of transport by the various lines does not therefore pretend to extreme accuracy. A fair paying rate for freighting, exclusive of insurance or other charges is all we can offer. It will, however, be comparatively correct, the other charges incidental to shifting freight, insurance, &c., will differ so little on the various routes, as not to affect materially the comparisons of relative cost. The charge for freight, as now established on the Pacific Road, taken from the published reports, is 101 cts. per ton (34 feet measurement) per mile, from Omaha West. The Railroad returns for the last year of the movement of freight on the established roads at the East is nearly 4 cts. per ton per mile. We will say 3 cts. The running time for freight is never over 12 miles an hour. On the Pacific Road it can never net, for a through freight fare, over 10 miles an hour including stoppages. The speed of sea steamers is taken from the average of the log-books of the steamers running on the Panama line both ways in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. For general merchandise, per ton of 40 feet cube.. $140 22 to 25 From France (Saint Nazaire) to Hong Kong for 60 From France (Saint Nazaire) to Hong Kong in direct line from Panama (including the estimated price from there to Hong Kong from Pacific Mail Steamship Co.'s present rates) . . . $92 00 54 The following tariff table of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (published on the 15th February last), shows the freights to Europe on productions.of Japan and China, particularly on tea, transported with the above-named speed: I think it will be conceded, from the above statement, that neither for the European trade, nor for the trade from our Atlantic ports, will the Pacific Railroad offer any advantage over the route by the way of the Isthmus. I omit all mention of fast passenger travel. We have made the comparison thus far with the Isthmus route via Panama, from the fact that the present steamship lines both on the Atlantic and Pacific, whose times and rates are known, run in connection with that road, and estimates of freighting based on these rates cannot be questioned. If, then, the advantages of trade and commerce between the continents are in favor of this Isthmus, what must be the advantages accruing to the route by way of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which lies some 1,200 miles farther north than that of Panama? The following distances, being the log reckonings of steamships, are taken from T. I. Cram's Topograph ical Engineers U. S. A. Report on Ocean Routes, published in 1857: Difference from New York in favor of the Tehuantepec route.. 1,477 This difference appears still greater for the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States, say New Orleans: Difference from New Orleans in favor of the Tehuantepec route. 2,334 At the present speed of the steamers on the Panama route, allowing for one day to cross the Isthmus at either point, the saving of time from New York to San Francisco, by taking the Tehuantepec route rather than the Panama, is six days. From New Orleans to San Francisco, by the Tehuantepec route, there is a saving of nine days. Need the comparison be extended any further? From Otis's Hand-book of the Panama Road, p. 52, we learn: "In 1858 the business over the road from the western coast of South and Central America exceeded in value nine times the freighting business of California via the Isthmus; and in 1860 fourteenfifteenths of the entire freighting business of the road was from shipments from the United States and England, and the return products of South and Central America, such as indigo, cochineal, india-rubber, coffee, deerskins and goatskins, dye woods, pearl shells, tobacco, balsams, Peruvian bark, ores, straw hats," &c. When the inconceivable richness of these regions is taken into consideration, coupled with the fact that the transport across the Isthmus by the Panama Road is not cheapened, but the establishment of lines of steamers alone has developed the existing trade, we can judge what would be the effect of opening a rival line, which, itself passing through a country of unexampled productiveness, and with a safe port on the western coast easy of access (neither of which is the case at Panama) shall, instead of charging $30 a ton for carrying manufactured tobacco (and a like rate for other native products) a distance of 46 miles, charge but half that amount for a land transport of 162 miles! We say that, instead of presenting a long array of figures of statistics of the native trade, we need but point to what the Panama Railroad has reaped already from this trade, and claim at least an equal return. |