But the question which concerns us is, of what use will the Canal be to ourselves? To us it will be of very great use. First to our commerce. As our trade with the East is taking this route as fast as steamers—which alone can pass through the Canal and Red Sea—can be substituted for sailing-vessels, there can be no doubt but that, on the whole, it is advantageous for them. For this trade all kinds of sailing-vessels are now antiquated. That it would have been better to have left things as they were, the owners of these sailing-vessels will naturally think: but this is a rococo thought. The P. and O. Company also will, of course, have to accommodate their business to the new order of things. This will be costly and inconvenient to them: and they, too, will grumble; and, for a time, endeavour to fight against necessity. The world, however, will not be convinced with the logic of either; nor will they be convinced themselves with their own arguments.
The new order of things is superseding the old only for one reason, and that reason is that the preponderance of advantages is on its side. It does not claim the advantage in every respect. So much for the commercial side of the question, as far as we are concerned.
It is manifest that for Southern, and Central Europe the Canal is, in proportion to the amount of their trade, a still greater advantage than to ourselves. It will be a great lift to Marseilles; and even in a higher degree to some port on the Adriatic, whichever it may be that will be found most convenient for Central Europe. It may be Trieste. It may be Venice. It is a question of harbours, railways, and policy conjointly considered. If it be Venice, the channel from the sea to the quays of the Grand Canal will have to be deepened. If the German provinces of the Austro-Hungarian empire should eventually gravitate towards Northern Germany, it will, I suppose, be Trieste. Or, should a mid-European railway be completed from Hamburg to Constantinople, much of the traffic of East with West may again be attracted to the quays of the old world’s Imperial centre.
But there is for us another question besides the commercial one: that is the naval one. Suppose England at war with some maritime power. It is obvious that in these times it would be impossible for us to protect our vast eastern commerce on the open ocean. But if the whole of this commerce be carried on through narrow seas it may be possible. These narrow seas for the whole distance is precisely what the Canal gives us. After having left the extreme point of China, where we have the naval station of Hong Kong, our trade will enter the Straits, where we have Singapore. It will then pass by Ceylon, another naval station. Here, whatever may be coming from Calcutta and Madras will join the main stream. It will then be forwarded to Aden, which will guard the Red Sea; and which is, in fact, the key of the Canal. Malta will make the Mediterranean safe. The short remainder of the voyage will be to a great extent protected by Gibraltar, and Plymouth. Nothing could be more complete. The Canal gives us the very thing we want: a defensible route. From a naval point of view, a defensible route is a great gain; but very far from being all the gain. The whole trade with Europe of India, China, and the Straits, and a great part of that with Australia must take the line of the Canal; and all of it must be carried in ocean steamers; that is to say, four-fifths of all these steamers will belong to England. This will give to us a fleet of ocean steamers outnumbering those of all the rest of the world combined; and these will always be at our disposal for, to say the least, the transport of troops, and of the materials of war. Of the remaining fifth a large proportion will be built in this country, as our resources and arrangements for the construction of iron ships and marine engines are superior to those of any other country.
If, then, it should prove that this forecast of the advantages of the Canal to us in war is correct, it would seem to follow that, in time of war, we should be under the necessity of holding it ourselves; or, at all events, of occupying its two extremities. We should be obliged to take care that neither an enemy blocked it up, nor a friend permitted it to go out of repair.
CHAPTER LX.
CONCLUSION.
Beatus qui intelligit.—Book of Psalms, Vulg.
No one can see anything in Egypt except what he takes with him the power of seeing. The mysterious river, the sight of which carries away thought to the unknown interior of the great Continent, where solar heat, evaporation, and condensation are working at their highest power, giving birth abundantly to forms of vegetable and animal life with which the eye of civilized man has yet to be delighted, and instructed; the lifeless desert which has had so much effect in shaping, and colouring, human life in that part of the world; the grand monuments which embody so much of early thought and earnestness; the contrast of that artistically grand, morally purposed, and wise past with the Egypt of to-day; the graceful palm, and the old-world camel, so unlike the forms of Europe; the winter climate without a chill, and almost without a cloud; all these are certainly inducements enough to take one to Egypt; but how differently are they seen and interpreted at the time by the different members of the same party of travellers; and with what widely different after-thoughts in each!
And just as many of us are dissatisfied with life’s journey itself, if we can find no object in it, so are we with the travel to which a fraction of it may have been devoted, if it be resultless. Should we, when we look back upon it, be unable to see that it has had any issues which reach into our future thought and work, it seems like a part of life wasted. For, whatever a man may have felt at the time, he cannot, afterwards, think it is enough that he has been amused, when the excitement of passing through new scenes is over, and he is again in his home,—that one spot on earth where he becomes most conscious of the divinity that is stirring within and around him, and finds that he must commune closely with it.