PROGRESS OF THE SUEZ CANAL SCHEME.
Tin Suez Canal is becoming an English question ; the controversy respecting the practicability of the route has assumed a peculiar form. The case on both sides demanded something more to justify its argument, and we must confess that at this latest stage the advocates of the Canal have made the most progress, while its principal opponents have shifted to a ground that scarcely belongs to engineering. From the earliest ages the passage to India has not been considered quite satisfactory ; some better route has always been an object. In our day, the advances of Russia in the extreme East have stimulated the advances from the extreme West; and those who stand in the middle, the European states, are proportionately distanced. Commerce has become a race, and the race will be to the shortest route. The missionary-in-chief on behalf of the Suez Canal is a man of unquestionable intelligence, energy, and honour, M. Ferdinand de Lesseps. He at least is convinced that there are no difficulties, engineering, monetary, or political. The passage of the Red Sea is now well known; and the main question of the canal is greatly narrowed. The land between the head of the Red Sea and the Bay of Pelu sium in the Mediterranean has been surveyed, and is found to present nothing but engineering facilities ; for a considerable part of the intervening space of ground is low, and the soil is easy, consisting chiefly of sand, gavel, sulphate of lime, and clay. The harbour of Suez, on the .Red Sea, is good. The alleged diffi.culties may be said to consist of two. First, the shifting sands ; far less troublesome, however, to the maintenance of a canal in that quarter than in the Nilotic basin. The most formidable difficulty which we have heard alleged, and allegtd on considerable authority, is the Mediterranean approach to the site of the canal mouth. On the shores of Pelusium, it is said, the land slopes so imperceptibly, that a submarine canal would be neces sary to make the approach, which will always be difficult. This description, however' is denied on the part of the projectors : they admit it to the West of Tanis, towards Damietta; but at Tanis, 26 feet of water are found at 7546 feet from the land, and towards Pelusium at 15,000 feet from the land. The whole line and these termini have been surveyed by a cosmopolitan commission of engineers, in which Mr. Rendel and Mr. M'Clean were members ; and their report is, that there are no difficulties. The cost is estimated at 8,000,0001. So much for the naked scheme.
Since it was started, M. de Lesseps has carried it into various quarters, and at last has obtained a footing in this country. Within two years he has advanced thus far towards success, and has secured very powerful backing. The Viceroy of Egypt has given the authority, and promised 1,20010001., with a free gun rantee of extensive lands on the route, mining, &e. The Sultangives his sanction. Notwithstanding early jealousies in Paris, the Emperor Napoleon is now friendly. Austria concurs. The. most important sanction awaited lies with this country. Here the objectors stand principally on two grounds,—the submarine difficulty at Pelusium, and a certain political preference. There are persons, very high in office, who are supposed to think that the Euphrates Valley Railway is a preferable project, less open to competition injurious to England. This route would connect the Mediterranean with Aleppo by railway, Aleppo with Bussorah in the Persian Gulf by a line of light steamers, and Bussorah with India by ocean steamers. Such a line, of course, is no rival to an open ship-canal ; nor do we perceive, at the moment, how a railway nearer to Persia can be less open to hostile impedi-. meets than a canal between Egypt and Arabia. The great ob.:.
staele on this point, perhaps, does not consist in the argumento
j f which would rather justify the execution of both works than the preference of one over the other, but in a prejudice, the nature of which is not avowed. The engineering difficulty of Pelusium in the pinch of the question ; but it is a matter of fact, which minim settled beyond a doubt, and M. de Lesseps has at least been at the pains of collecting very powerful evidence in his favour, which it IS idle to meet with sneers, or with projects for a railway else, where.
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