Tolls For All Ships Urged By Brandegee.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 19, 1912:
Nothing Unpatriotic, Senator Says, in Making Vessels Which Are Benefited Pay.
BRITISH PROTEST NOT HERE
Refund on Arbitration Decision Might Reach $45,000,000 — Canal Profits Estimated at $6,000,000 Yearly.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 18.— The subject of Panama Canal tolls was discussed as a business proposition in the Senate today, and little attention was paid to its international aspects. Chairman Brandegee of the committee in charge held the floor most of the time, and submitted a great deal of data as to the probable traffic through the canal. His estimates showed that on a basis of $1 a net registered ton the canal might clear $6,000,000 a year at the start, and that this would be increased later.
    Mr. Brandegee was not arguing for making the canal a paying proposition, but he merely used the arbitrary rate of $1 a ton, which had figured largely in the talk here. As a matter of fact, the pending bill provides a maximum rate of $1.25, but should the estimates used today prove correct the rate would be considerably lowered.
    According to the estimates of Dr. Henry B. Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania, who aided the sub-committee in the matter, a reasonable expectation for the year 1915, when the canal will be opened, would be for American coastwise steamers 1,000,000 tons, for American ships in the foreign trade 715,000 tons, and for foreign ships generally 8,715,000 tons. About four-fifths of the entire traffic, he said, would be foreign. The cost of operation, according to Col. Goethals, will be only $4,000,000.
    By 1920, from the tables which Mr. Brandegee read, Mr. Johnson predicted that the American tonnage through the canal would increase to 1,414,000, our foreign American tonnage to 905,000, and the foreign shipping would be 11,025,000 tons. By 1925, Dr. Johnson predicted, the American coastwise trade through the canal would have been doubled, while the foreign shipping would have increased by about 50 per cent.
    "According to those figures," interrupted Mr. Stone, "if the Senator from New York (Mr. Root) was right about our refunding tolls, at the end of five years, if the case took that long before The Hague tribunal, we should have to pay back about $45,000,000."
    Taking up the subject of Great Britain's objections, Mr. Brandegee urged that the sane and unobjectionable thing for us to do was to levy equitable rates on all ships, both American and foreign, and then await developments. After we have adjusted rates and regulations to meet the competition of the Suez Canal, he said, it would be time enough to tell whether our ships needed to be freed of the burden of tolls. Then we could take up the international questions involved with our eyes open.
    "Simply because Great Britain has protested I do not think there would be anything unpatriotic in making these ships, which are to be especially benefited, pay their own way," he said.
    An early vote on the bill was predicted by Senator Brandegee. He said the bill would be opened to amendment in a few days. The question of tolls, he said, need not retard action on the administrative features.
    A Mitchell Inness, Charge' of the British Embassy, appeared at the State Department this forenoon to notify Secretary Knox that for some reason unknown to him, the British protest against pending Panama Canal legislation had not yet arrived. Consequently the Secretary and the Charge' agreed to refrain from any discussion of the subject pending the receipt of the papers.