CANAL ZONE: Paying Its Way

This week, carrying out a 1950 Act of Congress, the U.S. reorganized its $515 million enterprises on the Isthmus of Panama. Besides the main business of transiting ships from ocean to ocean and collecting tolls, the U.S. operates many auxiliary projects: railroads, steamships, commissaries, power plants, theaters. Some have been run by an efficient Government-owned corporation called the Panama Railroad Co., some by a sprawling Government agency called the Panama Canal. In the reshuffle, all business functions, including ship transits, were put under the railroad's corporate charter, leaving only Canal Zone civil government to bureaucrats. The expanded corporation, called the Panama Canal Co., must pay the U.S. Treasury 1.95% on the Government's net investment—the only Government enterprise which by law must pay its own way.