From this period, to the beginning of the present century, save for half-hearted projects of the Venetians, and, later, of the Porte itself, we hear no more of the question till Napoleon invaded Egypt, and ordered an immediate survey of the isthmus with a view to the establishment of a maritime canal.[142] Napoleon was himself no mean engineer, and he employed on this work a man who seems to have possessed a remarkable grasp of the problem presented for solution, but who, nevertheless, shared the then common impression that the Red Sea was at a higher level than the Mediterranean, and that to join the waters of the two seas would be to submerge a great part of the country. This man was M. Lépère. He made a survey of the route between the two seas, and declared that he had found the Red Sea to be 30 feet above the Mediterranean.[143]
When Napoleon Buonaparte, at the time of the French expedition to Egypt, ordered a complete survey to be made of the isthmus between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea by M. Lépère, the latter proposed that vessels should ascend the Nile to Bubastis, and pass by a canal, 18 feet deep and 77 miles long, to the basin of the Bitter Lakes. Thence, a second canal, 13 miles in length, was to lead to the Red Sea. The cost of this undertaking was calculated at 691,000l., but additional works in the mouth and bed of the Nile, and the restoration of the canals of Faroumah, Chebri-el-Koum, and Alexandria, was estimated to raise the cost to 1,200,000l. Surveys of the country were afterwards made by Captain Chesney, in 1830, and by Mr. Robert Stephenson in 1847, with a view to the opening up of a waterway between the two seas. Captain Chesney reported on the Isthmus of Suez as offering great facilities for the construction of a canal. “There are,” he said, “no serious difficulties; not a mountain intervenes, scarcely what deserves to be called a hillock.” Stephenson, however, who personally examined the ground, considered that any canal made across the isthmus should be provided with locks, as the absence of current would otherwise allow of silting. Admiral Spratt, ten years later, came to the same conclusion as Stephenson, but both were opposed by M. de Lesseps, who, in his final plan, resolved upon a dead level canal for the whole distance of 103 miles.
The plan ultimately adopted has no doubt been the most advantageous to commerce, inasmuch as it has facilitated the time and labour involved in passing vessels through the canal. It has, however, necessitated a considerable annual outlay for dredging. Nearly two millions of cubic yards of material have had to be removed in a single year from the bed of the canal, in order to maintain the requisite depth.
In advocating his plan for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, M. de Lesseps calculated that in 1851 the value of the commerce with countries to the east of Egypt was a hundred millions sterling, and the tonnage employed in its transport was four millions of tons.[144] This figure he raised in 1855 to sixteen millions of tons; but he was content to adopt six millions as the tonnage that would represent the Eastern trade, of which he reckoned that one-half would make use of the canal. These were described by the ‘Quarterly Review’ as “preposterous speculations,” and figures were quoted from the ‘Revue des deux Mondes’ to prove their fallacy. In the latter periodical, M. Baude had calculated the total trade with the East at that time (1850-53) at 1¾ millions, and M. Dupontès at two millions of tons. The calculations of M. de Lesseps do not seem to have been stated with much precision. There is no statement of the description of tonnage referred to, which is of very material importance. If gross tonnage was meant, then the estimate of M. de Lesseps was realised five years after the canal had been opened. If net tonnage, then it was not reached until 1880. In 1885, the gross tonnage was close on nine millions, and the net over 6¾ millions.
In 1773, Mr. Volney walked over the country traversed by the present Suez Canal, for the purpose of endeavouring to reconcile the various opinions and reports made up to that time as to the practicability of constructing a ship canal across the isthmus. The conclusion come to by that engineer was that there would be a difficulty in preventing the silting up of the harbours, and that for that reason the scheme was a doubtful one.[145] M. de Lesseps himself appears, in 1855, to have repudiated the credit of being the author of the project, when he wrote to a friend a letter in which the following passage occurs:—
“Vous savez qui Linant-Bey est, de puis trente années en Egypt, et qu’il s’y occupe constamment de travaux de canalisation. Lorsque j’étais consul au Caire en 1830, c’est lui qui m’a initié à ses projets de l’ouverteure de l’Isthme de Suez, et qui a fait naître en moi ce violent désir que je n’ai jamais abandonné au milieu de toutes les vicissitudes de ma carrière de participer de tous mes moyens à la réalisation d’une ouvre aussi importante.”[146]
The Suez Canal Company was incorporated in December 1858, with a capital of 8,000,000l., divided into 40,000 shares of 20l. each. Interest at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum was to be paid to the shareholders during construction. A sinking-fund of 4⁄100 per cent. was established, to be a first charge on the profits available for distribution.
Although the first sod of the canal was cut on the 25th April, 1859, it was two years before any real progress was made with the work of excavation. These years were not, however, unemployed. They were chiefly taken up with the work of preliminary preparation, which, on such a vast enterprise, was necessarily considerable. One of the most essential duties required to be undertaken was the construction of a fresh-water canal, for the purpose of supplying the wants of the vast number of labourers employed. Much of this labour was forced, or corvée labour, provided, under engagement, by the Egyptian Government. In 1864, however, after the works had been about four years in progress, the Egyptian Government claimed to withdraw the fellaheen, finding the supply of from 15,000 to 20,000 of the most able-bodied men in the country a serious tax on their resources. The difference between the company and the Government on this score was submitted to the arbitrament of the Emperor Napoleon, who awarded the company an indemnity of 1,520,000l.
In order to provide the ways and means for the prosecution of the work, and to fulfil concessions made to the company, the Egyptian Government made considerable sacrifices. It had given up its customs dues on the canal company’s imports, its tolls on the fresh-water canal, its postal telegraph services, its fishery rights on the canal and lakes, the hospitals on the isthmus with their appurtenances, the quarries and port of Mex with their plant, the storehouses of Boulac and Damietta, and the right to half the proceeds of any of the lands on the maritime canal, which the company might offer for disposal. These rights the Egyptian Government recovered in 1869 on the payment of 1,200,000l., represented by the coupons up to 1894, on the 176,600 shares which it had acquired as an ordinary subscriber. The Egyptians have certainly not reaped the financial advantages from the canal which they ought to have done. They parted to England with their 176,600 shares (less the coupons to 1894) for something under four millions sterling. The value of these shares, deducting the detached coupons, is now close on ten millions. Again, in 1880 they sacrificed their royalties, which amounted to 15 per cent. on the net receipts of the company, to a French syndicate to cover a debt of 700,000l. In the seven following years, the syndicate received 1,212,025l. from this source, and it has been calculated that if the annual receipts of the canal never exceeded those of that period, the canal company would have paid in 1968 no less than fourteen millions sterling in respect of the advance of 700,000l.! Evidently the Egyptians did not know the value of the canal when they made this disastrous bargain, although the navigation receipts had increased from 228,750l. in 1870 to 1,599,700l. in 1880.[147]
For a number of years after it was fairly started the canal had to struggle with financial difficulties. The English had subscribed very little towards its completion, and the French appeared to have some doubts as to its ultimate success. M. de Lesseps then, as since, was full of enthusiasm as to the future of the enterprise, and predicted that it was to be an assured and notable success. Not so, however, his friends and allies. On the contrary, Prince Napoleon, in presiding at a banquet given to M. de Lesseps on the 11th February, 1864, declared that in his opinion “the canal would not be finished, the works would go to ruin, and nothing would be done.” And then followed this remarkable prediction: “In fifteen or twenty years, when the Viceroy shall have shown his powerlessness, there will be some one all ready who will constitute a new company and make the canal. Do you know who it will be? It will be the influence, the capital, and the workmen of the English.” Napoleon was partly right. Egypt found the greater part of the money required, but it is the shipowners of England who pay the dividends that enrich the owners of the canal, and enable M. de Lesseps and his friends to regard their triumph with so much complacency.