The STATISTICAL STORY of the SUEZ CANAL. By JOSEPH RABINO, ESQ. [Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 14th June, 1887. SIR RAWSON W. RAWSON, K.C.M.G., C.B., a Past President in the Chair.] IN studying the economical situation of Egypt, we were' met at every stage of our inquiry by the cardinal fact that to Nature's great waterway, the Nile, is due not only the prosperity of the land, but even the very existence of its people. Shakspeare places the idea vividly before us:— they take the flow o' the Nile By certain scales i' the pyramid; they know Antony and Cleopatra, act ii, scene vii. The external or international importance of Egypt depends at present in a scarcely lesser degree upon that other waterway which we owe to the energy and perseverance of him whom our neighbours with pardonable pride entitle "the great Frenchman." How great that importance is to us may be imagined from the circumstance that, with the almost unanimous approval of the country, an administration pledged to peace and retrenchment did not hesitate in confronting the risks and sacrifices of war rather than allow the canal to fall into unfriendly hands. Indeed the question of the canal touches, or is supposed to touch that of our naval supremacy, a point of our national policy which already three centuries back was put forth by Bacon as an indisputable axiom : 1 See paper on the Statistics of Egypt, September, 1884, of this Journal. "But this much is certain," says he; "that he that commands "the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of "the war as he will; whereas those that be strongest on land "are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. Surely, at this day, with us of Europe the vantage of strength at sea (which is "one of the principal dowries of the kingdom of Great Britain) "is great; both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; "and because the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessory to the command of the sea."2 66 Nor do other nations overlook the political importance of the canal, which since its construction has been the subject of arduous diplomatic negotiations and the status of which is a problem in every European chancellerie. M. Renan in his answer to the Academy speech of M. de Lesseps, thus eloquently points to one possible consequence of the construction of the canal: "The great saying: 'I come not to bring peace but a sword,' "must often have presented itself to your mind. The isthmus "cut becomes a strait, that is, a battlefield. A single Bosphorus "had hitherto sufficed for the troubles of the world; you have "created a second much more important than the other, for not only does it unite two portions of inland sea, but it serves as a channel of communication with all the great oceans of the globe. In case of naval war it would be the supreme interest, "the point for the occupation of which the whole world would struggle to be first. You will thus have marked the field of the great battles of the fature." 66 66 66 Of the commercial importance of the canal I shall speak hereafter, believing that I have sufficiently justified my opinion, that some account from a statistical point of view of this great undertaking may fitly find a place in the annals of our Society. II.-The Forerunners of the Canal. From Suez on the Red Sea to Port Saïd on the Mediterranean the distance as the crow flies is less than 100 miles; about as far as from London to Leicester, and a sharp two hours' run in one of our express trains. A canal cut through this short distance— rendered shorter by the existence of lagoons and deep depressions throughout its length--brings the Mediterranean countries 12,000 miles nearer by sea to the producing regions of the East, and 2 "Of the true greatness of kingdoms and estates.”—Bacon's "Essays." 3 "Le Temps," 24th April, 1885. 4 King's Cross to Grantham, 1054 miles, 2 h. 4 m. (1883). St. Pancras to Leicester, 99 miles, 2 h. 7 m. (1883).—Statistical Journal, June, 1884. |