SUEZ CANAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 189, 30 December 1912, Page 3

SUEZ CANAL.

There has lately been much loose talk about the ownership of the Suez Canal, in connection with the'discussion of the Panama Canal Bill. The British Government does not own it. but is merely a private stock-holder, and does not even hold a majority of the shares. It is an Egyptian company. The early history of the Canal is interesting, liefore the construction of the Suez Canal there was no direct water communication between the Mediterranean and Red Sea, but at various eras such communication existed by way of the Nil#. Apart from. water communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea by way of the Nile, the project of direct communication by a canal piercing the Isthmus of Suez was entertained as early as the Bth century by Harem-al-Rashid, who is said to have abandoned the scheme, being persuaded that it would be dangerous to lay open tIM coast of Arabia to the Byzantine navy. After the discovery of the. Cape route to India at the cl ose of the 15th century, the Venetians, who had for centuries held the greater part of the trade of the East with Europe via Egypt and the Red Sea, began negotiations with the Egyptians for a canal across the isthmus, but the conquest of Egypt by til? Turks put.an end to these designs. In 1071, Leibnitz, in 'his proposals to Loiis XIV. of France, regarding an expedition to Egypt, recommended the making of a maritime canal, and the Sheikh al Balad Ali Bey wished to carry out the project. Bonaparte, when in Egypt in 1708. ordered the isthmus to be surveyed as a preliminary to the digging of a canal across it, and the engineer ho employed, J. M.- Lepere, came to the conclusion that there was a difference in level of 2!) feet between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This view was combated at the time and was finally disproved in 1840-1847 as the result of surveys made at the instance of the Societe d'Etudcs pour le Canal de Suez. .This society was organised in 1846 by Prosper Enfantin. the Saint Simonist, who 13 years before had visited Egypt. The expert commission appointed by this society reported in favor of a plan according to which the canal would have run from Suez to Alexandra by way of Cairo. For some years after this report no progress was made; indeed, the society was in a state of suspended animation, when in 1854 F. de Lesseps came to the front as a chief exponent of the idea. His opportunity came in this year, when his friend, Said Pasha, became Viceroy of Egypt. From Said lie obtained a concession authorising him to constitute the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime, de Suez. Although the Sultan of Turkey's confirmation of the concession was not actually granted till 1806, de Lesseps in 1858 opened the subscription lists for his company, the capital of which was 200,0001000 francs, in 400,000 shares of 500 francs each. In less than a month 314,404 shares were applied for. Of these over 200,000 were subscribed in France and over 00.000 were taken by the Ottoman Empire. From other countries the subscriptions were trifling, and England. Austria and Russia, as well as the United States of America, held entirely aloof. The residue of 85,506 shares was taken over ■by the. viceroy. The work of the construction of the canal was actually commenced on April 25, 1850. The formal opening of the canal was celebrated in November. 1860. In IS7O the canal rar use*' by nearly 500 vessels, but the receipts for the first two years of w-jrk-h.„ were considerably lew? than tic expeases. The company attempted to raise, a loan of 20,000,000 francs in IS7I. l)!it ihe response was small, and U waonly saved from bankruptcy by i, rapid increase in its revenues. By the concessions of 1854 and 1856 the dues were to be the same for all nations, preferential treatment of any kind being forbidden, and the canal and its ports were to be open to every merchant ship without distinction of nationality. The question of its formal neutralisation by international agreement was raised in an acute form during the Egyptian crisis of 1 SSI-82, and in August of the latter year, a fevv weeks before' the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, navigation upon it was suspended for four days at the instance of Sir Garnet Wolseley. who was in command of the British forces. At the international conference which was at that time sitting at Constantinople, various proposals were put forward to ensure the use of the canal to all nations, and ultimately, at Constantinople on October 20, 1888, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Spain. France, Italy, Netherlands, Russia and Turkey signed the Suez Canal Convention, the purpose of which was to ensure that the canal Should "always be free and open, in time of war as in time of peace, to every ves-

sel; of commerce or of war, without distinction of Hag." In 1875, owing to the pecuniary embarrassment of the Viceroy of Egypt, England, at the instance of Loi'd Beaconsfield, purchased for £4,000.000 the Viveroy's 177,000 shares in the canal. These shares were worth, on March 31, 1012, £44,040,000, and yielded for the year a dividend of £1,i87,934. The cost of the canal so far—original cost and improvements—amounts to about £20,000,000. The company is controlled from Paris.