Owing to the exertions of Lieutenant Waghorn, the route through Egypt for the transmission of the mails between England and India was determined upon in 1839. The Peninsular and Oriental Company established a service of steamers between England and Alexandria, and between Suez and India. In spite of this endeavour nothing was actually accomplished with regard to a canal until 1846, when a mixed commission was appointed to enquire into the subject. This commission entirely exploded the error into which Lepère had fallen in reporting a difference of level between the two seas.
A plan was projected in 1855 by M. Linant Bey and M. Mougel Bey, under the superintendence of M. de Les-seps, who had already received a firman of concession from Said Pasha. This plan recommended a direct canal between Suez and Pelusium, which should pass through the Bitter Lakes, Lake Tinseh, Ballah, and Menzaleh, and connecting with the sea at each end by means of a lock. A fresh-water canal from Bulak to the centre of the isthmus and thence through Suez, with a conduit for conveying water to Pelusium, was also proposed. This project was in 1856 submitted to an international commission company composed of representatives from England, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and Spain, and the following modification was suggested: that the line of the canal to the north should be slightly altered and brought to a point seventeen and a half miles west of Pelusium, this change being determined upon from the fact that the water at this point was from twenty-five to thirty feet deep at a distance of two miles from the coast, whereas at Pelusium this depth of water was only to be found at a distance of five miles from the coast. It was suggested that the plan for locks be abolished, and the length of the jetties at Suez and Port Said be diminished. Various other details of a minor character were determined, and this project was finally accepted and carried through by the Suez Canal Company.
In 1854 M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose father was the first representative of France in Egypt after the occupation, and who was chosen consul at Cairo (1831—1838), obtained a preliminary concession from Said Pasha, authorising him to form a company for the purpose of excavating a canal between the two seas, and laying down the connections on which the concession was granted. This was followed by the drawing up and revision of the project mentioned above, and by the renewal in 1856 of the first concession with certain modifications and additions. Meanwhile the British government, under the influence of Lord Palmerston, then foreign secretary, endeavoured for various political reasons to place obstacles in the way of the enterprise, and so far succeeded in this unworthy attempt as to prevent the sultan from giving his assent to the concessions made by the viceroy of Egypt. Nothing, however, could daunt the intrepid promoter, M. de Lesseps. He declared his motto to be “Pour principe de commencer par avoir de la con-fiance.” Undeterred by intrigues, and finding that his project met with a favourable reception throughout the Continent of Europe, he determined, in 1858, to open a subscription which would secure funds for the undertaking. The capital, according to the statistics of the company, approved in the firman of the concession, was to consist of forty million dollars in shares of one hundred dollars each. More than half of this amount was subscribed for, and eventually, in 1860, Said Pasha consented to take up the remaining unallotted shares, amounting to more than twelve million dollars. Disregarding the opposition of the English government, and ignoring the Sublime Porte, which was influenced by England, M. de Lesseps began his work in 1859, and on the 25th of April of that year the work was formally commenced, in the presence of M. de Lesseps and four directors of the company, by the digging of a small trench along the projected line of the canal, on the narrow strip of land between Lake Menzaleh and the Mediterranean. This was followed by the establishment of working encampments in different parts of the isthmus.
Although the first steps were thus taken, incredible difficulties prevented de Lesseps from pushing forward with his work. Towards the close of 1862 the actual results were only a narrow “rigole” cut from the Mediterranean to Lake Tinseh, and the extension of the freshwater canal from Rasel-Wady to the same point. The principal work done in 1863 was the continuation of the fresh-water canal to Suez. At this point a fresh obstacle arose which threatened to stop the work altogether. Among the articles of the concession of 1856 was one providing that four-fifths of the workmen on the canal should be Egyptians. Said Pasha consented to furnish these workmen by conscription from different parts of Egypt, and the company agreed to pay them at a rate equal to about two-thirds less than was given for similar work in Europe, and one-third more than they received in their own country, and to provide them with food, dwellings, etc. In principle this was the corvée, or forced labour. The fellaheen were taken away from their homes and set to work at the canal, though there is no doubt that they were as well treated and better paid than at home. The injustice and impolicy of this clause had always been insisted upon to the sultan by the English government, and when Ismail Pasha became viceroy, in the year 1863, he saw that the constant drain upon the working population required to keep twenty thousand fresh labourers monthly for the canal was a loss to the country for which nothing could compensate. In the early part of 1864 he refused to continue to send the monthly contingent, and the work was almost stopped.
By the consent of all the parties, the subjects in dispute were submitted to the arbitrage of the French Emperor Napoleon III., who decided that the two concessions of 1854 and 1856, being in the nature of a contract and binding on both parties, the Egyptian government should pay an indemnity equal to the fellah labour and $6,000,000 for the resumption of the lands originally granted, two hundred metres only being retained on each side of the canal for the erection of workshops, the deposit of soil, etc., and $3,200,000 for the fresh-water canal, and the right of levying tolls on it. The Egyptian government undertook to keep it in repair and navigable, and to allow the company free use of it for any purpose. The sum total of these payments amounted to $16,800,000, and was to be paid in sixteen instalments from 1864 to 1879.
The company now proceeded to replace by machinery the manual labour, and, thanks to the energy and ingenuity of the principal contractors, Messrs. Borel and Lavalley, that which seemed first of all to threaten destruction to the enterprise now led to its ultimate success. Without the machinery thus called into action, it is probable that the canal would never have been completed when it was. The ingenuity displayed in the invention of this machinery, and its application to this vast undertaking, constituted one of the chief glories in the enterprise of M. de Lesseps.
The work now proceeded without interruption of any kind; but at the end of the year 1867 it became evident that more money would be needed, and a subscription was opened for the purpose of obtaining $20,000,000 by means of one hundred dollar shares, issued at $600 a share, and bearing interest at the rate of five dollars a share. When more money was needed in 1869, the government agreed to renounce the interest on the shares held by it for twenty-five years, and more bonds were issued.
By help of these subventions and loans the work was pushed onward with great vigour. The sceptical were gradually losing their scepticism, and all the world was awakening to see what an immense advantage to civilisation the triumph of de Lesseps’ engineering enterprise would be.