National Affairs: Ditch's Birthday

The Panama Canal celebrated its tenth birthday. On behalf of the War Department, Colonel Meriwether Walker, Acting Governor of the Canal Zone, observed the day by issuing a statement summarizing the Canal's work.

During the ten years, 28,100 vessels traversed the Canal, 25,600 of them commercial vessels. The cost to each vessel averaged about $4,000, or the cost of operating six days at sea in preference to the several weeks which it takes to go around the Horn. They carried an aggregate of 110 million tons of cargo at a cost of about 90 cents a ton in tolls. Aggregate tolls have been $100,000,000. During the last year, tolls have been $2,000,000 a month, and the net operating profit about $17,000,000 or an equivalent of 4½% on the $400,000,000 cost* of the Canal.