THE SUEZ CANAL. 29 in the fundamental conditions of trade caused by the Suez Canal. I fail, therefore, to understand why our countrymen should be accused of any exceptional ignorance or selfishness, because they were hostile to M. de Lesseps' project. No doubt they laid themselves open to a certain amount of ridicule by the persistency with which, up to the very last, they declared that the Canal never could be made, or, if made, would prove a gigantic failure ; but in so doing, they only followed the instinct of Englishmen, which leads them to believe that anything they do not wish to happen is never likely to happen — an instinct which, though it may prove dangerous at times, is also one of the main causes of our national success.

From a political point of view, the attitude of the British Government of the day towards the Canal is also capable of defence. From the time when the overland route was initiated by Lieutenant Waghorn — one of the countless pioneers of the British Empire who have devoted their lives to its service and received little or no reward for their exertions on its behalf — [Egypt had become our highway to India. The im-" portance of rapid communication via Egypt with our Eastern possessions was even more important then, when telegraphy was still in its infancy, than it is to-day. It was therefore a matter of vital interest to England that no European Power should have the control of Egypt. The Suez_Canal, if it had I been constructed on the terms of the original con- \ cession, would have given France a footijigjn Egypt ;