The Debafe states that the Suez Canal Company have resolved
to meet the demands of the British shipowners, which are creat- ing an extraordinary amount of ill-feeling in France, by a grand concession. They will themselves cut a second Canal, and allow to England a much larger power of control over the double undertaking. That is really a large offer, if it is made in sincerity, and would sufficiently meet commercial require- ments. With two canals, one reserved to the " up " and one to the " down " traffic, blocks would be avoided, and the time occupied be regulated only by the speed of the steamers. The position, however, would still be an unfortunate one. The Canal would be maintained by a French Company for a trade of which four- fifths is British, in a country which is virtually a British de- pendency. A collision of authorities in such a case is nearly in- evitable, and can be avoided finally only by M. Leroy Beaulieu's suggestion that the new Company should be English, and should bay out the old one. This suggestion, however, is re- pudiated by the French journalists, who see in the whole mat- ter not an ordinary business transaction, but a subtle plot of Lord Granville's to obtain complete ascendancy in Egypt.
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