THE SUEZ CANAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 625, 3 November 1858, Page 3

THE SUEZ CANAL.

(From the ' Times.') Our good-natured friends upon the Continent are not often at a loss for some novel topic whereon to hang pleasant remarks upon the pride or avarice or greed or ernelty of perfidious England. The supply is generally kept up in an orderly periodical succession. About one a month is the common rate. Suddenly some terrific grievance comes like the Genie out of its casket, and walks abroad gigantic, swelling the columns of"' Le Nord,' and almost reddening the type of the ' Univers.' Having stalked up and down and produced the proper amount of sensation, the unsubstantial figment crosses the sea, and, after being much admired and believed in by some of our public men, dies decently— perhaps in our columns, perhaps in a House of Commons debate. The next morning we hear that another spirit has begun his rounds. There must be neglect somewhere. Since Perim exploded there has been nothing new, and our kind friends who could not exist without repeating that " the honour of England is gone," and '"the name of England has been dragged in the dirt," are compelled to fall back upon a grievance as old as that of Napoleon 1., and to attempt to blow out agaiu that collapsed windbag, the great Suez canal. The French public and the French press, instigated, perhaps, in some degree by the organised operations of a company, of speculators, have been for some time declaring that England, the birthplace of the steam-engine and the electric telegraph; England, which is in possession of three-fourths of the whole trade between the East and the West, which has for years been paying an annual quarter of a million for the sole object of expediting the communication between the British Islands and India, which is more interested in a ready access to the countries beyond the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb than ten Frances or a hundred _Egypts, is engaged in a desperate intrigue to perpetuate the obstruction which the Isthmus of Suez offers to a passage of ships from the Mediterranean to the Eastern seas.

Mr. Roebuck, that useful mouthpiece through which vague feelings and unspoken thoughts are brought to the surface and are tested by discussion, has laid this matter before the House of Commons. His speech was little more than a string of common-places neatly put. It contained nothing to show that he had studied, still less that he had mastered, the subject. It amounted onlvto an amplification of the obvious truism, that England would act absurdly if she interfered to prevent a more perfect and rapid communication between Europe and India. Mr. Stephenson, as au engineer quite conversant with the whole subject, gave the weight of his great reputation to the opinion that the scheme was in an engineering point of view impracticable, and as a commercial speculation absnrd; and Lord Palmerston, as a statesman, showed that the enterprise, even in its failure, would be dangerous or even disastrous to that great object of all English and French diplomacy—the integrity of Turkey. We must not. however, be surprised that this futile scheme finds favour in France. It is a tradition of the Empire. It dates from the first French Expedition to Egypt, at the end of the last century. It was one of the many parts of the great scheme of Napoleon for destroying the power of England. It. was to be the means of detaining Egypt; it was to be the agent for making the possession of Egypt a stepping-stone for the conquest of India. Master of Egypt and of Syria, the Emperor of France could force the commerce of the West through the Mediterranean; it must then find its channel through the French lake. The discontented and still struggling Princes of India might receive succour from "France, and that nation might regain the ascendency which she had once possessed in the land of the pagoda-tree. These ideas are still 'not quite forgotten by our neighbours; but they have no influence upon the minds of Englishmen, and certainly never operated to direct the action of our statesmen. We fear no such dreamy dangers as these. While Are have the command of the sea we are. qviite safe in Egypt, and, if we should lose that, our way to India by the Cape would be as impossible as the way by Gibraltar. Our objections to this wild speculation are, that it would be of little benefit to us or to the rest of the world, if it could be realised; that the difficulties are so enormous, that it is quite certain it never will be realised; that, even if the canal were made, it never could be worked; and that the occurrence to Egypt of a disastrous commercial enterprise on so large a scale would produce infinite evils, not only to the speculators, not only to Egypt, but also to all who now have their communication with India through that country.

As a rule, ship canals do not pay. Take onv own Caledonian Canal, perfected at such great cost, and kept up at such enormous sacrifices. It was to have'monopolised all the trade between Denmark and the Baltic ports, and, looking at the map, this excitation appeared a certainty. Tt accommodates only a few holyday steamers and an occasional fishing smack, and it is only, now kept in working repair because we are

ashamed to abandon so great a work. The promoters of this Suez Canal scheme say their works could be accomplished for eight millions. Competent and impartial engineer? are of opinion that the plans as proposed would cost twenty millions to execute, and when executed would be practically useless. The proposed port in the Mediterranean must be made in that oozy and shifting bottom to which the Nile is every year bringing down its new deposits of mud and snnd. To keep it from silting up would be alone a greater expense than any probable return of dues would cover, while the enormous ever-act-ing steam power necessary to keep the great stagnant trench supplied with water would be worked at a cost which those who know the price of coals at Suez can perhaps appreciate. The advantages of a ship canal must be verygreat to cover working expenses such as these— we are supposing for a moment that the money could be raised and the work completed ; but what are the advantages? The projectors cannot expect that passengers would prefer a tedious course along this ditch to a rapid railroad transit across the Desert. The passage must be limited to vessels which in these days must be considered of small draught and tonnage, and if there be any truth in the new doctrine, that the speed of a steamer may be made to hold proportion to her length, the ship canal would soon be found practicable only to a class of ships the usefulness of which has departed. At the best it could never be used except for heavy goods, and time is not of such enormous importance in their case as to induce the merchant to increase his payments very greatly for freight and insurance. Eight millions of money will never be raised to commence a work which can never become commercially remunerative; tv/enty millions of money will never be raised to complete it; annual subsidies will never be forthcoming to keep it up. Even the promoters must know this, although it may well suit individual interests to keep a speculation oa foot by intrigues in Egypt and by pompous promises in Europe. Turkey, therefore, does wisely in not allowing a company of adventurers to acquire rights in Egypt on the faith of a project which can never be effected; and England has done right in setting^ the facts in their proper light "before the Ministers of the Sultan, and in discountenancing a bubble company which can never do anything more substantial in the matter of the transit to the East than to introduce confusion into existing arrangerrents and present an impassable impediment to future improvements.