Companies" and "Sailing Directions" are published at intervals with a view to keeping shipowners fully informed as to the interpretations of the rules and as to other matters that may be of assistance to owners and masters of vessels operated through the Panama Canal.

The financial methods followed in the commercial administration of the canal are simple and impose cinimum expenses and delays upon vessels using the waterway. As the Official Handbook of The Panama Canal states:

For a steamship owner or agent to send a vessel through the canal is one of the simplest matters in all his business. Practically all he has to do is to make a deposit with the Government to cover the vessel's canal expenses. The Government will attend to everything else, and return his change as soon as the vessel has cleared from the canal.

Steamship companies and the owners of individual vessels may avoid carrying the cash required to pay tolls and to purchase supplies at the canal by making a deposit with an assistant treasurer of the United States at any of the larger ports of the country, and the assistant treasurer will cable to the Panama Canal giving notice of the amount thus placed on deposit. From the amount thus placed to the credit of the steamship company or shipowner, settlement may be made at the Isthmus for canal tolls and for whatever

supplies may be purchased. Shipowners in foreign countries may readily arrange through their banks for the deposit, with an assistant treasurer at an American port, of sums from which to make payments for tolls and to meet other expenses at the canal.

The Panama Canal authorities much prefer to have the shipowner deal directly with them instead of through the medium of a local agent. As the marine superintendent states in the 1915 Annual Report of the Governor of the Panama Canal:1

Experience has fully demonstrated that the interests of vessels using the canal for transit and purchase of coal, supplies, provisions, and attendant services are much easier, better, and satisfactorily handled when placed in the hands of the canal authorities than when in the hands of local agents. In this respect, as well as in others, every effort has been made to eliminate any unnecessary or duplication of work and to make our business methods as simple as possible. To such an extent has this been accomplished that if owners or agents will follow our advice a vessel may automatically enter and pass through the canal without her master leaving his ship or signing a paper.

The admirable organization for the mechanical and commercial operation of the Panama Canal reflects the administrative skill and the exceptional foresight of Major General Goethals, the 'p. 224.

builder and first governor of the canal. A great engineer, aided by an able corps of trained assistants, has successfully accomplished an executive task of the first magnitude, and has thereby rendered a most valuable service to the commerce of the United States and other countries. It is especially fortunate that the operation of the canal was inaugurated by the man who directed its construction.

CHAPTER XV

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THE SLIDES CLOSED THE CANAL

After the Panama Canal had been in operation for more than a year and the trade of the United States and other countries had come to depend upon the services and facilities afforded by the waterway, it was suddenly closed to all shipping. It remained closed until April 15, 1916, a period of seven months. The inconvenience and losses that resulted from the closing of the canal indicate concretely its usefulness to the commerce and industries of the United States and of the world generally.

In spite of the fact that international trade was greatly reduced by the Europeon War, the traffic through the canal had reached a relatively large volume before the waterway was closed by the slides that occurred September 18, 1915. During July of that year 170 vessels loaded with 705,000 tons of cargo were passed through the canal; and, although this was the largest traffic of any month preceding the closing of the canal, the volume for that month was not greatly above the

monthly average which the traffic had attained. During June, July, and August 1915, 474 vessels, carrying 1,884,000 tons of cargo, made use of the waterway. The sudden stopping of so large a current of traffic necessarily involved many expensive readjustments of industry and trade.

The readjustments could not be made immediately. During the three weeks following the date on which the slides occurred, more than 100 vessels, bearing 375,000 tons of cargo, arrived at the termini of the canal and were prevented from proceeding through the waterway to their destinations. Many more vessels would have reached the canal during these three weeks had not their sailings been canceled or their routes changed by the owners upon receiving notice of the closing of the canal.

The variety and value of the commerce interrupted by the closing of the canal are even more impressive than the volume of the trade affected. The traffic westbound between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States is of much greater variety than that eastbound, but the manifests (some of which were published) of steamers that were held up at the canal en route from San Francisco to New York show that many kinds of articles were being shipped between the two seaboards and that some of these articles were of high value.