EUROPE AND THE SUEZ CANAL.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 524, 22 February 1876, Page 3

EUROPE AND THE SUEZ CANAL.

{Spectator.) The Government has made its coup, and has received its well-deserved meed of applause, and now its difficulties are about to commence. Those difficulties are not, however, we imagine, of the kind which the publicists of the Continent, who always get bewildered with large sums, have so kindly suggested. M. Beaulieu and the rest of the foreign economists are talking obvious nonsense about the financial magnitude of the undertaking to which the British Government has committed itself. It has promised four millions in a way which seems to inspire ev<n the Due Decazes with admiring astonishment, and impels the Opinion Nationale, a journal once the property of Prince Napoleon, and still Bouapartiat, to talk of England's "sword of gold," but four millions is not much for a Cabinet which controls two first-class Treasuries. There is no reaeon in the world why India should not invest in Suez Caual Bhares, and a great many reasons why she should. It is for her sake that the purchase has been made, and her commerce to which the canal iu primarily indispensable. We do not know that she joins for the present in the speculation, but she certainly will in the end, and on the combined Treasuries auy burden at all likely to bo undertaken will sit lightly. Nor is there much more in the statements that England has not a majority of the shares, and that no shareholder can hold more than ten votes. The Engliah capitalists follow their flag, and we should not be surprised to hear that already a sufficiency of canal shares had changed hands to secure to Englishmen a decisive voice in the management of the undertaking. They will vote with their Government like' Tories with their Whips. As to the voting-power, even if M. Beaulieu is in the right, which we greatly doubt, the great English shareholder - will still hold a decisive influence, if only because he can, if oppressed, divide his shares into votes, and by a decisive majority, assembled only for once, alter the mode of voting by head to voting by shares, and remove the central office from Paris to, what is now its proper position, London. Great Governments with boundless resources are not beaten so, and we do not understand from M. de Lesseps' circular that he intends to risk a conflict with his new and potent shareholder in which, defeat would, be ioVvis|fele> Rtfbtt

he suggests that the proprietary should ally itself with its extremely solvent colleague, and congratulate itself that English opposition is finally withdrawn. M. de Lesseps, in fact, is proud of his undertaking and himself, and sees that both are at last successful. The difficulties will, we imagine, be political, and one of them may take a very insidious form.

There is no war or threat of war to be expected on account of the Suez Canal, but there may be a good deal too much peace. No Government in Europe is injured by the coup, whatever its consequences, even if they involved indefinite control of Egypt, which as yet they do not, in a way likely to induce it to run the enormous risks of war. Russia does not want Egypt, or influence in Egypt, or anything in Egypt except the right of way for her ehips on their road to her great station in the Gulf of Saghalien, and even that is far from indispensable. It is not her quickest route for sailing vessels, and hardly can be made her quickest for steamers emerging from her Baltic dock-yards. It will only be valuable when the Bosphorus is her principal gate to the external world, and that, though we believe the route must be conceded one day, in spite of the hostiity of Europe, is not yet. Czar Nicholas offered Egypt to Sir Hamilton Seymour, and the policy of the Czars does not change with every passing brecz-\ Austrian statesmen, as distinguished from purely Magyar statesmen, who dread freedom for the Slavs, are frankly delighted thatso mighty a possible ally ha? appeared in the Eastern Mediterranean. We have nothing to take from Austria, and every wish that if the mighty heritage of the Sultans is ever divided she and not Russia should receive Benjamin's share. Germany is delighted with the resolute bearing of London, because anything which divides Austria and Russia, or pushes Austria Eastward, or divides England and France, pleases the German Chancellor, who, Englishmen should remember, is afraid neither of Russia nor of France singly, but of their joining hands across the Fatherland. France is annoyed no doubt, the Bonapartist section of France annoyed to anger, but the annoyance is not of the sort which produces war. The interest of France in Egypt is sentimental and theoretic rather than direct. She wants a road to Indo China, where her action is becoming so important that she ought no longer to entrust its control to a Miuister of Marine who may any day be a mere fighting Admiral, but either create a new Portfolio, or make IndoChina a province of the Foreign Ministry ; but she cannot annex, and does not want to fight for, the " forty centuries which once looked down from the Pyramids" upon Napoleon's 6®ldiery. There is no danger of war, but there is danger lest Europe, moved by Russia and the Mediterranean Powers, should try to make too much peace in Egypt—should call a Conference to neutralise the Delta, or to guarantee the Canal, or "to bring the safety of this important channel within the control of European law." We can easily imagine propositions of this sort eagerly pressed from one quarter, accepted as indifferent by another, and exercising some influence in England itself, and they all require to be examined with extreme suspicion. They & r e not all honestly made, and they are based upon a fiction, —a freedom of the seas which does not exist. If there is one situation in which England acts for the benefit of the world, it is when she is let alone, when she is free from the worry of the European system, when she can venture, as she does in India, to admit the whole world to all the benefits she enjoys, and all classes to the personal freedom she hersslf so thoroughly appreciates. There is not in the whole world, not even in England itself, a place where the civil rights of the foreigner are so guarded as in India, where Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen have identically the same privileges and position. There is not in the whole world, not even in Geneva, a human being whose personal action is so free from police restraint as a Hindoo. The Englishman never trusts so lavishly as when he is let alone, and if he is to take up such a task as the civilisation of Egypt, the less he is fettered the better for his morale. On the other hand, if he is for the present not to take up that task, but only to advise the Khedive and manage the Canal, then he would be most unwise to entangle himself in treaties, to place himself in a position in which every improvement would be an effort of diplomacy, every word of advice a subject of suspicion, every act a basis for legal, and therefore formidable remonstrance. English diplomatists never can manage such a situation, English merchants never understand it, and English statesmen would ultimately break through it, gaining a reputation for treachery as well as for ambition, instead of for ambition alone. Even a guarantee of the neutrality of the Canal is a dangerous project. What does neutrality mean? Is the Canal to be a mere arm of the sea, free to everybody on payment of certain dues ? We could consent to that, for then in war-time each Power will have a right to place war sle imers in the middle of the Canal, if it can England could. Or is there to be everlasting peace on the C*nal, so that France or Russia m iy pass steamers through with avowed obj ctof bombarding Bombay? Good ; then where is our right of defence to begin ? May we sink a hostile fleet in the Mediterranean, as it is going to the Canal ; or in the Gulf of Suez, as it is emerging from it ; or if not, where may we begin ? The situation would be intolerable, and every plan of neutralisation, or guarantee, or collective action involves it in some fovra or another. The argument that the Mediterranean States have a right to be assured of the safety of their best road is a mere bit of plausible verbiage. What assures them their road now ? The Sea is a mere continuation of the Suez Canal, and a telegram from Mr Disraeli woulel in four weeks assemble a fleet at Aden aud Perim, which would stop passage quite as effectually as a ship sunk above Ismailia would stop the Canal. The Mediterranean Powers would gain nothing by neutralising the Canal unless they neutralised the Red Sea also, and not much then, for in the whole Indian Ocean there is not a port where they could refit or mend a broken valve which is not in our hands. The charge of the Canal does not increase British power, but only British security, and any treaties whatsoever about Egypt would but embarrass our movements, without in any way increasing the liberty of the world. We do trust that Lord Derby will not give way to any such propositions, but leave England to go on as heretofore in Asia, walking slowly but steadily, like an overburdened but resolute man, along a lonely but unembairsisftd path. As yet, tfo c'aee whatever has aiiae* lot iatei-

ence, and if such a case should arise, interference should be steadily repelled. We must hold the Canal in trust for Europe and the world, but our legal responsibility for the management of our trust should be to God and Parliament alone. It would be better to sell our shares, or hold them subject to the discretion of M. de Lesseps' friends, than to act in Asia under the supervision of a joint committee of suspicious Mediterranean Powers.