c 30 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

which would have made her all-powerful at Cairn-This being so. I fail to see why Lord Palmerston should be held up to obloquy, because he did_eyer}-diingjn hisjgpwer to hinder, or, at any rate to retard, Ithe conipletion of Jthe Canal. It was his duty, as a British statesman, to protect the interests of England.

He knew of no other rule of conduct for an Englishman holding his position ; and I, for my part, venture to doubt whether there is any rule that is better. There is a story, whose authenticity I have never been able to ascertain, that on some occasion when he was asked why he opposed the canal, he answered : " Because, if the Canal is made, England will have to annex Egypt ; and I, for one, have no wish to see Egypt added to the British Empire." If the story is true, it seems, I think, to place Lord Palmerston's antagonism to the Canal under a much more favourable light than that in which it is commonly represented, not only by foreigners, but by his fellow-countrymen.

Still, though it is unreasonable to attribute England's endeavour to thwart the construction of the canal to blind ignorance or personal jealousy, there can be no doubt that English antagonism formed not the least of the many obstacles with which the promoters of the scheme had to contend. As I have stated already, I do not see any cause to credit M. de Lesseps with being the author of the idea of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by a waterway available for deep-sea vessels. He was not the discoverer of the Isthmus route in anything approaching