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 The present Panamna Canal-you can take all the figures you want about tonnage and the draft and everything else-is gradually becoming obsolete. As the maritime technology and engineering tecimology grow in this country, it is going to become more and more obsolete.
 I do not have the figures as to our own Navy, but they are substantial
 -as to the ships that cannot go through the canal, and many ships that may be built will not be able to go through the canal. So it is in the interests of defense, where I started in this matter back in the 1930's, that we are talking about as well as about our commercial ships.
 There are very few Senators here who will remember this. When I first came to the Senate, we had a committee-I say to the Senator from Maryland-called the Committee on Interoceanic Canals. All it dealt with was the Panama iCanal. Even in those days, we were having a hard time taking care of the maintenance of the canal just by the fees alone.
 This canal is becoming obsolete, year by year, even for our underwater craft-I do not know whether rig-ht now we could take a Trident submarine through the canal or whether it would be advisable. Someone here said that the width of the canal is 107 feet. Is that correct? That is what I heard.
 So we are faced with the problem that, sooner or later, no matter what we do with this treaty, we will need a second canal. I agree with the statement that was made here by the senior Senator from Alaska, that a second canal does not have much to do with the treaty under discussion. But if we show an interest and we make some movements toward considering the construction of an alternative canal, I think that alternative probably would soften some of the arguments, or make people feel better-let us put it that way-about the Panama Canal matter.
 I found this out when I -was home. I talked to many people who were opponents of the present proposition that we have before us on the Panama Canal. But I found that they were just as much interested in the fact that if we have an alternative, a good alternative, which can be used by the free nations of the world, they may take a second look at the question of the present canal-which, no matter what you say about it-is becoming rapidly obsolete every year, year after year after year. I doubt that by the year 2000 it will have very much value at all.
 I hope to see some interest in a second canal. That is 'why I joined the Senator from Alaska and others in talking about it as an alternative.
 The cost has gone up. I suppose that back in the 1930's, if we had gone ahead with the canal-if Franklin D. Roosevelt, following Theodore, had gone ahead with the canal-after we had made our trip, -we could have built it for perhaps one-fourth of what we are talking about now.
 What bothered me about the treaty in the beginning is that there is a clause-I do not know how well it has been interpreted here during this debate-that if we have a second canal, Panama can only deal with us and we can only deal with Panama. That is a two-way street.
 I once asked the negotiators about that. I said, "Why did you put that provision in there?"
 They said they were under the impression, the definite impression, that after all the studies and all the talk about a second canal, the only