The sale of the Panama Canal to a company of
New York financiers is now an accomplished fact. The chief mover in the negotiations, of which an interesting account is to be found in Thursday's Times, is Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, of New York, a leading Corporation lawyer who has never been in politics. Meetings of a special Commission appointed by Congress, and held in Paris last year, have now resulted in the transference to the American company of all the property, rights, and powers of its French predecessor, the consideration to be paid to the latter being mainly in the form of shares in the American company, which expects to be able to raise the $100,000,000 estimated to be necessary to complete the work. The lapse of the rival Nicaragua or State-aided scheme has lent fresh vitality to the Panama Canal. Ten years of the Colombia Government concession are still to run, and there is at least a reasonable prospect that the new American combination will make good its promise to complete the isthmus canal at its own cost within four or five years.
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