Sir Stafford Northcote on Tuesday gave notice that he would
move next Monday, if the Prime Minister would give him the opportunity of doing so, "That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying that in any negotiations or proceedings with reference to the Suez Canal Company to which her Majesty may be a party, she will, while respecting the undoubted rights of the Company in regard to their own concession, decline to recognise any claim on their part to such a monopoly as would exclude the possibility of competition, on the part of other undertakings designed for the purpose of opening a water- communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea." On this motion Mr. Gladstone commented merely that he and his colleagues had never asserted for M. de Lesseps any monopoly of driving a canal between the Mediterranean and the Bed Sea, during the term accorded to their Company. All that had been said had been said only in relation to the right of piercing the Isthmus of Suez. The Government, therefore, can- not well meet this ambiguous resolution with a negative,—without relation to the fact that they do not think it expedient to assert
officially what they have never conceded officially to M. de Lesseps, though their own opinion as to his "exclusive power" is well known. They will, therefore, meet this ambiguous reso- lution—meaut to draw votes, rather than to elucidate policy— by supporting Mr. Norwood's amendment, denying the ex- pediency of committing the House of Commons at present to any conclusion on the question at issue.
