1939: Panama Canal

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1939, 5,903 commercial vessels passed through the Panama Canal. This represented an increase of 379 ships or 6.86 per cent over 1938. The aggregate tolls for the year amounted to $23,661,021, and the total cargoes reached 27,866,627 tons.

Major activities in the Canal Zone during the year reflected the gravity of conditions in Europe. Precautionary measures for military defense were planned by the United States Department of War. In May, upon Senate authorization, the United States prepared to cooperate with the government of Panama in building a seventy-mile highway from the Canal Zone to an army bombing range and training field, at Rio Hato, Panama.

In August, President Roosevelt signed a bill authorizing the construction of a third set of locks, designed purely for military purposes. The cost of the project was estimated at $277,000,000, and construction is expected to require six years. The new locks will be bombproof. They well be situated one-fourth to one-half mile from the existing locks, and will be connected with Gatun and Miraflores Lakes by supplementary channels. Plans for the locks call for chambers 200 feet longer, 25 feet wider and 5 feet deeper than those in use at present. (See also UNITED STATES: National Defense.)

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal on August 15, the steamer Ancon, which made the first trip through the Canal, re-enacted her history-making voyage.

With the increase of tension in Europe in August, extra guards were placed at the locks and other vital points along the Canal, and on Aug. 29, Brigadier General Clarence S. Ridley, Governor of the Canal Zone, ordered military guards placed on all ships passing through the Canal, to eliminate the possibility of sabotage. At the end of August the War Department assigned 1,029 enlisted men and 56 officers to the Canal Zone, to augment the personnel of aircraft and anti-aircraft units. At the same time steps were taken to reinforce the present locks and make them bombproof. Finally, on September 6, following the outbreak of the European War, the Canal Zone was put under military control, and Major General David L. Stone assumed supreme command.

1938: Panama Canal

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1938, 5,524 ocean-going commercial vessels passed through the canal as compared with 5,387 in 1937, an increase of 137 ships, or 2.5 per cent. The aggregate tolls collected from vessels using the canal during 1938 amounted to $23,169,888.70 in comparison with $23,102,137.12 collected in 1937. Although the canal traffic increased slightly during 1938, the volume would have been appreciably lower in 1937 if a three month marine workers' strike had not seriously disrupted shipping during the previous year.

The rates charged for passing through the canal are determined by a formula based upon tonnage and cargo space and vary for different types of ships from 50 cents to 90 cents per ton of displacement. On March 1, 1938, a new system of determining the toll rate in the Panama Canal was instituted following legislation enacted by Congress on Aug. 24, 1937. In the new measurement rules certain exemptions are made which have the effect of reducing tonnage on which tolls are paid as compared with the tonnage under the measurement rules which were in effect prior to March 1, 1938. The new system is operating very satisfactorily and although the revenue from tolls is slightly reduced at present, the future income is not subject to reduction through interpretation of rules or by vessel construction or alteration, as was the case under the former system.

Tanker traffic, which in 1924 comprised 33.1 per cent of the total canal transits, has continued to decline until 1938 when it represented only 10.2 per cent of the total ocean-going vessels using the canal, which represents the smallest tanker traffic since 1923. The trend of the use of the canal since its opening on Aug. 15, 1914 shows a gradual increase from a total of 1,058 passages the first year to a record high of 6,289 passages in 1929. The world-wide depression reduced canal traffic from these record levels to 4,162 transits in 1933. Since that time traffic has been increasing slowly, in 1938 being 87.8 per cent of the 1929 record.

The Canal Zone is fortified by coast defense guns, anti-aircraft, a submarine base and a permanent Army and Navy air force stationed at three separate flying fields. On Dec. 14, Hans Schackow, a German employee of the Hapag Lloyd Steamship Agency, was found guilty of unlawfully photographing the coast defenses of the Panama Canal.

The canal is administered by 'The Panama Canal' organization under a Governor appointed for a four year term by the President of the United States. For convenience in executive management, the Secretary of War represents the President in the administration of the canal and appoints the Governor, usually from the Army Engineering Corps. The canal operates through five departments — Operations, Supply, Accounting, Executive and Health — located in the Canal Zone. An office is also maintained in Washington, D. C. In June 1938 there were 13,799 civilian employees in the various departments of the Panama Canal organization.