Sir Stafford Northcote's motion for an address to her Majesty,
praying her not to recognise any claim of the Suez Canal Company to such a monopoly of water communication between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea as would exclude the possibility of competition on the part of other Companies, was moved in the House of Commons on Monday, and defended by Sir Stafford Northcote in a speech of extreme moderation,— not to use a stronger phrase, such as want of heart. Sir Stafford did not profess to argue against the moral claim of the Company to every consideration, but only to insist that their legal claim to any monopoly should be denied, in order That there might be a greater " leverage " for reducing the Com- pany to reasonable terms. Sir Stafford used the argument which Mr. Horace Davey had originated, that an "exclusive power " was given to M. de Lesseps only for the formation and management of a universal company, and not to exclude com- peting schemes from the Isthmus,—though, as Mr. Gladstone afterwards remarked, it was cdd that an " exclusive power " should be given to M. de Lesseps to do what, if Sir Stafford Northcote's interpretation were correct, everybody bad an equally exclusive power to do, since either Sir Stafford North- cote or himself might have set on foot a universal company, without any grant at all from the ruler of Egypt. Sir Stafford Northcote also declared that till last September there was no trace of M. de Lesseps having claimed any exclusive power, such as the British Government had apparently attributed to him in its recent negotiations.
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