6. It bestowed upon the shipping commissioner and deputy shipping commissioner of The Panama Canal the same powers, in respect to seamen of vessels of the United States, as are exercised by consular officers of the United States in foreign ports, and by shipping commissioners in the ports of the United States.

7. And finally, the act authorized the President to make rules and regulations affecting the right of any person to enter, remain upon, or pass over any part of the Canal Zone; to establish rules and regulations requiring any vessel bringing a person to the Canal Zone in contravention of law to return such person to the country whence he came; and provides that the owner of such vessel, in addition to fine and penalties authorized by law, may be required to pay all costs of the detention and return of the person whose entry is prohibited, and clearance may be withheld from such vessel from any port of the Canal Zone until the costs of the offense are paid.

Under the authority of this act an Executive order was prepared and submitted to the President for his signature, and signed by him on September 5, 1916. It prescribes the license fees to be charged to the various kinds of motor vehicles, and permits the Governor to exempt from the payment of license fees motor vehicles operated exclusively within certain areas or districts of the Canal Zone to be defined by him, and to prohibit by public notice motor vehicles from operating on such portions of the Canal Zone as he may designate, when, in his judgment, the public interests requires it; or the Governor may authorize any of the said vehicles to be operated in any areas or districts designated by him, upon such conditions as he may deem necessary or convenient to the welfare of The Panama Canal. Under the authority of the same act of Congress, the President promulgated an Executive order dated February 6, 1917, relating to the exclusion of Chinese. This order repeals the Executive order of January 9, 1908, which extended to the Canal Zone law No. 6 of 1904 of the Republic of Panama. This law of the Republic is no longer in force in the Canal Zone since the enactment of the Executive order just referred to. This order confers ample authority upon the Governor, The Panama Canal, to cooperate with the Republic of Panama in preventing the entering into that jurisdiction of Chinese in violation of Panaman law. The recent order gives more liberty to vessels carrying Chinese crews in transit in the canal than did the Executive order of January 9, 1908, which is repealed, the purpose being to make the canal as free for the transit of ships as is consistent with the safety of the canal and the preservation of the laws of the Canal Zone.

Another Executive order was issued by the President on February 6, 1917, by authority of the above-mentioned act of Congress, for the exclusion and deportation of undesirables from the Canal

Zone. This order is more comprehensive in its scope and provisions than was the former ruling, and provides a more efficient machinery for the exclusion and deportation of undesirables in the interest of public health and good order on the Canal Zone.

Under the authority of the Executive order of August 6, 1908, the law department of the Canal Zone, through the special attorney, has settled 199 claims arising out of the presidential depopulation order of December 5, 1912, and in the settlement of these claims an amount of $140,456.66 was paid. These settlements have increased the total of claims adjusted through the instrumentality of the special attorney to 5,443 claims for damages for lands and improvements taken over by the Government for canal purposes, and the total amount paid aggregates $1,240,926.60. These settlements are made independently of the operations of the Joint Commission.

The expenses to the canal for the operations of the Joint Commission and umpire for the year were $42,896.99, of which the sum of $39,509.87 was for salaries. The Joint Commission during the year made 43 awards, covering 85 claims, the awards aggregating $171,538.30. Fifteen of these awards were for land claims and 70 for improvements only. The grand total of claims settled by the several Joint Commissions appointed under Articles VI and XV of the Panama Canal treaty is 865, and the amount paid under awards made by these Commissions aggregates $1,152,090.64. During the year the Joint Commission dismissed 14 claims for lack of evidence; 388 claims because direct settlement had been made with the claimants by the representatives of the United States; 305 under rules of default against the claimants, who had failed to appear to prosecute their claims after due notice by publication had been given for 60 days in one of the local newspapers in the city of Panama; 8 claims were dismissed for want of jurisdiction in the Joint Commission to entertain them; 1 claim was dismissed for the reason that it was filed after the expiration of the period fixed by the rule of the Commission, with the consent of the two Governments, within which claims were required to be filed; 1 claim was dismissed because it was a duplicate of a former claim filed under another name by another person; and 10 were dismissed because they had been disposed of by awards of a previous Commission.

During the year 20 claims were certified to the umpire by the Joint Commission; 4 were withdrawn from his consideration and awards made for payment by the Joint Commission. The umpire dismissed 2 cases certified to him and disposed of 7 claims, the aggregate sum awarded by him being $175,000. Admiral Victor Maria Concas y Palau, umpire of the Joint Commission, died on September 25, 1916, and on March 24, 1917, Mr. Manuel Walls y Merino wast

appointed as his successor. Mr. Walls was selected by His Majesty the King of Spain, at the request of the President of the United States and the President of Panama. Owing to the delay incident to the preparation of records for submission to the umpire, no awards were made by Mr. Walls during the fiscal year. The number of claims remaining for the umpire's consideration is 9, of which 2 are claims for improvements only. There were, at the end of the year, 179 claims pending before the Joint Commission, including lands and improvements, an aggregate in amount claimed of $8,929,278.85. For reasons explained in detail in the report of the special attorney that official declined to certify an award for payment in one case, and recommended that it be protested by the United States authorities, by whom the matter is still under consideration.

On December 28, 1916, a motion was filed by the special attorney through the Joint Commission, asking that in trial of claims no evidence be admitted by the Commission respecting values except such as tended to prove values of property prior to November 19, 1903, in conformity with Article VI of the Panama Canal treaty. On May 16, 1917, the Joint Commission overruled the motion of the special attorney by a majority vote, Commissioner Bouve dissenting. The matter has been submitted, through proper channels, to the State Department, together with the opinion of the Panaman members of the Commission, and the respective opinions of Commissioners Bouve and Cornet.

At the close of the fiscal year there were 45 revocable licenses in effect, issued by The Panama Canal for lands within the Canal Zone, of which number 15 were issued during the fiscal year. These licenses include lots occupied by oil companies for oil tank sites, residences for the employees of the oil companies, church buildings, lodge halls, office buildings for steamship companies, and other similar purposes. The total rental collected under the licenses issued was $15,008.02.

The report of the special attorney is attached, as Appendix I.

HEALTH DEPARTMENT.

The health of employees and other residents of the Canal Zone has continued good. No cases of yellow fever or plague originated on or was brought to the Isthmus during the year. On November 2, 1916, a case of smallpox in a West Indian sailor was brought to Ancon Hospital from Panama City. Two secondary cases, both in young children, occurred in the same house from which the first case came, but there was no further spread of the disease. The gross cost of the health department was $1,023,224.34, as compared with $942,310.44 for 1916. The revenues from pay patients and other sources amounted to $441,303.13, showing an increase of $51,296.42

over the revenues of 1916. There has been a very satisfactory degree of freedom from malaria in the population of the Zone; among the employees whose duties confined them to the sanitated districts the disease was almost entirely absent. The greatest number of cases arose among the employees engaged in the farms and gardens outside of the sanitated districts and among the troops whose duties required them to spend considerable time in the interior and near native towns in the Republic of Panama. In the cities of Panama and Colon the leading cause of death is tuberculosis. This disease caused the death of 5.2 per thousand for the year in Panama, and repeated representations have been made to the Panaman Government concerning the necessity for facilities for the isolation and treatment of sufferers from the disease.

The average population of the Canal Zone was 31,048, as compared with 31,384 last year. The death rate from disease in this population was 8.95 per thousand, as compared with 11.02 in 1916. The highest hospital admission rates for disease occurred in May and August and the lowest in September and November.

The city of Panama.-The average population was 60,778, as compared with 60,576 for last year. In this population the death rate from disease was 27.97 per thousand, as compared with 27.27 for the preceding year.

The city of Colon.-In Colon the average population was 24,693, as compared with 27,012 for last year. The death rate from disease was 24.54, as compared with 24.51 for last year.

DIVISION OF HOSPITALS.

ANCON HOSPITAL.

The average number of patients per day under treatment in Ancon Hospital was 770, as compared with 748 for 1916. The average number of employees per day sick in hospital was 226 for 1917, as compared with 267 for 1916. The New Board of Health Laboratory was occupied on February 28, 1917. Section B of the ward group was occupied on April 10, 1917, and the admitting office and dispensary on May 8, 1917. The remainder of the new hospital project, for which Congress appropriated in the sundry civil act for the fiscal year 1918, includes the administration building, kitchen and mess building, isolation building for contagious diseases, nurses' home, two ward buildings, and new quarters for the superintendent. The new buildings, when constructed, will give the hospital a total capacity of 610 beds, exclusive of the isolation building, with accommodations for 80 beds if necessary.

Board of Health Laboratory.-In addition to the customary routine work, the introduction of cattle, hog, and chicken industries

on a large scale by the supply department has developed the necessity for considerable research in the detection and prevention of the various diseases to which these animals and fowls are subject.

Clinics. In the surgical clinic 1,506 major and 1,415 minor operations were performed; in the medical clinic 3,398 cases were treated; and in the eye and ear clinic 736 operations were performed, 693 prescriptions were written, and 1,225 prescriptions for correction of vision by glasses.

Grounds and police.-The construction of the new buildings, with resultant concentration, made possible the establishment of new boundary lines for the hospital reservation, which removed four family quarters, the old admitting office and dispensary, and a set of bachelor quarters from the limits of the reservation.

Corozal Hospital and farm.--The Corozal Hospital and farm remained under the supervision of the superintendent of Ancon Hospital. The hospital is for the care and treatment of the insane, of whom there were 350 patients on June 30, 1917, as compared with 291 on June 30, 1916. Several improvements were made in the personnel of the supervisory force, providing for care and treatment by doctors and nurses who have specialized in this class of work. The hospital is available for patients from the Republic of Panama, on a pay or charity basis, as circumstances require. The sundry civil act for 1918 authorized the transfer of insane patients whose American citizenship is established, but for whom no State institution is responsible, to St. Elizabeths Hospital in the District of Columbia.

At the Corozal farm there was maintained a dairy for providing fresh milk to patients in the canal hospitals, on physicians' prescriptions.

COLON HOSPITAL.

The hospital group consists of hospital and dispensary building, doctors' quarters, morgue, and garage and storeroom, all of permanent concrete construction. There remains to complete the present authorized project a set of concrete quarters for nurses, for which provision was made in the sundry civil act for 1918.

Two hundred and sixty-four major and 1,944 minor operations were performed during the year.

PALO SECO LEPER ASYLUM.

The average number of patients per day cared for was 66.21. There were 65 patients at the beginning of the year; 12 were admitted, 11 died, and 1 was discharged, leaving 65 under treatment at the end of the year. Two new ward buildings authorized last year had been completed, labor being performed by patients under