Ferdinand de Lesseps. By G. Barnett Smith. (W. H. Allen
and Co.)—We cannot congratulate Mr. Barnett Smith on a successful book. He tells us nothing new, though he has collected with considerable diligence information that was open, though not in all cases easily accessible, to all. About the actual making of the Suez Canal we have very little; on the crucial point of the forced labour, next to nothing. "The service of the compulsory labour (corv6e) was regularly made, as companies of corv6es arrived in sufficient numbers from the various provinces of Egypt." But what was the expenditure of ? For how much should this forced labour be counted on the debit side of the undertaking ? "It is easy," said Cavour, "to govern with a state of siege." It is easy, we may say, to construct gigantic works and make them remunerative, if you have not to pay your labourers. These unhappy Egyptians had to buy, it would seem, their own food. So we conclude from the fact that M. de Lesseps took credit to himself for distributing the food at net cost, and "in this way securing as much as possible the welfare of the labourers." Here we see one point of difference between Suez and Panama.
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