The negotiation concerning the Suez Canal has been the great
subject of the week ; and we may say of the agitation against it, that the week which came in like a lion has gone out like a lamb. The fury and resentment expressed yesterday week and on Saturday were almost ludicrous, one of the speakers at the Lloyd's meeting of ship-owners, for instance, asserting, amidst loud laughter, that residence in Egypt had "emasculated the brains" of Sir Rivers Wilson and Sir John Stokes, and speaking of the treaty which they had signed as "disgraceful." Even a Liberal paper, the Daily News, wrote so as to convey the impression that the fall of the Government that concluded this agreement would be satisfactory to its editor, while the Times thundered against the Government with something of its old passion, if not of its old power. However, as the conditions of the case came to be better understood, this tone moderated rapidly. In Liverpool, on Tuesday, the Council of the Incorporated Chamber of Commerce carried, by only 11 votes to 7, a very mild resolution, asking the Government not to ratify the agreement while there was a chance of better terms, the minority of seven having supported a motion of delay, with the avowed object of waiting for a more reasonable temper in relation to an agreement which the minority substan- tially approved ; while the Directors of the Manchester Cham- ber of Commerce on Monday, though passing a resolution that the concessions obtained were inadequate, spoke with the strongest condemnation of the violence of the disappointed shipowners.
