were English, and their destination India.* Thirty-three vessels have been in the passage in one day; the consequence of this overcrowding is great inconvenience and delay, which reacts injuriously on the profits of the Company. But, independently of any increase or improvement, the expense of keeping the Canal in a working state is enormous. The revêtement of the sides of the Canal is advancing. Last year 15,897 cubic mètres of stone were employed for this purpose on a length of 31 kilomètres. One-fifth part of the Canal is dredged every year. From the 1st May, 1874, to the 1st May, 1875, 556,000 cubic mètres of stuff were raised from the bottom, to keep the passage open. But much larger operations are required to keep open Port Said and to prevent it from silting up. There 450,000 cubic mètres have been raised from the channel of the harbour. The western jetty has been lengthened and raised by 7,000 blocks of concrete and masonry. In order to resist the encroachments of the alluvial soil, brought down by the Nile, and thrown violently back on the shallow coast by every northerly gale, an immense dredging machine was constructed at Marseilles, at a cost of 700,000 francs, which works in the open sea and has ploughed up a line of approach to the port 800 mètres long, 200 mètres broad, and 150 mètre deep. These vast operations are described in the Report as highly successful, but they must be continuous and they are costly.

It is obvious that there is a conflict of interest between the Company, which seeks to secure for itself a dividend on its capital, besides the means of improving and maintaining the Canal, and the shipowners of the world, and more especially of England, who want to use the Canal at the lowest possible rate. This conflict broke out a year or two ago with great violence. The Company is authorised by its concession to charge a sum not exceeding ten francs a tonne de capacité on the passage of ships. But what is a tonne de capacité? There

According to the Report of 1872, the first 1,847 vessels which passed through the Canal were as follows: 1,237 British, 182 French, 150 Austrian, 95 Italian, 65 Egyptian, 63 Ottoman, 14 Spanish, 14 German, 14 Russian, 12 Dutch, 7 Portuguese, 5 American, Belgian, 2 Norwegian, 2 Danish, 1 Greek, 1 Tunis, 1 Zanzibar. The tonnage in 1874 was as follows according to nationality:

are several methods of measuring ships-none uniform or sanctioned by general authority. As the dues on ships are usually charged by the ton, it is the interest of shipowners to employ as large a measure as possible, rather than the true measure. M. de Lesseps contended that the Company was defrauded by the official mode of calculation, and he accordingly proposed to adopt the British system of gross tonnage measurement-upon the system recommended by Captain Moorsom -contending that the true dimensions of vessels were 50 per cent. larger than those the official dimensions commonly give them.

Although we have before us all the papers relating to this grand dispute about the tonnage, we cannot attempt within. reasonable limits to put our readers in possession of all the details of this complicated negotiation. But we will endeavour to explain the principal facts. Till 1873 the Canal was not. producing, at the existing rates, enough to pay the interest on the debt. In 1871 a last loan of 20 million francs had been raised. Nothing more could be obtained from the Khedive. From July 1, 1872, the administrators of the Canal declared that the toll of 10 francs per ton should be levied on the gross tonnage of vessels, not on their net registered tonnage. This alteration would at once increase the receipts by 50 per cent., and make the Canal a paying concern. At first this change was not ill received by our own Board of Trade. written to M. de Lesseps congratulating him on his adoption of the uniform British system of measurement, which the Board of Trade conceives to be the most accurate. This letter is quoted in the Report of 1872. We think with the Board of Trade that the tolls should be calculated on the real measurement of ships, ascertained by a uniform rule, and not by any variable form of official declaration; and we believe Captain Moorsom's to be the best system of measurement.* It obtains in this country, and it was adopted in December 1874 as the rule of measurement in France. The Canal has vastly dimin

An official letter was

*The question of the best mode of measuring ships has been discussed at great length in this and other countries. Unfortunately no uniform system as yet prevails. It is, we believe, admitted that Captain Moorsom's method is the best for ascertaining the gross capacity of a ship; but deductions must be made for the machinery, coalbunkers, &c., to arrive at the net registered tonnage of a ship. What are these deductions to be? They are obviously much larger in a packet or mail-boat than in a merchant steamer: hence the result that the packet would pay less than the trader. A poll-tax of 10 francs is, however, levied by the Canal on passengers,

ished the expense of a voyage both in time and in the rate of insurance, and the shipowners ought to pay a reasonable price on the real capacity of their vessels. But ere long a violent opposition manifested itself in which the French Company of the Messageries Impériales took the lead. The right of the Company to put this interpretation on the seventeenth article of their concession was disputed. The question was tried in the French courts, with conflicting results. At last it was held that the Company was at any rate bound to obtain the sanction of the Sublime Porte to the change. The Porte at first approved it, but afterwards withdrew its consent, and referred the question to an International Commission. This Commission reported at last in favour of a qualified and temporary augmentation of the toll by about 3 francs a ton, and laid down, in conclusion, the following proposition :

That no modification can in future be introduced in the conditions of transit, whether relating to tolls on navigation, or to dues for towing, anchorage, pilotage, &c., without the consent of the Sublime Porte, which engages to come to an understanding with the Powers principally interested before taking any determination.'

In a despatch addressed by Khalil Pasha, then Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, on December 25, 1872, to the Turkish Ambassador in Paris he energetically protested against the assumption of jurisdiction by the French courts of law. He pointed out that if the new mode of levying the toll on the Canal had received the approbation of the Sovereign, an Imperial Firman would have informed the 'public of it.' He quoted the sixteenth article of the firman of 1866 by which the Sultan ratified the previous concession of the Khedive, reserving his own Imperial jurisdiction; and he ended in these words:

'Your Excellency will readily comprehend that we cannot allow it to be supposed that we shall allow the Company to withdraw from the jurisdiction to which it is subjected by the Act to which it owes its existence, and, consequently, the Imperial Government has enjoined upon His Highness the Khedive to invite the Company to conform in all respects to the firman of concession in its relations to other parties.'

The Porte acted up to this principle by calling together an International Commission to deliberate on the question of tonnage; by adopting the advice of that Commission; and finally by sending imperative orders to the Khedive on April 16, 1874, to take forcible possession of the Canal, if M. de Lesseps persisted in his attempts to resist the new tariff of

dues. Troops were moved to the spot under the orders of an American officer, and on April 29th M. de Lesseps gave way, under protest. He denies, however, that he ever threatened to interrupt the service of the Canal. The important fact to us in all this transaction is the demonstration of the fact that the supreme power over the Canal resides, not in M. de Lesseps, nor in the shareholders, nor in the Khedive, but in the Sultan.

On the 9th May, 1874, immediately after this occurrence, M. de Lesseps wrote the following note to Mr. Disraeli :—

'In concert with Duc Decazes I have sent to London the Secretary of the Company of the Suez Canal, M. Marius Fontanes, under the order of the French Embassy, to know whether Her Majesty's Government is disposed to leave the Ottoman Porte free to negotiate an arrangement with reference to the question of dues on the Canal. This arrangement, which appears to have been favourably received by Sir Henry Elliot, was proposed by the Company to the Turkish Government, in order to terminate the disagreement arising from the violation by armed force of a public contract as to the terms of which the shareholders of the Suez Canal haye maintained and still preserve their rights.'

The British Government replied that the first step should be to place the representatives of the Company in relation with Colonel Stokes, one of the former British Commission on the Tonnage Commission.* Upon the receipt of this answer M. de Lesseps wrote to M. Marius Fontanes the following despatch:

You must prepare to return to Paris, for it would be dangerous to allow the policy of England to suppose that we will negotiate with her or allow her the least control over the affairs of the Company. Our only law and rule of action is our Act of concession and our Statutes. We are a private Company which has risked its capital without the guarantee of any Government, and we do not acknowledge the right of any State to take a part in our administrative affairs. All we ask is that the Porte will adopt a conciliatory course instead of one in which we shall end by gaining our point. The Porte may consult England, the French Government may recommend conciliation; as for us, it would be dangerous to discuss with England the expediency of any eventual outlay, which we intimated to her in order to prove our good faith and the necessity of conciliation, unless we are to continue a warfare in which the right is not on the side of our adversaries. You are not to engage with Colonel Stokes or with any other person in conferences which would appear to give weight to the desire to become in fact the arbiter of our affairs. Ask the English, who approve the in

* Colonel Stokes has just been sent out on a mission to Alexandria.

tervention of their Government to cut down the lawful profits of a private enterprise, carried on by French capital, what they would do if our Government were to attempt, by diplomatic means, to diminish the income of a private company formed by British capitalists.'

We presume that these remarks would not now be made, and that M. de Lesseps would not contend that the British Government is not to have the least control over the affairs of a company in which British capital is so largely interested, and England herself stands as a shareholder in the place of the Khedive for nearly half the amount of shares. But the tone of the president of the Company may convey to the reader a sense of the very ticklish position in which we stand towards the central authority in Paris. M. de Lesseps, however, has gained by the purchase this advantage. The interest and duty of the British Government and its agents is no longer to defend the shipping interest against the Canal, but to defend the Canal against the shipping interest. Mr. Disraeli must settle this matter as best he can with his friends the shipowners in the House of Commons, to whose interests and influence he is not insensible. Our object must now be, in common with the other shareholders, to support the income of the Canal, not only with a view to the interest upon capital, but to what is of much more importance, the improvement and enlargement of the Canal itself. It is one of the results of this singular transaction that in this, and several other respects, the Government has reversed the policy hitherto pursued, not only by their predecessors but by themselves. If there is inconsistency Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues are responsible for it; but we have not yet heard the grounds on which they will have to explain so extraordinary and abrupt a transition.

We have shown that the mere acquisition of shares, however numerous, will not materially affect the organisation of the Company, will not shake the authority of the governing body, and will not give the British Company any more effectual means of influencing its decisions than are possessed by every shareholder perhaps in some respects our influence will be lessened, for it can hardly be exerted against ourselves. But the relations which this transaction has created between Great Britain and the Khedive are even more curious and interesting than those existing between Great Britain and the Suez Company. We have bought 176,000 207. shares for four millions,

This correspondence is quoted in M. de Lesseps' last Report to the General Assembly of the Company.