Calendar No. 487 76rH Conaress i SENATE { Report Ist Session No. 452 ADDITIONAL FACILITIES FOR CANAL ZONE AND DE- FENSE OF PANAMA CANAL AND FUTURE NEEDS OF INTEROCEANIC SHIPPING May 18 (legislative day, May 8), 1939.—Ordered to be printed Mr. Crarx of Missouri, from the Committee on Interoceanic Canals, submitted the following REPORT {To accompany S. 2229] The Committee on Interoceanic Canals to whom was referred the bill (S. 2229) authorizing and providing for the construction of addi- tional facilities on the Canal Zone for the purposes of more adequately providing for the defense of the Panama Canal and for increasing its capacity for the future needs of interoceanic shipping, having con- sidered the same, report it back favorably to the Senate without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass. The committee has recognized that the question of the insurance of our line of transport between the Atlantic and Pacific, both for our naval and commercial vessels, is a matter of most transcendent im- portance both for the present and the future. The committee has had before it S. 2229, introduced by Senator Clark, of Missouri (which is identical with the bill H. R. 5129, in- troduced by Hon. Schuyler Otis Bland of Nate chairman of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and already favorably reported by the House Committee after elaborate hear- ings). It also had before it S. 127, introduced by Senator McKellar for the construction of a canal through the Republic of Nicaragua. In view of the very careful and exhaustive hearings held by the House committee which were available to the Senate committee and eee in view of the very urgent recommendations of the War epartment and the Navy Department for the construction of a third set of locks in the Panama Canal, your committee has not deemed it either necessary or desirable that the consideration of the bill S. 2229 be delayed by long-drawn-out hearings as to possible alterna- tive canal routes. The committee did, however, on May 16, 1939, hold a hearing at which Senator McKellar appeared and presented arguments for the