The Panama Tolls Subsidy.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 21, 1913:
    The Republican Club has resolved that the exemption of the coastwise marine from Panama tolls can and should be justified as the payment of a subsidy. The trouble with this resolution is twofold. First, Republican advice has little influence with this Democratic Administration, which is prevented by its latest platform from abandoning its traditional policy against subsidies. Second, the Republican Club's resolution proposes to subsidize the wrong interest. It proposes to subsidize the most odious of monopolies, one maintained by law, and therein takes a position much weaker than would be a proposal to subsidize the commerce carried by the coastwise marine.
    If the proposal were that the exemption from tolls should be transferred from the carriers to the freight the movement would die a natural death. The coastwise marine is thinking only of itself in its selfish demand for a monopoly. It is seeking a privilege not only from the payment of tolls, but from competition with the railways, which the coastwise interests are proposing should be deprived of equality of access to the canal, and from reducing rates below the water rates.
    If the Panama Canal does not cheapen transportation the first reason for its construction fails. The idea that the canal was built in order to enable the coastwise monopoly to carry more cheaply, and to put the economy in its treasury instead of passing it on to promote commerce, is an affront to economics and intelligence alike.