III. That the Ship Railway, as a mechanical contrivance, has the indorsement of the best authorities, and may be admitted to be the _ne plus ultra_ as a means of taking ships from their natural element and transporting them over the land.
IV. That none of these plans has as yet advanced sufficiently to warrant our considering its completion as beyond doubt.
V. That, as the _additional_ sum now asked for by De Lesseps (_even if sufficient_) to complete the Panama Canal is _greater_ than the estimated cost of either Nicaragua Canal or the Ship Railway, it would be economical to abandon the Panama Canal, and the money sunk in it, to date, unless its location and form possess paramount advantages; and we therefore may profitably consider the relative merits of the three lines without regard to the past, from four standpoints, viz.:
2. Adaptiveness to all marine requirements, present and future.
4. Economy of construction and operation.
He then discussed the comparative claims to excellence. In the first consideration, after classifying the several grand divisions of future ocean traffic, and noting especially the needs of the United States, he claimed that while there was little to choose, in this respect, between Nicaragua and Tehuantepec, either was far superior to Panama.
In the second particular he maintained that owing to the characteristics of the Panama Canal and the practical impossibility of enlarging it hereafter, excepting at stupendous cost, it could not serve the purposes of the future, although it might, if completed, supply present need. He praised the ingenuity of the plans for the Ship Railway, but emphasized the fact that it will be the _movement of the traffic_, not merely the lifting and supporting of ships in transit, that will test the system, and suggested that even the beautiful application of mechanical force which had been contrived might be powerless to insure the high grade of service which is an absolute necessity. In this connection the general features of the Nicaragua Canal, in its latest form, were referred to, and the opinion expressed that even were all difficulties in the way of the Ship Railway eliminated, it could not be superior to the canal in respect of adaptiveness.