DOCUMEtNTARY HImstOY OF THE mIIMDA CANAL


 Mr. Bucx.KM Signed by Capt. E. Boranger, under date of May 20,
1933.
 Senator VANDENBm G. If you do not mind, I would like to add at
that point that the same ship operator stated in a letter of June 10,
1935, that they had not any ships operating in that area-
and accordingly we feel any comment we might make in connection with this
proposed canal would have little value in connection with it from that standpoint.
 Mr. Buckman, I do not want to interrupt you each time you read
one of these letters, and I am not going to, but I just want to leave
the general statement in the record so I won't have to interrupt you
again that my subsequent correspondence with practically every ship
company that you are naming indicates either a change of view or a
lack of information to sustain a view at any time.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. I appreciate that. I am very glad you are making
that clear in the record, because I think it assists to an understanding
of this point which I am making, namely, we have conflicting testi-
mony out of the mouths of these witnesses, and that it sustains the
point taken by me and taken by the Chief of Engineers, as I will show
presently, that such evidence cannot be primarily relied upon in
arriving at a determination of this kind.
 Senator VANDENBEBG. But would you not think now, speaking pro-
fessionally to you in your professional capacity, that before a great
public undertaking involving the minimum of $150,000,000 was
launched that there ought to be somewhere, somehow, a conviction
respecting its utility on the part of its prospective users?
 Mr. BUCKMAN. I think there is such a conviction.
 I heard the Chief of Engineers say, when he was Chief of the Board
of Engineers of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, this rather
significant statement: After hearing these letters for and against the
canal read to that board, "When the canal is opened, they will use it."
That was his statement. I think there is that very firm conviction,
Senator Vandenberg. If there were not, I should think there would
not have been any advance of this project at all.
 Senator VANDENBERG. It was not advanced as a rivers and harbors
project in the normal course but it was advanced as a work-relief
project, which is a totally different thing.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. But, regardless, it was not advanced without justi-
fication along the immemorially accepted criteria for such projects.
There have been no short cuts in the justification of this project.
 Senator VANDENBERO. I think there has been; and I think there has
been some pigeonholes that I still have not been able to get into.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. I think there is nothing in the record, Senator, as
to that, and of course, it is an assumption we do not agree on.
 Senator VANDENBR G. No, no. I am referring to the fact that
the proponents of the canal, so far as the record goes, are standing in
the way of a conclusive survey by the Board of Rivers and Harbors
Engineers.
 Mr. BUCKMAN. No; I think I have already testified that we are
 not standing in the way, and that we did request at a .former time a
 postponement, but we are not standing in the way at this time, and
 I would like to make that clear.
 Senator FLvCHER. We have had all the engineers in the country
 examine it, the P. W. A., the R. F. C., and the Joint board and the


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