The diffic,wIties in the way of the purchase of the
Panama Canal works ky the American Government have all, with one exception, been swept away. The directors of the Canal Company have agreed to the American price, and on April 23rd the representative of Colombia signed at Washing- ton a Treaty sanctioning the agreement, and granting to the United States by a renewable lease for a hundred years a strip of land six miles wide across the Isthmus, and the
sovereignty of the two te”minal harbours. The Treaty now requires only the assent of the American Senate, and although it is said that this will be refused—an important party dreading the canal as a rival to the great transcontinental railways—it may be questioned if the Senators will put them- selves in direct opposition to the President upon a question which has excited the imagination of the people. The Pacific States are eager for the canal, and so are all interested in Eastern trade, while the body of the voters see clearly that for a Republic seated on two oceans water communication between those oceans is ultimately indispensable. Still, we must wait and see, for the American railway magnates are very slow to pass any vote which reduces the profit on an enterprise already completed and in their hands.
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