It has also been said that if a considerable number of European workmen, or agricultural labourers, were taken to the Isthmus of Suez, there would be some fear of their forming a colony of natives of one single country—of France for instance—which might have a prejudicial effect on the policy of England. In the first place, there is no motive for a universal company to employ, for a special political object, workmen of any one country in preference to those of any other. Again, it is not necessary to demonstrate that a company of capitalists will attend to their own interests, and they will certainly have an incontestable advantage in employing Egyptians only, as workmen and agricultural labourers. The fellah of Egypt has alone constructed, under the direction of skilful and experienced engineers and foremen, all the extensive works undertaken in that country, and no nation can more easily, or on more favourable terms, furnish disciplined armies, of robust, active, and intelligent workmen, equally fit for the construction of canals, for hydraulic and for agricultural operations.[2]
But what is of greater moment, and indeed alone deserves the consideration of a people who have the fortunate custom of interesting themselves in their political affairs, is the apprehension conscientiously entertained by statesmen, whose right and whose duty it is to ask themselves and maturely to consider:—
1. Whether shortening the distance by 3000 leagues for all the countries of Northern Europe, and by 3400 leagues on an average for the ports of the Mediterranean, including Malta, may not in future, in case of war, menace the safety of the British possessions in India.
2. Whether the commercial and maritime relations of Great Britain will not be disadvantageously affected by the opening of a new route, which, while shortening the distance for her own navigation, will at the same time facilitate and increase the navigation of all other nations towards the extreme East.
The following passage from a recent publication replies to these objections:—
“The power in possession of Aden opens and shuts at its will the Red Sea, and if it is true that the influence of nations and governments chiefly depends on the good they can do to their friends and the harm they can do to their enemies, that revolution would be of no slight advantage to England which would lead the principal current of the world’s commerce under the guns of her ships and the batteries of her fortresses. Besides, is it from the naval armaments of the Mediterranean that England has most reason to fear an invasion of India? It requires no more than ordinary foresight to perceive, that if her Indian possessions were ever seriously threatened, it could only be from Russia by land, and from North America by sea. In either case, the safety of her possessions would depend on the shortening of her line of operations.
“India is not the only British possession to which the route will be abridged by the passage viâ Suez. Australia will profit no less by the change; and it will be all the more necessary to facilitate the defence of that country, as it will become, if the cutting through of the Isthmus of Panama be effected, more accessible to the ships of war of the United States.
“We may conclude from these observations, that there would be small risk of the opening of the Isthmus of Suez weakening the military power of Great Britain. Her commercial power could only be compromised by it, if it were possible for the multiplicity of her transactions with the East Indies to be decreased by shortening the intervening distance by 3000 leagues, or if it were possible for the producers and sellers of the commodities of the extreme East to lose by the consumption of them in Europe being doubled.
“If England must gain by the opening of the Isthmus an increase of military and commercial power, the genius of calculation within her will soon triumph over an ill-considered opposition. She will not sacrifice the positive elevation, the basis of which is enlarged by the developement of what surrounds it, to that relative elevation which is satisfied with the degradation of others, and she will not give any one the right to attribute to her, with regard to all the nations bordering on the Mediterranean, the language lately addressed by the Emperor Nicholas to the English Minister on the subject of Greece, and of the East. Such a policy she leaves to its fitting home. She does more, she opposes it by force of arms. Convinced that her strength lies in her power of expansion, and in her commercial capabilities, she endeavours by the prosperity of her neighbours to enlarge the basis of her own, and for this reason it is that she animates with her co-operation so many enterprises which enrich the Continent; no undertaking that she has ever assisted will prove more productive of beneficial results to herself than the operations at the Isthmus of Suez.”
To the preceding quotation, which is conclusive, I add some figures which also have their value.