding year, which in the present case is 1883-84. M. de Lesseps discourses at length about the success of the Suez Canal, and protests against the violent opposition made to him by a few papers in Paris, which are not, he is glad to say, conducted by Frenchmen. The opposition to the Suez Canal was directed by certain foreign papers: now, he adds, though the papers are Parisian, they are edited by foreigners. He complains that papers and pamphlets are published specially to damage the canal; but unfortunately it is M. de Lesseps himself who, by his large subsidies to the native press, has encouraged the creation of such sheets and brochures with the main purpose of extorting money from him. Passing to the business of the canal, M. de Lesseps is, if anything, more unsatisfactory in his statements than he has ever been during these five years. He has suppressed one of the features of his previous reports-the summing-up of the cubic metres of excavation made from the beginning. He admits now that the grand total will reach 120,000,000, but he does not say how many have been removed up to date, contenting himself with showing the result for January to May, which, by the way, although in all probability grossly exaggerated, is summed up at 3,340,000, or an average of 668,000 per month-a figure, indeed, very different from the 2,000,000 a month which, according to his promises in September 1883 (see page 121), was to be the output every month from and after 1884. M. de Lesseps reviews the work that is being done at the several sections and the cost of the canal line, and then gives us a sanguine account of the expected traffic. Lastly, he gives notice that he has applied to the French Government for permission to issue 600,000,000f. in debentures with lottery prizes. That sum, he says, is all that is necessary, "d'ici à l'achèvement complet des travaux." His report is not a straightforward statement, not only as to work done, but also as to probable cost and the expected traffic of the canal. Not one word is said about the great difficulties presented by the River Chagres. He has a special paragraph about the cost of the canal which is grossly misleading, and inconsistent with itself. He does not say how much excavation has been done. He does not state properly how much the company is owing, for he now suppresses from his scheme the discounts at which the bonds have been issued, as well as the cost of the Panama Railway, from which company he bought not only a road which, he said, he would have to build if it did not exist, but also the right of way which had been given to it for a canal in Panama by the Colombian charter. M. de Lesseps, moreover, mixes up his figures so as to produce the impression that when he gives the mere cost of excavation, according to some contracts now in force, he really gives the cost of the canal. He continues to exclude from his already worthless calculations the outlay on the Chagres, interest during construction, administration—in short, everything except excavation; and he then parades the supposed cost of the latter for the cost of the canal. We will give a few instances of the peculiar methods by which he manipulates his figures and information. We will take, for instance, the last named topic, the "cost of the canal," to which he devotes a special chapter. As we have shown in pages 76 et seq., M. de Lesseps, in the autumn and winter of 1880-1, repeatedly assured the public that the cost of the canal, fully completed, would be 700,000,000f., including 100,000,000f. for any contingency. The Economiste Français of August 1, 1885 (we dare say he does not call that paper a paper edited by foreigners), reminds him that, in his Bulletin du Canal of December 1, 1880, he assured his readers that MM. Couvreux and Hersent had offered to take firm (à forfait) the contract for building the canal for 512,000,000f., or £20,480,000, and that adding 88,000,000f., or £3,520,000, for interest during construction, administration, &c., the total cost of the canal would be 600,000,000f., or, anyway, 700,000,000f. — equivalent to £28,000,000. We have already remarked that MM. Couvreux and Hersent never took such a contract. But we wish to repeat that M. de Lesseps has all along, since the formation of his company, said that the canal would cost at most 700,000,000f., including all expenses. Once more recapitulate the several estimates that have been made : 1. M. Bonaparte Wyse, 1879 (without contingencies) 2. Congress of Paris, 1879 (with everything. except the Panama Railway and the handling of the "unknown" problem. of the Chagres, and supposing the cube to be excavated to amount to only 46,000,000 metres, instead of the 120,000,000 metres as now admitted by M. de Lesseps) 3. M. de Lesseps' own International Com mission," February 1880 (including we will Francs. 427,000,000 1,070,000,000 843,000,000 Francs. 4. M. de Lesseps himself, February 1880 (while on his voyage from Panama to New York he cuts down the estimate of his own "Commission"-see Bulletin du Canal, No. 14, page 116. This estimate excludes interest, &c. as above) . . 658,000,000 5. "Rectified" estimate, September 1880 (two months before appealing for money. Attributed to MM. Couvreux and Hersent, and not including interest, banking, &c.) Or, "including all expenses, and these 512,000,000 700,000,000 But after having repeated during all these years that the total cost of the canal was to be 700,000,000f., the great Frenchman now turns around once more, and boasts in his latest edition of an estimate that the total cost is exactly that which had been foreseen by the Congress of 1879! Of course, we know very well, and he knows it too, that the canal will cost much more than twice as much as estimated by the Congress, which, after all, reckoned only on less than 40 per cent. of the excavation already admitted at present, and, besides, did not include the Panama Railway purchase nor the "unknown" problem of the Chagres. But even here M. de Lesseps is far from frank, and resorts to his usual tactics in order to make his shareholders believe that the canal will cost no more than 1,100,000,000f., or £44,000,000, instead of the £28,000,000 which he has often stated to be the outside figure. He has, under the head of " Cost of the Canal," two paragraphs which are characteristic. They follow each other. The first says that the present contractors, now at work, have agreed to do excavations at the average rate per cubic metre of 334f. for soft soil and 8'6of. for sclid rock. Instead of following up that demonstration to its legitimate conclusion, adding the sums already spent to both the cost of removing soft soil and hard rock still to be taken away, and then adding the banking, administration, discounts, improvements in the Chagres, and other charges, M. de Lesseps does nothing of the kind. He stops there, and then writes this extraordinary paragraph, which we will reproduce from the original: "Les contrats passés avec les deux entrepreneurs qui se sont engagés à livrer le Canal complètement terminé jusqu'au plafond nous permettent d'établir la dépense des travaux de parachèvement, lesquels s'élèveront à 480 millions de francs. En ajoutant cette somme à la somme engagée de 220 millions de francs, nous arrivons à la somme de 700 millions de francs qui sera le coût du canal maritime le jour de son inauguration." And he then adds: “Il faut nécessairement ajouter à cette évaluation du coût du creusement, les charges sociales et administratives annuelles, les intérêt à servir aux actions et aux obligations, pour arriver au total général proclamé par le Congrès international." Our readers will perhaps be surprised to hear that there have never been "two contractors who have been engaged to deliver the canal finished to the bottom." That story matches the former one, to which the Economiste Français referred, of MM. Couvreux and Hersent having taken, firm, the contract for building the canal for 518,000,000f. Even apart from the fact that there are no such contractors, the story itself is not coherent and would fall to the ground. M. de Lesseps says that 480,000,000f., or £19,000,000, will finish the canal, besides the 220,000,000f., or £8,800,000," already engaged." Admitting those figures, what would become of those sums already spent in the canal? The memoir accompanying the report says that 203,660,000f., or £8,146,400, have already been outlaid in installation and digging. What is to become of that sum? Is it included in the £8,800,000 "already engaged" in the contracts with the present contractors ? Moreover, he says that to the cost of the canal digging, or 700,000,000f., there should be added the money necessary Ꭱ |