IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8168, 26 June 1906, Page 3

IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

The Suez Caual is under the control ot a Commission, a considerable Dumber of wbom are appointed by <Great Brit&in. The latter has a very tangible interest i& the Canal, as through Lord Beaconsfleld'a readiness in the seventies the nation acquired £1,000,000 worth of.j&nres -in a lump, and the dues from this investment now aocount for £1,000,000 of Britain's jearly revenue. But the man who showed Englani how to invest £4,000,000 for a return later on of 25 per cent and a dominant voice in the affairs of the sea's greatest gateway thrown ;in was not Lord Beaconsfleld at all bat Mr Frederick Greenwood, then editor of the Cornwall magazine, and at present the most distinguished of English journalists. Mr Greenwood was reoently banquetted in London by the.'journalists, statesmen and authors of the kingdom, 'the occasion being his seventy-fifth birthrlay aid the political aspect of the function being due to the thing just mentioned. One day, when Disraeli was making history as the man in power at Westminster, the journalist beard that the then Khedive of Egypt wanted to sell his shares-in the Oanal,and discovering ■the particulars went to the head of the Government and the purchase was made. It was in this way that England gained a controlling voice in the affairs of Suez, to the effect that it has cemented her rower :in Egypt, faailiatatea ber relations with India and the eastern coast of Africa, and allowed of the development of the present Anglo-Australas->ian as trade relations the greater enrichment of the Empire generaily, It was proposed some time • agcr that Mr Greenwood should be given a great testimonial, but the never came to anything.