SUMMARY OF EUROPEAN OPINION.

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E. P. de Monchy, President of the Dutch Commercial Company at Amsterdam, President of the Commission.

J. D. Spengler, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacture at Amsterdam.

A. Van Rijckevorsel, H. son, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacture at Rotterdam.

J. Buys't Hooft, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacture at Dortrecht.

G. de Clercq, Secretary to the Commercial Company.

L. M. F. Plate, ex-President of the Commercial Factory at Batavia. F. W. Conrad, Chief Engineer of the Water and Dyke Department, President of the International Commission on the Suez Canal at the Hague.

P. Van Vlissengen, Manufacturer and Ship-owner at Amsterdam. Van Oordt, Director of the Steam Ship Company at Rotterdam. G. J. Sprenger, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacture at Middelburg.

J. Van Hulst, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufacture at Harlingen.

S. Vissering, Rector of the Leyden University.

M. A. M'sGravesande Guicherit, Professor of Commercial Law at the Royal Academy at Delft, secretary.

3. The Commission shall meet at the Hague.

The Minister of the Interior,

SIMONS.

Loo, July 10, 1856.

WILLIAM.

CXV.

REMARKS ON THE OFFICIAL INQUIRIES RELATING TO THE PIERCING OF the Isthmus of Suez.

PARIS, August 10, 1856.

THE Scheme for cutting through the Isthmus of Suez is engaging the attention of several Governments—viz., those of England, Sardinia, Holland, Austria, Venice, and Rome, each looking at the matter from its own point of view.

Sardinia, Austria, Holland, Venice, and the Pope already consider the undertaking to be definitive, and are preparing, with laudable foresight, for the results it must produce. Some are enlarging their old harbours, with a view to the expected increase of their trade; others are making new ones. Some are situated on the Mediterranean, on the Adriatic, others on the North Sea, and for them the distance which separates them from wealthy colonies,

the principal source of their wealth and power, will be lessened by one half.

It is, therefore, no exaggeration to say that our great undertaking is becoming a subject of interest to the official world. This is quite a new phase.

The English Government has despatched a cruiser off Pelusium to test the soundings of the international commission.

Thus different Governments, without having recourse to diplomatic action and each on its own account, are taking notice of our undertaking. All these inquiries can only tend to promote the scheme, and we confidently await the approaching result.

CXVI.

REMARKS ON EGYPT PUBLISHED IN THE "ISTHMUS DE SUEZ” NEWSPAPER, PARIS, AUGUST 25, 1856.

IF the special condition of each of the several countries which compose the Turkish Empire be attentively considered, it is impossible not to be struck by the exceptional circumstances in which Egypt is placed.

The population of Egypt has nothing in common with that of the remainder of the Empire. It is neither Turkish, nor Greek, nor Arab. The inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile are the same as the Egyptians of Pharaoh. To any one who has lived among them, there can be little doubt on the subject. In body and in mind, in their habits and in their prejudices, they are the faithful representatives of the old race; and the revolutions which have wrought so many political changes in Egypt do not seem to have produced any material alterations in the primitive type of the native population.

Hence it may be said that the modern Egyptians have inherited the good and bad qualities of the Egyptians of old. Indeed, in every historical record, from Holy Writ downwards, the salient features of the national character are invariably marked with the same stamp.

The Egyptian has one characteristic in common with other races of Ethiopian origin, inasmuch as, though usually thoughtless, indolent, and gentle, he will at times give proofs of obstinacy and energy, and yield to the most violent passions.

He is made up of strange contrasts: great intelligence, with an improvidence and carelessness of his own interests which often pass all bounds, an easy-going and, as a rule, sociable disposition, with instinctive repugnance to all that is foreign; almost passive submission to direct control, with a decided tendency to disregard authority when it cannot be enforced at once.

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History, both ancient and modern, testifies to the fact that by their innate hardiness, their aptitude for works of the most varied description, and their activity in executing them, the Egyptians are capable of great things; but this is only on condition that they be subjected to treatment suited to their nature and under firm and able guidance. If left to their own resources, they have not initiative, dash, and enterprise enough to better themselves, and with them it is very rare that a sense of duty makes up for the absence of those good qualities.

In close proximity to the native population, and on all sides of it, are the Arabs of the desert. This vicinity is often the cause of sanguinary encounters and of ruin to the bordering districts, whenever Government is unable to protect them against the incursions of the roving tribes.

Thus an improvidence and thoughtlessness, which render control and guidance a matter of constant necessity; traditional submission to an authority which seems devoid of real strength and spontaneous means of action; some evil propensities which require checking; such are the data which should be taken into careful consideration in dealing with the moral and social state of the Egyptian population. The physical circumstances affecting Egypt are no less remarkable.

Egypt, as we know, is one of the most fertile countries in the world. The abundance and variety of her natural products are proverbial; and for many centuries her political standing was due in a great measure to her importance as a productive country. But, unlike other regions favoured by nature, the fertility of the soil is dependent, in the case of Egypt, on a single fact,—the existence of the Nile, by whose annual overflow the earth is refreshed and rendered fertile. Were it not for these floods Egypt would be a mere desert; were it not for the Nile she would be nothing; her existence depends on the phenomenon of the periodical floods, the recurrence of which is fortunately as regular as are the revolutions of the celestial bodies.

But the river does not of itself extend these beneficial effects beyond its banks, and the portions reached by its waters are naturally very restricted. Hence the necessity of having recourse to artificial means to husband and guide the waters so as to reach the most distant parts of the territory, and the urgency of creating a vast system of canals, embankments, and dams, to neglect the maintenance of which for a single day would be to render barren and lay waste a more or less extensive portion of Egypt. Now it may be looked upon as certain that these works, which necessitate a general knowledge of the requirements of the country, great means of execution, and much ready money, will never be carried out if left to the carelessness of private individuals, whose resources in every respect are, moreover, too limited to admit of their executing the works. It is, therefore, for the Government to undertake them.

Thus, we see a great, a rich country, whose prosperity, nay, whose

very existence, is wholly dependent on the favourable or unfavourable disposition, the strength or the weakness of its rulers. It is easy to infer what must result from such a state of things.

For the present we shall confine ourselves to remarking that under the Mamelukes, whose authority was first shaken by the French expedition, and whom Mehemet Ali finally crushed, most of the canals of Egypt became choked up, irrigation works were almost destroyed, population decreased, and the sources of production were pretty nearly exhausted.

Lastly, the geographical position of Egypt gives her, in the eyes of the world, an importance which no other fraction of the Ottoman Empire possesses. Situated on the extreme boundaries of Africa and Asia, with the Red Sea on one side and the Mediterranean on the other, Egypt is the shortest, the most direct, route between the West and the far East, the central point of the vast traffic of Europe, India, China, and Oceania. After a rival means of communication had been opened by the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, the route discovered by Vasco de Gama, deprived Egypt for a long time of the trade with China and the Indies. But then the way round the Cape was only preferred because it obviated trans-shipment, and was to the old navigators a means of saving time and money. However powerful these considerations may have been they did not alone determine the selection. It had, apart from this, become a matter of necessity for traders, for the simple reason that the route across Egypt was no longer practicable.

The state of anarchy in which, with rare intervals, Egypt had been plunged since the beginning of the fifteenth century, the conflicts of which she had constantly been the field, the fanaticism and inhospitable habits of the rulers, had raised a barrier over which trade, alarmed by the absence of security, had ceased to attempt to pass.

Egypt, by her geographical position, is the most natural and advantageous means of transit between West and East; and this is a privilege which cannot be lost so long as the internal state of the country does not destroy the work of nature. The proof of this is, that as soon as order was re-established and foreign interests became the object of a wise and steady protection, the route through Egypt was again opened to the trade of the whole world. In this respect Egypt has already partly recovered the importance she had lost; and the easier and safer transit becomes under the auspices of an enlightened and competent Administration, the greater will be this importance, as well as the guarantees offered to commercial nations.

From the fact that Egypt may be noted as having a special and characteristic population, with physical conditions of existence which are unique, and a geographical position which is the converging point of the most important commercial interests, it may be inferred that there are in that country elements of strength, together with causes of prostration, wants, social conditions: a system of life, in fact, essentially peculiar to it. This explains why Egypt never permanèntly

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remained a mere province, whatever may have been the power of the conqueror.

Whenever it has happened that Egypt has been reduced to the state of a mere province, that is to say, placed under a form of government common to other dependencies, the following alternative has invariably presented itself: either the principles of her prosperity have been stifled by a system of administration unsuited to her requirements, or she has recovered her independence through the weakness and incapacity of the central authority, or through the defection of governors who knew how to turn the resources of the country to account with a view to their own greatness.

What took place, for instance, after the conquest of Egypt by Sultan Selim in 1517? His son and successor, Soliman the Legislator, was undoubtedly a prince of consummate ability and experience. He was judicious enough to see that Egypt had to be governed in a peculiar manner. But he made one mistake. By imposing too great restrictions on the authority of the Pachas sent to Cairo as governors, and by only giving them a precarious and unstable position, he deprived them of the influence and consideration necessary to cope with the intrigues and the factious and rebellious spirit always smouldering somewhere in Egypt. The Mamelukes took advantage of this to seize the power, and became the real masters of the country. The Turkish governors soon became mere prisoners in their hands; and the Porte, unable to take any part in the administration of Egypt, and obliged to content itself with the promise of a small tribute, which was never paid, retained nothing, for more than two hundred years, than a purely nominal authority over the conquest of Selim.

At the foot of the Pyramids General Buonaparte struck the first blow against the domination of the Beys, the worst to which Egypt was ever subjected. On the departure of the French army, the Ottoman troops, with the help of the English, placed Turkish governors in the towns. But the Sublime Porte had not yet really recovered possession of the country. Things were in such a state of disorder that the representatives of the sovereign were powerless. It is to Mehemet Ali that the Sultan may be said to be indebted for the recovery of Egypt, and for her recovery in a position of such prosperity and social importance as to enable her to afford valuable assistance in men and money to the central Power.

But can we believe that Mehemet Ali, notwithstanding his rare ability, could have accomplished his task had he been invested only with a temporary and limited authority? Could he, in his mere capacity as the Governor of a province, have succeeded in crushing the still formidable remnants of the Circassian levies; in quelling anarchy in all its varied forms; in putting a stop to the depredations of traditional brigandage; in overcoming the formidable insurrection which in 1824 set Upper Egypt in a blaze; in restoring the holy cities to the veneration of the Mussulmen; in bringing back the order and industry, which had so long been lost; in repairing and