TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE SUEZ CANAL.
THE English people in one of its periodical frets and fumes is one of the most amusing spectacles on earth, to those who can look on calmly from outside. These frets and fumes usually arise from its having possessed itself, without the least evidence to go upon, with the notion that it had some absolute and exclusive prerogative to dictate to others, which it finds, to its great dismay, suddenly disputed or ignored. When Russia inter- fered with the Government of Turkey before the Crimean War, when France proposed to annex Savoy and Nice as the com- pensation for her Italian war, when the United States put an embargo on the cotton exports of the South, and when Russia again presumed to have a policy in Afghanistan, we had in- stances of this curious effervescence of indignant incredulity at the gross presumption of Powers which dared to interfere with English wishes and prepossessions. It has been the same now, on the discovery that M. de Lesseps has an "exclu- sive right," dating for ninety-nine years from the completion of the first Canal, to pierce the Isthmus of Suez ; and that Egypt, far from being, in Alderman Cotton's language, "the property of England," had long ago granted away to the Com- pany of M. de Lesseps a privilege with which, except by mere violence and fraud, it is impossible for us to interfere. The inarticulate dismay, and noisy, though far from lucid, indig- nation, at this discovery were so great, that the Government for some days had to bear all the discredit of having opened the people's eyes to this unpleasant fact ; and even now, though the public mind is growing cooler, there is a good deal of that disposition to swear at your advisers for telling you the truth which we so often see in choleric men who have mistakenly persuaded themselves that their wishes are the law of the Universe. As to the facts, however, there is no doubt ; nor do we believe that the late Government ever had the smallest doubt about the facts themselves, in spite of their frantic efforts to find doors of escape from the cruel stubborn- ness of those facts. In the first place, the Khedive's concession of 1854 gave M. de Lesseps and his Company the "exclusive" right of Canal traffic over the Isthmus of Suez for ninety-nine years from the completion of their enterprise. In the next place, the further concession of 1856 recited and confirmed the concession of 1854, except as to certain expressly-mentioned stipulations, amongst which, of course, the "exclusive right" conferred is not one. In the third place, Lord Salisbury's attempt to break through this concession by questioning the Sultan's confirmation of it,—even if we could in any case have honourably availed ourselves of such a trick, when we have paid the Sultan's authority in Egypt the compliment of doing all we can to undermine it,—is perfectly baseless. The Firman of 1866 confirms expressly the agreement of February 22nd, 1866; and the agreement of February 22nd, 1866, expressly recites the list given in the contract of March 18th, 1863, in which the concessions of 1854 and 1856 are carefully enumerated. There is absolutely no escape from the exclusiveness of M. de Lesseps' claim, unless it can be shown either that his exclusive right was not exclusive, because not meant to exclude other Companies from doing what he alone was authorised to do; or, as Lord Salisbury proposes to maintain, that it is a breach of the international right of 'other countries for any national Government to confer an exclusive right of making a new canal through its territory. As neither of these doctrines is likely to command much favour, even from Englishmen in a fume, we may assume that the Government is in a perfectly impregnable position so far as they have acted on the prin- ciple that if they want M. de Lesseps to remit any privilege to which his monopoly entitles him, they must make it worth his while to meet their views.
Of course, it is a very different question whether the agree- ments which the Government have extracted from M. de Lesseps are worth the terms which they have offered him for them. But the truth is that the irritation with which the various mercantile authorities in this country have discovered that we could not honourably force M. de Lesseps' hand, has hardly left them the necessary tranquillity for comparing accurately what the Govern- ment have got with what the Government have given for that which they have got. The way to look at it is to put yourself in the place of the French Company with dividends already touch- ing 20 per cent., a very confident belief that they will within a very few years reach 30 per cent., and no visible reason why, if they can but enlarge the facilities for traffic, they should not be able to earn a very much larger dividend still, long before the ninety-nine years are expired. Now, can they greatly enlarge the facilities for traffic, without a new ? Undoubtedly they can. We believe that there is no reasonable doubt that they may make something like a double canal with the land already at their disposal, to say nothing of the deepening, widening, and cutting sidings, to which Mr. Dillwyn's proposed inquiry refers. It would, we believe, take a new concession to give the canal a separate entrance for the up and down traffic ; and beyond this, there would be one or two points at which the double canal would have to be narrowed into a single canal, if made under the conditions of the present concession. But though these limitations would be inconvenient, and greatly increase the danger of collisions and obstructions. at one or two points, they would not be so inconvenient as to. prevent a very great enlargement of the facilities of traffic, and, therefore, a very great enlargement of the possibilities of profit to the present Company, acting under its already conceded rights. The doubt which has been suggested whether M. de Lesseps has the right to use the remainder of the territory con- ceded to him for a second Canal is, we believe, without founda- tion. But even if it has anything in it,—which is far from probable,—there can be no question of the power of the Com- pany to widen, deepen, and construct sidings, and so to apply the electric light that the canal might be used by night as well as day,—which would provide a very large increase of its. carryingpower. M. de Lesseps, then, has no occasion to pro- cure a new concession, in order, to secure a very large expansion of the already great profits of his Company ; and in offering him the influence of the British Government to procure a new concession, we do not offer him in any sense what is essential to the brilliant results of his undertaking. We only offer him what certainly is essential to the safest and most convenient organisation of the Canal, and therefore to the interests of our own shipowners and merchants. But without any such concession, he can go on for the remainder of his grant, and also provide the means by which an enormously larger traffic than the present can pass through the Canal,—and very much larger profit can be realised by its proprietors.
Now, what have we to give him, which is likely to induce him to meet the wishes of the British commercial classes Nothing, if these wishes are, as they have lately seemed to be, not simply the wishes of business-men, but the wishes of commercial Jingoes, who pride themselves in lording it, through their agents, over the avenues of commerce, as well as in multiplying the achievements of that commerce. But we have a good deal to offer, if our commercial men are looking to their commercial interests only, and nothing more ; for we can, by our influence with the Egyptian Government, obtain for M. de Lesseps the means of supplying the best doable line of canal of which the conditions permit, with a separate entrance and a separate egress ; and this, too, at a comparatively small cost if we lend the money for the new work on the low interest on which England can afford to lend it,—indeed, at so low a rate that M. de Lesseps can afford to abolish the pilotage dues almost immediately, and rapidly to reduce the shipping tolls, as well as to supply our traders with every facility for passing up and down the Canal with the minimum of risk and diffi- culty. In short, what the commerce of England has to gain is the most convenient double line of traffic, with double ingress and egress, and very much diminished dues. What England has to give for these equivalents is a loan of eight millions at 3f per cent., which will be sufficient to provide a sinking fund to pay it off, and her influence with the Khedive to get the concession extended for twenty years beyond the original time of its expiration, as well as the additional land necessary. A great deal has been made of the extension of the concession for twenty years beyond the original time, by persons who are not aware that in the original contract, hopes were held out to the Company of a new concession for not twenty, but ninety-nine years after the original concession had expired, the increased proportion of profit payable to the Khedive in the event of such a renewal being in that case specified. And it does not seem to us a very unreasonable concession to a Company binding itself to complete so great an enterprise by the most convenient double line of canal, that it should obtain a somewhat longer lease of the privileges which it has, up to the present time, used so well. The truth is, that when you reduce the agreement to its real meaning, it is a bargain in which both sides gain, as both sides ought to gain by every commercial bargain, but not one in which, to our thinking, the Company
of M. de Leaseps gains so much as English commerce; for un- doubtedly it gives up high tolls which, so far as we can see, our ships and merchandise are able to pay, and are willing to pay so long as they cannot get them lowered. Nor does the Company gain as much by borrowing money cheaper for its new enterprise, and by the twenty years' extension of its lease, as it might fairly hope to gain, under possible contingencies, without cur help,—considering that a much longer extension would be completely within the power of the Khedive, and that if he got a large revenue out of it, he would be not at all unlikely, unless we put a most unconstitutional veto on his authority, to grant that consent.
The weighing of the true nature of the bargain, however, has not as yet been attempted. Englishmen have been in such a pet at discovering that Egypt is not exactly their "property," to be dealt with as they please for commercial purposes, that up to the present time they have been quite unable to look at matters as they are. They have simply assumed that M. de Lesseps is bound to give way to England at once, now that she has found out that he was wise, and she was foolish, in the transactions of thirty years ago. But that is hardly a reason why he should give way and moderate his well-founded ex- pectation of a thirty-per-cent. dividend, so as to accommodate himself to the demands of men who insist on thinking that if he can secure ten per cent, on the security of England, he ought to be very thankful to the Destinies and to us.
Previous page
