Canal Tolls Fixed Like The Suez Rates.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 14, 1912:
Merchant Vessels and Transports to Pay $1.20 a Ton and Warships 50 Cents.
IT WILL PAY IN 20 YEARS
Rates Also Expected to Meet Fixed Charges and Provide Sinking Fund In Ten Years.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, Nov. 13.— In compliance with the Panama Canal act President Taft issued a proclamation to-night announcing the rates of toll to be paid by vessels passing through the waterway. The rates fixed are those recommended by Emery R. Johnson, Professor of Transportation, and Commerce of the University of Pennsylvania, in a special report made to the President on Aug. 7, 1912. The President, after long and careful consideration of the data, found no reason for making any change in the rates recommended.
    The rate for merchant vessels carrying passengers and cargo is $1.20 per net ton. Each 100 cubic feet of earning space in the ship will be accounted as a ton. Vessels in ballast without passengers are to pay 40 per cent. less than the rate for vessels with passengers and cargo.
    Warships, other than transports, colliers, hospital, and supply ships, are to pay 50 cents per displacement ton. Transports and other auxiliaries are to pay $1.20 per ton. No per capita passenger toll will be required. The Suez passenger toll is about $1.75 for each passenger.
    The rates approved by the President are practically the same as the reduced rates agreed on for the Suez Canal, which will go into effect in 1913.
    The Suez rate per ton on merchant vessels is to be reduced 50 centimes or to 6 1/4 francs, which is the equivalent of $1.206, (one dollar and twenty and six-tenths cents.) On war vessels the Panama rates are somewhat higher than those of the Suez Canal.
    It is estimated by Prof. Johnson that the rates decided upon will produce enough revenue at the end of ten years, or in 1925, to pay the cost of operation and maintenance, the government and sanitation of the Canal Zone, interest on the capital invested in the canal, and the annual payment of $250,000 to the Republic of Panama, and to place $3,750,000 in a sinking fund toward the ultimate amortization of the investment in the project.
    According to Prof. Johnson's report, which was also made public to-night, the Panama Canal should be upon a self-sustaining basis in twenty years. He said that it should compete successfully with the Suez route for the traffic of Europe with South American west coast points, and with New Zealand, but could not be expected to compete successfully for Europe's trade to the Far East.