EUROPE AND THE SUEZ CANAL.
THE Government has made its coup, and has received its well-deserved meed of applause, and now its difficulties are about to commence. Those difficulties are not, however, we imagine, of the kind -which the publicists of the Continent, who always get bewildered with large sums, have so kindly suggested. M. Beaulieu and the rest of the foreign economists are talking obvious nonsense about the financial magnitude of the undertaking . to which the British Govern- ment has committed itself. It has promised four millions in a way which seems to inspire even the Due Decazes with admiring astonishment, and impels the Opinion Nationale, a journal once the property of Prince Napoleon, and still Bonapartist, to talk of England's " sword of gold," but four millions is not much for a Cabinet which controls two first-class Treasuries. There is no reason in the world why India should not invest in Suez-Canal shares, and a great many reasons why she should. It is for her sake that the purchase has been made, and her com- merce to which the Canal is primarily indispensable. We do not know that she joins for the present in the speculation, but she certainly will in the end, and on the combined Treasuries any burden at all likely to be undertaken will sit lightly. Nor is there much more in the statements that England has not a majority of the shares, and that no shareholder can hold more than ten votes. The English capitalists follow their flag, and we should not be surprised to hear that already a sufficiency of Canal shares had changed hands to secure to Englishmen a decisive voice in the management of the undertaking. They will vote with their
Government like Tories with their Whip. As to the voting- power, even if M. Beaulieu is in the right, which we greatly doubt, the great English shareholder will still hold a decisive influence, if only because he can, if oppressed, divide his shares into votes, and by a decisive majority, assembled only for once, alter the mode of voting by head to voting by shares, and remove the central office from Paris to, what is now its proper position, London. Great Governments with boundless resources are not beaten so, and we do not understand from M. de Lesseps' circular that he intends to risk a conflict with his new and potent shareholder in which defeat would be inevitable. Rather he suggests that the proprietary should ally itself with its extremely solvent colleague, and congratulate itself that English opposition is finally withdrawn. M. de Lesseps, in fact, is proud of his undertaking and himself, and sees that both are at last successful. The difficulties will, we imagine, be political, and one of them may take a very insidious form.
There is no war or threat of war to be expected on account of the Suez Canal, but there may be a good deal too much peace. No Government in Europe is injured by the coup, whatever its con- sequences, even if they involved the definite control of Egypt, which as yet they do not, in a way likely to induce it to run the enormous risks of war. Russia does not want Egypt, or influence in Egypt, or anything in Egypt except the right of way for her ships on their road to her great station in the Gulf of Saghalien, and even that is far from indispensable. It is not her quickest route for sailing-vessels, and hardly can be made her quickest for steamers emerging from her Baltic dock- yards. It will only be valuable when the Bosphorus is her principal gate to the external world, and that, though we believe the route must be conceded one day, in spite of the hostility of Europe, is not yet. Czar Nicholas offered Egypt to Sir Hamilton Seymour, and the policy of the Czars does not change with every passing breeze. Austrian statesmen, as distinguished from purely Magyar statesmen, who dread freedom for the Slays, are frankly delighted that so mighty a possible ally has appeared in the Eastern Mediterranean. We have nothing to take from Austria, and every wish that if the mighty heritage of the Sultans is ever divided, she and not Russia should receive Benjamin's share. Germany is delighted with the resolute bearing of London, because anything which divides Austria and Russia, or pushes Austria. Eastward, or divides England and France, pleases the German Chancellor, who, Englishmen should remember, is afraid neither of Russia nor of France singly, but of their joining hands across the Father- land. France is annoyed no doubt, the Bonapartist section of France annoyed to anger, but the annoyance is not of the sort which produces war. The interest of France in Egypt is senti- mental and theoretic rather than direct. She wants a road to Indo-China, where her action is becoming so important that she ought no longer to entrust its control to a Minister of Marine who may any day be a mere fighting Admiral, but either create a new Portfolio, or make Indo-China a province of the Foreign Ministry ; but she cannot annex, and does not want to fight for, the " forty centuries which once looked down from the Pyramids ' upon Napoleon's soldiery. There is no danger of war, but there is danger lest Europe, moved by Russia and the ifediterranean Powers, should try to make too much peace in Egypt,—should calla Conference to neutralise the Delta, or to guarantee the Canal, or "to bring the safety of this important channel within the control of European law."
We can easily imagine propositions of this sort eagerly pressed from one quarter, accepted as indifferent by another, and exercising some influence in England itself, and they all require to be examined with extreme suspicion. They are not all honestly made, and they are based upon a fiction,—a free- dom of the seas which does not exist. If there is one situation in which England acts for the benefit of the world, it is when she is let alone, when she is free from the worry of the European system, when she can venture, as she does in India, to admit the whole world to all the benefits she enjoys,
and all classes to the personal freedom she herself so thoroughly appreciates. There is not in the whole world, not even in
England itself, a place where the civil rights of the foreigner are so guarded as in India, where Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen have identically the same privileges and position. There is not in the whole world, not even in Geneva, a human being whose personal action is so free from police-restraint as a Hindoo. The Englishman never trusts so
lavishly as when he is let alone, and if he is to take up such a task as the civilisation of Egypt, the less he is fettered the better for his morale. On the other hand, if he is for the present not to take up that task, but only to advise the all our new readiness to study military questions, we are as far as Khedive and manage the Canal, then he would be most unwise ever from the moderate ideal of defensive strength, the existence to entangle-himself in treaties, to place himself in a position in in the two islands of a regular army of a hundred thousand which every improvement would be an effort of diplomacy, men. We have the artillery for them. We have the officers for every word of advice a subject of suspicion, every net a basis them. We have, it is asserted, the materiel for them, but we for legal, and therefore formidable remonstrance. English have not the one thing without which all our organisation diplomatists never can manage such a situation, English mer- is worthless,—the living men themselves. We do not ex- chants never understand it, and English statesmen would ulti- aggerate when we say that there is no evidence that mately break through it, gaining a reputation for treachery as if an enemy landed, we could even in our despair, after well as for ambition,instead of for ambition alone. Even a denuding Ireland and calling every soldier to arms, rely guarantee of the neutrality of the Canal is a dangerous on a hundred thousand efficient trained men. We throw project. ~What does neutrality mean ? Is the Canal to away £15,000;000 a year on the Army, in order to be a mere arm of the sea, free to everybody on payment of secure a situation in which our safety depends entirely on certain dues We could consent to that, for then in war-time our Fleet.
each Power will have a right to place war steamers in the It seems to us, who make no pretension to be military.critics, middle of the Canal, if it can. England could. Or is there far less experts in war, that this is suicidal folly ; that to remedy to be everlasting peace on the Canal, so that France or Russia this is the first duty of a patriotic Government, that the most may pass steamers through with the avowed object of born- pressing demand of the people should be for an adequate defensive buffing Bombay ? Good ; then where is our right of defence Army,—that is, for an army sufficient to leave one hundred to begin ? May we sink a hostile fleet in the Mediterranean, thousand trained linesmen at home, men who can be relied on at as it is going to the Canal ; or in the Gulf of Suez, three days' notice to be actually in uniform and in their ranks. as it is emerging from it ; or if not, where may we And in so saying we believe that we express the opinion not only begin ? The situation would be intolerable, and every plan of every competent officer, but.of every Englishman who has ever of neutralisation, or guarantee, or collective action involves given the subject a serious thought; and we also believe that, it in some form or another. The argument that the Mediter- unless some tremendous discovery in naval -warfare should re- ranean- States have a right to be assured of the safety of their veal to Englishmen their danger, or unless some unexpected best road is a mere bit of plausible verbiage. What assures panic should strike the people in good time, that opinion -them their road now ? The Red Sea is a mere continuation of will be expressed without the smallest result. Nothing the -Suez Canal, and a telegram from Mr. Disraeli would can be done in that direction, whether by compul- in four weeks assemble a fleet at Aden and Perim, which sory economies, or by spending more money, or by be- would stop passage quite as effectually as a ship sunk ginning a system of national training, without the tolera- above -Ismailia would stop the Canal. The Mediterranean tion of the Radical party, and on this subject the Radical Powers would gain nothing by neutralising the Canal unless party appears to be stricken with foolishness. Its representa- they neutralised the Red Sea also, and not much then, for in tives absolutely refuse even to consider the question as one of -the whole Indian Ocean there is not a port where they could first-rate importance. Not one of its leaders attempts to make refit or mend a broken valve which is not in our hands. The the question his own. Not one of its journals—unless we ex- charge of the Canal does not increase British power, but only cept the Spectator, which takes its own course—will earnestly British security, and any treaties whatsoever about Egypt discuss the subject. Not one stump-orator thinks it worth would but embarrass our movements, without in any way in even a passing allusion. The fault is not in the people. creasing the liberty of the world. We do trust that Lord No Member is unseated because he votes for Mili- -Derby will not give way to any such propositions, but leave tary Estimates. No journal is rained which pleads that England to go on as heretofore in Asia, walking slowly but England ought to be armed. Thee single Radical repre- steadily, like an overburdened but resolute man, along a lonely sentative who makes the subject his cheval de bataille—we do but unembarrassed path. As yet, no case whatever has arisen not say his hobby, because Mr. Holms has information as well
got- interference, and if such a case should arise, interference as cool sense—holds; in the most democratic constituency in 'should be steadily repelled. We must hold the Canal in trust the island, one of the safest seats. It would be as hopeless for Europe- and the world, but our legal responsibility for the to try to unseat Mr. Holms because he wants a fully- -management of our trust should be to God and Parliament manned Army, as to unseat Mr. Fawcett because he alone. It would be better to sell our shares, or hold them preaches from the economic side respect. for the laws of subject to the discretion of M. de Lesseps' friends, than to act property. The people is neither timid, • nor indifferent in Asia under the supervision of a joint Committee of suspicious to military facts, and not averse at present to military expendi-
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