236 DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE FLORIDA CANAL
 Mr. BucxXAN.' Apparently so. But you have the statement of
the duly designated Army engineers on this board that those are the
findings of the other board and it is authenticated by this report.
 Senator VANDEmBER. Yes. But we know nothing about the basis
of the findings. We do not know whether it is hypothetical; we do
not know whether it involved an actual survey of traffic or what it
involved, do we You know a good deal of what is involved.
 Senator FuTrCHE. Didn't P. W. A. also use that same data ?
 Mr. BUCKMAN. It used a large amount of it.
 Senator VANDENBE G. And the P. W. A. turned it down as not eco-
nomically justifiable
 Mr. BUCKxAN. I beg your pardon, Senator. We have no testimony
before this committee that they turned it down as not economically
justifiable. The statement of the Secretary was that it was turned
down because he did not feel the loan on that particular application
for a canal was sufficiently secured.
 Senator VANDENBER. Yes; and he said, in other words, that it was
not a good business proposition, which would be my way of saying
that it was not economically justifiable.
 Mr. BucKMAN. As a loan on a toll basis of 8 cents, I am inclined to
agree with him.
 I won't delay the committee further, Mr. Chairman, but I was
trying to find here in the Public Works report where there is a reci-
tation of the great detail of count of ships and tonnage actually going
into and out of the Gulf in 1929, 1931, and 1932, indicating clearly
that this survey and these economics were not a hypothetical count
but were actual port records of the clearances of ships in and out over
that route.
 Senator VANDENBER. I have seen the material to which you refer
and that is precisely what I would call hypothetical, because it counts
the traffic and then assumes it is going to use the canal.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. Can you figure any other way that an unopened
artery of commerce could have its traffic estimated?
 Mr. ViANDNBE O. Yes. I would think that the verbal testimony of
eligible users of the canal would be more important than anything else.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. But would not that also be hypothetical?
 Senator VANDENBEu. No. That is pretty practical, because those
are the ones on whom you have got to depend, I would think.
 Mr. BUCK~MN. If you could examine them all and know that they
are all truthful, possibly so.
 Senator VASmmDNB o. I donot mean to argue with you, Mr. Buck-
man. I just wanted to get the facts that this computation to which
you refer is the only base upon which this claim of economic justifica-
tion contained in the report of the board of review to the President
is based. You know of nothing else
 Mr. BUCKxAN. No; I cannot accept that, Senator. I should like
to amend it. I know of three bases: The detailed economic survey
made by the Special Board of Survey of the Corps of Engineers, a
check upon that survey by the board of review through its economic
adviser, Dr. Emery Johnson, who was the Commissioner of the
Panama Canal, and was retained by the board of review to make such
a check; a special economic survey in addition to those which I have