M. Lesseps has published his speech on the affairs of
the Suez Canal in the shape of a monster advertisement. His points are that the Pasha is independent in such matters, that the Sultan has nothing to do with the matter, that his 18,000 forced labourers are exceedingly well paid, that Mr. Hawk- shaw, the English engineer, sees no obstacle to the works, that the canal will be opened in four years, and that all the opposition is an English intrigue, which Imperial protection will neutralize. Only two of those points are of the slightest importance to England. If Frenchmen believe in the canal, and choose to expend their savings on it in order to bring a million of Sikhs within twenty days' steam of the Mediter- ranean that is their business. But if Egypt can grant away part of her territory as the canal banks have been granted, she can grant the whole, and Egypt ceases to be a portion of the Turkish Empire ; and if works of this kind are to be per- formed by slave labour, what is the value of French agree- ments prohibiting the slave trade ? M. de Lesseps, we dare say, pays his workmen for the month they work, but who paye them for the month lost in coming, the month lost in going back, and the ruin which falls on a peasant torn away from Iris home?
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