Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries by J. Stephen Jeans

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 8,000,000_l._, divided into 40,000 shares of 20_l._ 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 1,520,000_l._ 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 1,200,000_l._, 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 700,000_l._ In the seven following years, the syndicate received 1,212,025_l._ 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 700,000_l._! Evidently the Egyptians did not know the value of the canal when they made this disastrous bargain, although the navigation receipts had increased from 228,750_l._ in 1870 to 1,599,700_l._ 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. The Act of Concession for the construction of the Suez Canal was granted by the Viceroy, Said Pacha, to M. de Lesseps on the 30th of November 1854, and was followed, on the 5th of January 1856, by a second Act, to which were annexed the Articles of Association of a company for working the concession. The charter thus granted to the Suez Canal Company gave it a ninety-nine years’ lease (counting from the date of opening), to dig and work—