M. de Lesseps, the head of the Suez Canal Company,
is in a terrible state of mind. The Turkish Government insists that he shall adhere to the contract rates of charge on vessels passing through the Canal. M. de Lesseps thereupon threatens that he will close his lighthouses, take off his pilots, and in fact close the Canal. The Khedive thereupon informed him that if he carried out his threats the Canal would be worked by Egyptian officers, but it is not quite certain that M. de Lesseps may not sink a ship in mid-channel. As the English traffic alone through the Canal amounts to nearly a million tons of shipping, or two-thirds of the whole, this mad feat must be prevented at all hazards, and per- haps the best plan would be to buy the Canal at a price, say half the money expended, and work it by English hydraulic en- gineers. At all events, it must not be stopped, even if Lord Salisbury has to call for the plan Sir James Outram is said to have submitted to Lord Halifax. There are limits to proprietary rights over the European trade with Asia, and limits also to human gratitude towards the benefactors of the world. M. de Lesseps deserves wealth, and so, doubtless, does the Duke of Westminster, but we should not allow the latter to set Belgravia on fire or turn it into a Sahara of broken bricks.
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