If one system could be adopted by all maritime nations, so that the capacity of any given ship, when once officially ascertained and denoted on her official papers, could be everywhere understood and recognized as valid, the advantages gained would be very great. The statistics of navigation would be rendered more simple, intelligible, and accurate. The merchant or shipowner would at once understand the size and capacity of the ships he employs or purchases; he would also escape the annoyance and expense of remeasurement; and, lastly, taxation, when imposed, would be rendered more simple and more just. Under these circumstances there can be but one opinion as to the utility, if not the necessity, of some general system of measuring merchant shipping.

Following the passage of the British Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and the formulation of the Suez tonnage rules in 1873 by the International Tonnage Commission, efforts were made by the British Board of Trade to secure action by Parliament so changing the British rules for the measurement of vessels as to make possible the unification of the British and Suez rules, and consequently other tonnage rules. The efforts of the British Board of Trade and of others interested in the unification of tonnage rules were unsuccessful and nothing has recently been done in this matter. The importance of the subject, however, makes it desirable that further efforts should be made to bring about international tonnage uniformity.

The Suez and Panama rules differ in rela

tively minor details. They could without great change be brought into harmony with each other; and, when harmonized, the Suez-Panama rules would constitute a natural basis upon which to build an international code of measurement rules. Probably the major portion of the vessels engaged in overseas international trade will use the Suez or the Panama Canal or both. The Panama and Suez measurement codes are based upon sound principles and could logically be made the model of an international code.

The most effective method of inaugurating a movement for the international unification of tonnage rules would be for Great Britain, or for Great Britain and the United States jointly, to call an international conference to formulate a code to be recommended for adoption by the commercial nations of the world. The recommendations of such a conference would carry much weight, and if the recommendations were carried out by Great Britain and the United States, they would probably be adopted in course of time by other countries engaged in international maritime commerce.

CHAPTER XIV

COMMERCIAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE CANAL

By the Act of August 24, 1912, "the President is authorized . . . to govern and operate the Panama Canal and govern the Canal Zone through a governor of the Panama Canal and such other persons as he may deem competent to discharge the various duties." The act also gives the President power "to make and from time to time amend regulations governing the operation of the Panama Canal, and the passage and control of vessels through the same or any part thereof, including the locks and approaches thereto, and all rules and regulations affecting pilots and pilotage in the canal or the approaches thereto through the adjacent waters.'

"The President is also authorized to establish, maintain, and operate, through the Panama Rail Road Company or otherwise, dry docks, repair shops, yards, docks, wharves, warehouses, storehouses and other necessary .facilities and appurtenances for the purpose of providing coal and other materials, labor, repairs, and supplies for vessels of the Government of the United States

and, incidentally, for supplying such at reasonable prices to passing vessels."

The administrative organization which the President, upon the recommendation of Major General George W. Goethals, has created for the operation of the canal provides for seven departments directly under the governor of the canal. The departments are the purchasing, accounting, executive, operation and maintenance, supply, health, and Panama Rail Road. The two departments having to do with the commercial administration of the canal are the "operation and maintenance" and the "supply" departments. One of the three parts of the department of operation and maintenance is the marine department headed by a marine superintendent who has direct supervision over the commercial administration of the canal.

As stated in the 1915 Annual Report of the Governor of the Panama Canal, the marine superintendent is "charged with the entry, conduct of vessels through The Panama Canal, and clearing them after transit, together with the supervision of the port captains, board of local inspectors, the pilots, the operation of lights and beacons, and the inspection and admeasuring of vessels." There is a captain of the port at Cristobal and another at Balboa, and these are the officials most directly concerned with the details of

the commercial administration of the canal. The captain of the port assigns vessels to wharves, provides for the docking and berthing of ships, furnishes pilot service, supervises the admeasurement of vessels, and has "general supervision and enforcement of the canal and harbor regulations relating to shipping."

The shops and terminal facilities and the mechanical operation of the canal are briefly described in Chapters XIX and XX of Sibert and Stevens, The Construction of the Panama Canal. It is not necessary to repeat what is stated in that excellent volume, and the following brief description of the way in which vessels are operated through the canal will suffice: 1

The handling of a vessel all through the canal, except in the locks, is essentially the same as its handling through any charted channel where observance of signals, ranges, and turns is necessary. The canal channel throughout is very accurately charted, fully equipped with aids to navigation, and governed by explicit rules with which the pilots, of course, are thoroughly familiar.

In the locks, the vessel is under the control of the lockoperating force. As the vessel approaches the locks, the operator in charge at the control house indicates by an electrically operated signal at the outer end of the approach wall whether the vessel shall enter the locks, and, if so, on which side; or whether it shall keep back, or moor alongside the approach wall. If everything is

'Official Handbook of the Panama Canal (1915), pp. 20, 21..