A telegram was received in London on Monday announcing that
on the 15th inst. the " flood-gates of the Suez Canal had been thrown open," and a vessel laden with coal had passed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Of course nothing of the kind had occurred. The "Suez Canal" was merely the fresh-water canal which was finished three months ago, and the vessel a lighter, drawing scarcely any water. The true canal will not be finished for three years, if at all, and when it is finished has to be carried two miles through the shallows, and when that is done has to be kept open, and when that is accomplished will be of the smallest possible use, as the time taken in beating along the salt- water lake called the Red Sea will be greater than the time oc- cupied in going round the Cape. The object of the canal is to secure French influence in Egypt, an influence to which Sir Cornewall Lewis alluded, when he made the pregnant remark that it was cheaper to fight for a strategical position when wanted than to keep defending it for half a century.
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