THE SUEZ CANAL NOT YET A FAILURE.
The daily press is giving currency to a great many facts in regard to the present incomplete condition of the Suez Canal, and some journals are arguing therefrom that it is a failure. As yet, ships of heavy draft are unable to get through it. Some disasters to shipping have occurred in the Red Sea after the canal has been passed, and it is not at all improbable that more troubles will arise before everything goes smoothly.
The Red Sea is comparatively unknown to navigators. It contains hidden rocks which must be charted and buoyed before its navigation can be rendered safe. Surely this ought not to take the world by surprise. As to the canal itself, we are only surprised that it has reached its present state of perfection and we advise those who now make haste to prophesy ignominious defeat for one of the greatest enterprises of the century, to suspend judgment for a time. New York journalists might certainly call to mind with profit, the annual troubles attending the opening of the canals in this State. Frosts heave and rats undermine, and banks annually give way, yet these things are not regarded as surprising. But upon the opening of a work, to which all the minor canals in the world are like the rods of the magicians to Aaron's rod which swallowed them up, it is expected that everything shall move without difficulty, and that no oversight will have been committed. Truly this would be to attribute a power of prevision to M. Lesseps beyond what is human. The world can afford to wait a little till this huge machine gets oiled. Great enterprises move slow at the outset. We have yet unshaken faith in the ultimate success of the Suez Canal.