Transportation is a factor in the cost of commodities scarcely second to
that of their production, and weighs as heavily upon the consumer.
Our experience already has proven the great importance of having the
competition between land carriage and water carriage fully developed,
each acting as a protection to the public against the tendencies to
monopoly which are inherent in the consolidation of wealth and power in
the hands of vast corporations.
These suggestions may serve to emphasize what I have already said on the
score of the necessity of a neutralization of any interoceanic transit;
and this can only be accomplished by making the uses of the route open
to all nations and subject to the ambitions and warlike necessities of
none.
The drawings and report of a recent survey of the Nicaragua Canal route,
made by Chief Engineer Menocal, will be communicated for your
information.
The claims of citizens of the United States for losses by reason of the
late military operations of Chile in Peru and Bolivia are the subject of
negotiation for a claims convention with Chile, providing for their
submission to arbitration.
The harmony of our relations with China is fully sustained.
In the application of the acts lately passed to execute the treaty of
1880, restrictive of the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United
States, individual cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of
the Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial determination.
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