Exemption from Panama Tolls

Extract

“A trust for mankind” is what President Cleveland in a message termed such an enterprise as the Panama Canal. The question just now is whether such a trust is administered properly by giving to vessels engaged in the coasting trade of the United States a total exemption from tolls. It should be noticed that the question is not whether exemption may be given to war ships and other ships of the government, but whether it may be given to the ships of private owners. It should be noticed also that the question is not whether there may be a subsidy, —in other words, not whether the tolls of such vessels may properly be paid out of the national treasury — in which case the burden would be bome by all residents of the United States through the internal revenue, the tariff, and other taxes, and the benefit would be enjoyed initially by the treasury of the Panama Canal and eventually by all persons whom the canal may serve. No, the question is whether, in the words of the Panama Canal Act of 1912, “no tolls shall be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States,” — with the almost inevitable result that the tolls exacted from other vessels will thus be made heavier than they otherwise would be.