M. de Lesseps has had a severe check. He has
been accus- tomed to implicit obedience in his Company, but at the great meeting of shareholders, held on the 12th inst., his agreement with the English shipowners was only accepted by a vote of 843 to 761. The form of the vote was a motion to adjourn, which M. de Lesseps resisted. The minority was
composed of sections, those who, with M. Abeille and M. Philippon as their spokesmen, maintain that nothing will satisfy the English, and that it is better to resist at once ; and those who, with M. Philippon as mouthpiece, insist that if the Company remains quiet, it must earn excessive dividends for some years, and that this is, on the whole, best for the share- holders. In fact the minority is moved by patriotism and the lope of fifty per cent.
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