Show Twentieth Century Egypt S XII The Romance of the Suez Canal BY FREDERIC J HASKIN Port Pon Said Egypt On the great break breakwater breakwater water ter at Port Said stands the bronze bronie statue of ot Ferdinand de tie Lesseps Lessep his right hand extended in a gesture ge ture of or Invitation to the mariners mariner of all nations to take their ships through the great canal which was the fruit of ot hie hi genius and diploma diplomacy cy CT Not one word is there to indicate that his fortune and good name lie burled buried to in the failure of another canal half way around the world The romance of the canal is sug suggested rested by everything th the visitor sees seea at Pert turnstile of ot the nations But the tragedy of or the canal the Ue ter tilde cost coat of life the shameful waste of money the enslavement of or tile the thins in governmental and financial bond bondage bondage bondage age the wreck of French hopes and aspi aspirations rations not one hint of all alt that tragedy Is ts discernible Ferdinand de do Lesseps Is Ismail Ismall Ismall mall mail Pasha Paha and the Egyptian people gave civilization and commerce one of Its great greatest greatest est eat gifts In the Suez canal but the coat colt coatto coatto to them thorn was wag all that they had and they were never repaid Every day In the year rear A 5 dozen great ships ship make the procession through the canal the ninety miles of or slow Ilow traveling which saves save them thorn the cost coat of circum circumnavigating circumnavigating i navigating the great continent of Africa I They pay pa well welt for It and the owners of ot the canal shares wax fat England controls the canal canai the construction of which John Bull attempted in every ever pos possible possible sible manner to prevent English ships bound from home homo Bombay to cut down the distance from miles to 1890 m miles by taking the canal can at route and the vast Valt majority of ships ship which pay tolls toils to the canal company fly the British flag Germany comes second a long way aft after after after er Holland third and the French whose dreams of or commercial empire cut the ditch are fourth The United States of America has hal not been represented In the canal in a decade by b any commercial ship only vessels of or the navy naY and yachts of the Yankee millionaires show the stars and stripes to the Bedouins of or the des desert desert desert ert who bring their caravans from Mount Sinai to the canal The tonnage of the Suez is not nt t one third as great as that of the Sa lt Ste Marie canal in the great lakes but its Importance to the commerce of the world Is greater gr ter than tan that of any other pass passageway passageway of tile seas s Wherever there is III a strait or a narrow presage passage e through which commerce may go thorn there Is 18 sure to be a British flag flying Hying a British band play pIa Ing and a Tommy Atkins strutting about with a swagger stick Suez is not an exception Fourteen centuries before Christ near Rear nearly nearly ly years ago the Pharaoh Set Sell I fa father father a ather ther of Rameses the Great cut a canal miles long from a branch of or orthe the Nile delta to the Bitter lakes which are now a part of or the Suez canal and which were then the northern extremity of the Gulf of Suez That connected the Mediterranean with the Red sea and Egypt waxed fixed great But the nation de do decayed and the sands of the desert filled tilled up the ditch Eight hundred years later the Pharaoh Necho undertook to dig the canal More than 1000 lives were sacrificed flood to the project but It was abandoned when a priest predicted that its com oom completion would cause Egypt to fall alt Into the hands of or a foreign usurper A hun hundred hundred hundred dred years after Necho the Persian Da Darius Darius Darius rius took up the work on the abandoned canal but his engineers told him that Its completion would cause a deluge and he desired About years was born Ptolemy Philadelphia construct constructed ed a lock and dam canal through which ships made the journey from one of the mouths of the Nile to the site of ot modern Suez Continued wars ware Interrupted com coin commerce commerce merce and the locks and dams fell elt into decay so 81 that navy nav was un unable unable Unable able to escape to the Red Bed sea by canal The Roman engineers later tater patched up the th canal so 80 that their galleys made their way from sea to sea but when the Arabs came In A D TOO JOO they found it choked i up the Arab cleared It out but It was soon permitted to t fill flit up i again and not until the great Napoleon reached Egypt E pt was the canal project again considered Napoleon abandoned the Idea only because his engineers as assured assured assured him that the level of ol flit ilia Mediterranean wa waS thirty feet feat below that of the Red sea lie then considered a lock and dam canal but he evacuated Egypt be before before fore fete anything came of It Of those ancient canals were very narrow and shallow and no boat now dignified with the business of carrying cargo for profit could have entered any anyone one of or them Mehemet All Alt the great pasha who founded rounded the present Egyptian was urged to attempt the canal project but he was wary war At last he pushed it aside and listened to the Englishman Robert Stephenson the father of or the railroad Under Stephensons supervision he built a railroad from Cairo to Suez connecting with the line Itne from Cairo to Alexandria This the great over Oer overland overland land route to India and brought great trade and many rich tolls to the Egyptians Egyptians gP The time came when Said Pasha ruled In Cairo To him came Ferdinand de deLesseps Lessens Lesseps Years Tears before while a clerk In Inthe Inthe inthe the French consulate general in Cairo De Dc Lesseps dreamed the dream of or the great canal lie He was wall not an engineer but he was a master muter diplomatist He Unfolded un folded his plans to Said who loved France and all 1111 Frenchmen and met with en encouragement It was as a magnificent scheme The canal was not to cost Egypt one cent but was Va to pay 15 1 per cent of Its receipts to the Egyptian government and at the expiration of ninetynine years was to bosoms become the absolute property of ot Egypt On such terms tenus the concession was Vas given to De Lesseps In 1856 1556 Then De Dr Lesseps went forth to get the money mone France had Just come out of or orthe the Crimean war and could not advance money mone for or ventures England was op opposed opposed posed to the canal that would let an any anybody body bOOr have hae a chance at India and an th English government did lid everything pos possible possible sible slide to keep the Frenchman from so St curing funds He lIe failed tailed in Europe for he could get enough even een for a sur survey survey vey of or the canal Nothing daunted he went back to 10 Egypt and borrowed money enough from Said to survey suney the canal and to exploit it through Europe Then came much planning and more conces concessions lots and much stock Jobbing but by bys ISSn s the French Fr company was again with without without without out money Again the appeal was made mp e I to Said and not without avail for or he subscribed for more than of the total capital stock and promised to I advance money mOMY for the construction work and all for a project that was not to toCO cost CO Egypt anything That was the b be ginn ng of or bondage to the money mone moneylenders moneylenders I lenders of Europe for Said had to bor borrow borrow borrow row the money he gave to the canal canalIn can canalIn at atIn In 1863 lS the magnificently extravagant Ismail IsmAll Ism Pasha came ca to the throne of Me Mehemet Mehemet hemet AH Ali He burned with ambition to tomake tomAke tomake make himself the greatest ruler in the world and the canal was a darling darting of nt his heart He was the ready read and willing vie vic victim Ic IcUm tim Um of or the loan sharks of Europe and he M would sign anything In the way of an obligation if there was a little yellow gold geld g In sight Meanwhile the canal was progressing slowly Ismail Ismali ordered the Egyptian K peas Iwas peasants I as asante ants ante to do the work under the ancient corne system Every Ever three months 2 25 fi M drafted fellaheen went to the big bib ditch to dig Every Ever very three months a mis miserable erable era remnant of the preceding 2500 OO left the dead deed bodies bode of their comrades beneath be eath the dump heaps The Suez canal was as dug for the most part by those poor creatures who scooped d dup up the sand and dirt with willi their bare hands and carried It up the steep banks banke to the dumps in palmleaf baskets of their own making Taskmasters with cruel whips of hippopotamus hide bide punished the sick and the fainting as all welt well ell as the lazy There were no sanitary prEau precautions and the men 0 died by the thou thousands sands mad This horrible condition of affairs aroused the Indignation of John Bull who pro protested protested tested to the sultan The sultan ordered the employment of fellaheen labor tabor to be stopped Slopped Then De Lesseps and the canal ring ri g descended de upon Ismail and held him responsible for damages damage The ease case was lis left to the arbitration of Napoleon on III HI who decided for the canal ring and Is Ismail Ismall Ismail mail mall was forced torero to pay a fine floe of or nearly n arly S1 because his titular sovereign lord had ordered that subjects should not be murdered in tn th tho canal ditch Each month a nw obligation was as faa fas fastened as ast t ned upon suffering Eg Eo pt Finally h n te 11 P anal was as 1 sa 8 a gua f ft let t to tn t ate its u ing Few festivals have ha been bEn so mag magnificent m g none so extravagant The Tnt cele bration coat erdi Verdi V wrote the opera Aids AIda to order that Ismail might give a box boa party one ont evening and an opera house was built especially especial e for that thai purpose pu But Ismail had signed too not offhand The day of reckoning came Ismail sold his canal share shere to the thc Eng En lish government and by bj their purchase Benjamin Disraeli DIU gave Vf the British h em empire empire empire pire dominion over oer th till traffic between the east and the west It was a bold stroke and it brought to an all end ead the commercial aspirations of or the French of the second 8 ond empire The Th canal company compall still sUIl has hu it its II chief offices in Paris Parla its clerk clethe speak peak French and Its lt tolls toll are charged cha in francs but otherwise e it Is III English Ismail Ismall was wal dethroned and died in ex lie ile his au magnificence forgotten n De Do Lea Les Lesseps sops ventured on another canal project waa was plunged into disgrace race and died a IlL mental wreck Egypt which once levied toll toil on all an the commerce passing between Orient and ana Occident now watches the pass pau by The digging of the canal was the greatest blow ever given to Egyptian com commerce N But the losses tose of Ismail Ismali and De IN Lesseps and Egypt make up the gain gato of the civilized worM world Work Opened Just Juat forty years a p it ItS im hu importance Importance has increased with year fend and its revenues are expanding each mouth month It cost half hail of which was spent in bribes and excessive dis discounts d counts With modern machinery such as ae aela asIs asIs Is la being used at Panama It could have nave been bein built bunt for tor on as a much As Asan A Aan Asan an engineering problem It ts III 1 to the Pan Panama Panama Panama ama canal as all a boys toy block lock house bou e to toa toa toa a skyscraper How It wilt w I compare to Panama as an avenue of com corn commerce commerce merce is a question to which Americans Americana anxiously await the answer Copyright C isi by Frederic J Haakin Tomorrow Twentieth Century Egypt rot Highness the Khedive |