One hundred years ago
The French are furious under an idea that the British Government is favouring the construction of a British Canal through the Isthmus of Suez. They think the credit of their great engineering feat will be smirched, and that they will lose dividends, and a Frenchman hurt at once in his vanity and his pocket can be very angry. The wrath is, this time, not reasonable. It is a certainty that the traffic has outgrown the Canal, that the blocks are very frequent, that the demurrage is double what it used to be, and that British shipowners, who supply 80 per cent of the traffic, are heavily fined. There must, therefore, be a second canal, and, under present circumstances, that canal must be under British control. But there is no reason whatever why France, as she showed the way, should not take credit for both, or why the French shareholders in the present Canal should not be allowed a preferential right to purchase half the new canal shares. That would comfort them greatly, and in no way interrupt the new project, which appears to have been seriously taken up by very considerable capitalists and shipowners. M. de Lessens deserves all honour, but the commerce of the world cannot pause for fear his amour-propre should be hurt.
Spectator, 12 May 1883
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