the command of the canal- or, in other words, the occupation of the Delta-would be a gain to England, supposing it to lie within our power to obtain such a control, and supposing also that we could obtain it without any violation of duty, or without assuming responsibilities too heavy for our due performance.

I take the question as to our power to obtain control of the canal first, not because I deem it the more important, but because, if it cannot be answered in the affirmative, the further question whether we should act rightly in making the attempt ceases to be of any practical importance. Now, as a matter of fact, we could at the present moment, and in all likelihood for some months to come, obtain possession of the canal without difficulty and without opposition. I am not recommending a coup de main. All I need remark on this subject is that if a couple of ironclads were stationed at Port Said, and a single British regiment was landed at Alexandria, we should at once have assured a position from which no power could dislodge us except by war. Indeed, the same object could practically be effected if we hoisted the union-jack at the entrance to the canal under the care of a corporal's guard, and announced that henceforward the canal and the Delta would be placed under our protectorate. We have in fact only to hold out our hand in order to carry our point. Of course this is no justification for high-handed insolence, just as the fact of Alderney being without a garrison would be no excuse for a French fleet sailing from Cherbourg to annex the Channel Islands. But, in considering whether it is desirable to effect an occupation of Egypt, the fact that the enterprise presents no military difficulty of any kind is one that ought not to be overlooked. The next point worth considering is how far such a step would bring us into collision with the other Powers of Europe. Till within the last few years England could only have planted herself in Egypt at the cost of a war with France. Under the reign of LouisPhilippe, and even under the Second Empire, France would have resisted any extension of British power in the Levant by all means at her disposal. That Syria and Egypt were in some special sense under the protection of France was throughout the first seventy years of this century a tradition of French policy; and France would undoubtedly have viewed any scheme for the occupation of the Delta by England very much as our statesmen would still view any proposal for the seizure of the Scheldt by Germany. But questions of remote foreign policy never take much hold of the popular imagination in any country, and least of all in France. It is at once the strength and weakness of the French mind that its interests are pretty well circumscribed within the area of France. Now for the present the thoughts of Frenchmen of all classes who have time to think of anything beyond the cares or pleasures of their daily life, are absorbed in the dread of Germany, and in the desire to promote any influences

which may hereafter facilitate the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine. To secure an interval of peace during which the French army may be placed on a footing to defend France against a second German. invasion is the one paramount idea of every French politician. On the Continent it is believed, with or without reason, that, if Constantinople should be threatened, England must fight for Turkey, and if England intervened the war must become general. Any arrangement, therefore, by which England could be induced to regard the aggrandisement of Russia with comparative indifference would be welcome to France, even if it involved some sacrifice of French influence abroad. To put it shortly, if France were offered the alternative of a general war or of the annexation of Egypt by England, she would choose the latter without a moment's hesitation. Whenever France recovers her strength, and shakes off the incubus of her dread of Germany, she will recommence her traditional rivalry with England in the Levant. But at this moment we could do what we could not have done for the last seventy-five years, and what very possibly we could not do a couple of years hence—that is, take possession of Egypt without the risk of a war with France.

Russia, from the days of the Czar Nicholas and Sir Hamilton Seymour, has advocated the policy of a partition of the Turkish Empire in which Egypt should fall to the share of England; and I have reason to believe suggestions of such a scheme were made within the last few weeks. While there was a possibility of the war being averted, our Government were, I think, right in turning a deaf ear to any proposal whose acceptance might have seemed to sanction the dismemberment of Turkey. But now that the attack has been made, and that the Russian armies are marching towards the Bosphorus, the position is changed. At any rate, if, in view of the advance of Russia towards Constantinople, we should see cause to secure our route to India by the occupation of Egypt, Russia would certainly acquiesce in our action; though if she had once secured her own position on the Golden Horn, she would assuredly oppose any British occupation of the Delta with all her strength. Germany, from whatever motive, has more than once of late intimated to our Government that she would view with satisfaction the establishment of English supremacy on the Isthmus; and Austria would certainly not oppose any measure which tended to strengthen the power of England in the Levant. Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Holland could hardly be expected to entertain a favourable feeling towards a project by which the command of the Suez Canal would pass into the hands of Great Britain. Still, at the worst, they would be obliged to accept accomplished facts. Moreover, our Free Trade policy has removed much of the jealousy with which any extension of our rule used to be regarded by our commercial rivals. The mercantile communities throughout Europe would feel a well-merited confidence that under the union

jack the passage of the canal would be as free as the Straits of Dover to the trading vessels of all nations. Thus I may take, as the second step in my argument, that the step I suggest could be taken by England not only without any immediate military difficulty, but without any risk of involving ourselves in hostilities with any European Power.

It being shown, then, that there are no material obstacles to our taking possession of the canal, it remains next to be seen what, if any, are the moral objections to its execution. No great public improvement can be carried out without interfering with private rights, and therefore it does not seem to me a fatal obstacle to the plan I advocate that we should have to interfere with certain vested interests. If possible, we should endeavour to obtain the consent of the parties interested; if not, we should be obliged to dispense with their sanction. For reasons I shall enter into more fully later on, the protectorate of the Suez Canal involves of necessity the virtual occupation of Lower Egypt. But, as a question of abstract right and expediency, the two measures stand on a completely different footing; and all I have to consider now is, who are the parties whose interests we should be honourably bound to consult, and whose opposition we ought fairly to take into account, if we made up our minds to take possession of the canal. Now the title to the canal may be said to rest with three different parties-first, the French company by whom it was constructed; secondly, the Government of Egypt, as represented by the Khedive, to whom the ownership of the canal reverts after the expiration of the concession; and, thirdly, the Sultan, to whose dominions as Suzerain the canal, in common with every other portion of Egypt, may be said to legally belong. To take the last first, we may fairly say that Turkey's interest in the canal is of an entirely technical character. The Porte would find it difficult to sell its potential title to the canal for a single sixpence. Owing to the utter absence of any maritime enterprise in Turkey, the canal is of less practical value to the Ottoman Empire than to the smallest of European States possessing a seaboard of its own; and, apart from the consideration of its general relations to Europe, the Porte would gladly surrender its rights to England for an almost nominal return. My whole argument is based on the probability that the Ottoman Empire is no longer able to hold its place in the world. Granted this assumption, and we cannot afford to shape our action in deference to the wishes of a moribund Power. But, as a matter of fact, even if Turkey survives the war as an European State, I believe it would gladly see England installed in a position on the Isthmus which might serve as a counterpoise to the increase of power and territory certain to be acquired by Russia at the close of a successful campaign. With regard to the Khedive, his pecuniary interest in the canal, now that he has sold his founder's shares, would fetch very little in the

market. The objections he might raise to our compulsory purchase of the canal, and the price at which he might be disposed to withdraw his opposition, may be better considered when I come to the question of an occupation of Egypt. I may say here in passing that he would, I believe, raise no difficulty about parting with his rights in the canal for a very moderate amount, if this end could be effected without detriment to his position as ruler of Egypt. In as far, then, as the canal itself is concerned, I may say that the only title we should have seriously to consider would be that of the company. The moral strength of this title I for one am not disposed to underrate. The accomplishment of this great enterprise-for which England above all other nations has cause to be grateful, and but for whose effectuation English interests in India would be placed, at this crisis, in the gravest peril-is due in the first instance to the genius and energy of M. de Lesseps, and in the second to the confidence with which the French investors supported with their subscriptions an enterprise declared from its outset up to its completion to be insane and impracticable.

Still, if we were prepared to pay liberally, I think we might acquire possession of the canal with the consent, if not the approval, of the parties directly or indirectly interested in the concern. As a mere

speculation it would be well worth our while to repay the whole amount of the money laid out on the canal, which may roughly be put down at thirty millions, if we could obtain absolute and uncontrolled possession of it as the highway between England and India. Practically we might buy up all the various rights of proprietorship in the canal for under half that sum, and yet content everybody. But the real objection to the purchase of the canal is that it is comparatively valueless to us unless we have command of the adjacent country, or, in other words, unless we occupy Lower Egypt. As I have endeavoured to show, we require, in order to protect ourselves from the results of a possible, if not probable, occupation of Constantinople by Russia, to secure an unrestricted right of passage for ships of war and troops to and from India by the Isthmus route. Even if we were the lawful owners of the canal, the possession would be of no value to us in a military point of view unless we were also in possession of the surrounding country. In times of peace a mere handful of troops would be sufficient to protect our property; but in the event of a war, or even the prospect of a war, we must be at liberty to occupy the Delta, and to erect fortifications not only at Port Said, but at every point along the coast where a landing could be effected. Military authorities agree that Egypt (by which I may say here once for all I mean the Delta) could be defended with very little difficulty by any Power who had the command of the two seas between which it lies. But, as I have already pointed out, the fact that the canal could be rendered useless with very little difficulty by a very

small force, coupled with the further fact that any stoppage in the water passage across the Isthmus might be disastrous for us in the event of a war for the possession of India, makes it absolutely incumbent upon us, if we want to hold the canal, to secure ourselves against any attack being made upon it throughout the whole of its course across the Isthmus. In other words, we must have the power to occupy the Isthmus when we choose and where we choose. Of course it may be urged that in the case of war we should infallibly occupy Egypt whether we had any legal right to do so or not. The truth of this statement is obvious. But with a Russian ironclad fleet stationed in the harbours of the Black Sea and able to sail out into the Mediterranean through the Straits whenever it thought fit, we should be liable to have Egypt occupied by a hostile army before our troops could reach it. What we require, therefore, is the permanent occupation of a number of points on the Isthmus under similar conditions to those under which we hold Gibraltar and Malta. It is difficult for anyone who has not been there quite to realise how very small a place Egypt is; but the smallness of its area makes it absolutely impossible for two rival governments to be within its limits, and any Power which has military possession of the canal must virtually rule the country.

Now, in order to obtain possession of Egypt, all we have to do is to deal with the Khedive. For all practical purposes the Khedive and Egypt are identical. The question how the Egyptian people would be affected by the annexation of the Isthmus to England is one which deserves the fullest consideration; but in any arrangement concluded between the Khedive and England, or, for that matter, with any other Power, the Egyptians themselves can have neither voice nor part. It would be almost as absurd, if you were purchasing a flock of sheep, to ask the grazier for an endorsement of the contract on the part of the flock as it would be to insist that the Egyptians should be a party to any transfer of their soil from one owner to another. To all intents and purposes Egypt is a conquered country, ruled from Turkey by a small number of Turkish pashas.

In as far as I could ever ascertain, the substantial hold which the Khedive has upon his dominions is of the weakest kind. Even if he were the best beloved of Eastern rulers, he could not rely on the attachment of his subjects, from the simple fact that they have no power to make their attachment felt. Why the reigning dynasty in Egypt has remained so long in possession of the throne is a question not easy to answer. Mehemet Ali was one of those born rulers of men who achieve power and hold it by their own force of will. His successors have retained the Pashaship of Egypt partly because, though not of the same calibre with the founder of their dynasty, they have been one and all men of greater energy and intelligence