LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL, in rising to call attention to the further correspondence upon Egypt; and to move for copies of the original concessions to M. de Lesseps on the Isthmus of Suez Canal, said: My Lords, I came down to address the House a week ago upon this Notice, when Her Majesty's Government referred to the absence of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs as an objection to proceeding. We are now in August, and the unavoidable satiety of the House at such a moment imposes on me more compression than might have otherwise been necessary. At the same time, the reasons for discussion upon Egypt, and the rather burning question it has recently forced on us, have accumulated in the interval. The world is full of novel contributions from well-known and independent writers on the subject. The opinions of M. Leon de Say have been communicated to our public. This very day some new despatches have appeared, if they have not been yet delivered to your Lordships. The daily Press of France and of Great Britain is still engrossed with the Canal. It is too late for Parliamentary Committees to discriminate and methodize the different propositions which are offered. The Government are engaged to the claim of M. de Lesseps, and cannot, of their own initiative, bring the matter under any scrutinizing process. Unless in this House some advance is made towards a practical conclusion, the Session would not close under the circumstances 1603 which the public are entitled to anticipate. The strongest ground of all for giving some consideration to the routes across the Isthmus at this moment is the great variety of schemes which may be rapidly enumerated. M. de Lesseps seems to favour a new and parallel Canal. A diagonal Canal from Alexandria, over the branches of the Nile, has been contemplated. A Canal from Syria through the Dead Sea, with a different termination from that of Suez, has been suggested. Another project is to widen the existing channel. There is a fifth suggestion that of Mr. Talbot, a Member of the House of Commons, which appeared in a morning journal, to prevent confusion which exists, by devoting alternate days to the traffic from the Red Sea and the traffic from the Mediterranean. These schemes are all in need of accurate comparison. My impression is that M. de Lesseps cannot form a new Canal without a new concession on many grounds, and partly upon this one. The old concession specified the different stages he was bound to traverse, and does not give authority to traverse any others. It hardly seems desirable, however, that a new concession should be granted to him, as it would do little to advance the end of those who are dissatisfied at present. The insufficiency of any scheme to widen the Canal is known to naval men, and has been explained in the Report of Admiral Ryder, which may be found in the work of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, the glowing, but not on that account inaccurate, historian of M. de Lesseps and his enterprize. Whether a Canal can be formed independently of M. de Lesseps may be doubtful. Even if it can, Her Majesty's Government are not at liberty to sanction it. Committed as they are, they can only sanction a Canal which would defeat the aim of further enterprize and outlay. Before quitting the subject of the Canal, there is one reflection which late events might almost force upon us. It is that, were Lord Palmerston surviving, he might now easily demand indulgence or acquittal for the course he had pursued in first opposing the design of M. de Lesseps. He might insist that as to commerce, those immediately engaged in it proclaimed the inconvenience and inadequacy of the project; that, setting wealth aside, the Canal had not at all contributed 1604 to the safety of the Indian Empire, or any military object; that we had purchased largely to avert a risk which it involved; that we had gone to war in order to defend it from a mutiny; and been led by that war into an occupation of the country dangerous to prolong while cholera is menacing our troops, difficult to terminate when anarchy may follow our departure. As the authority of Lord Palmerston in foreign policy is valuable, the reflection may not be an useless one. But even those who are inclined to recognize his former prudence on this subject may concur with the aggrieved interests and labour for a scheme by which their object would be realized. When it is remembered to how prodigal an outlay, to how crude a scheme the shipowners were an obstacle, they seem to be entitled to more than unsubstantial gratitude from Parliament and from the country. No doubt the Correspondence shows that Her Majesty's Government were assailed by an extraordinary pressure; that a well-known Member of this House we do not often see among us (Lord Napier and Ettrick) was its organ; and that the project of a new Canal could hardly be avoided. But it shows also that the secret of that pressure was the desire of the shipowners to be released from the ascendancy M. de Lesseps had established. In what manner Her Majesty's Government were led to think that they would satisfy the movement by a plan to double the ascendancy complained of, and to restore in Egypt the specific influence which the war had recently diminished, is a mystery the Correspondence leaves for other sources to dispose of. My Lords, no one who engages to call attention to the further Correspondence upon Egypt can entirely pass over the despatch of February 6 from the noble Lord the Ambassador at Constantinople. The labour it involves would be a title to our notice. Of all his varied and exhaustive details as to the improvement of the country, what has fallen from the noble Lord on irrigation may now appear to have the greatest practical importance. According to the noble Lord, immeasurable wealth may be reclaimed by such a fertilizing process. He uses language which, were it not in a despatch—to guarantee its accuracy and exactness—might seem to border on the realm of poetry and fancy. The Nile he thinks 1605 in its effects has more than equalled the Pactolus. Were irrigation organized more thoroughly, he teaches us that deserts might be transformed into gardens, and wealth derive an impulse which would bring down the actual debt to utter insignificance. As irrigation turns a good deal on the system of canals adopted, the opinion of the noble Lord may tend to guide the country as to the new mode of joining the two seas which it is most desirable to favour. With regard to the organic projects of the noble Lord, his local Councils, General Assembly, Governments restricted to eight Members, there may be little to object to them. They are marked by an aversion to sudden, violent, exotic innovations in an Oriental country. They are marked by much consideration for the welfare of the masses and the remedy of evils which had before been noted by such travellers as Baron Malortie, Mr. do Leon, Mr. Nassau Senior. Whether such projects could be realized without a lasting occupation is a question to be seriously canvassed. Indeed, my Lords, the most important passage of the Correspondence, if I am not deceived, relates to occupation of the country. The noble Lord was gravely urged, so far as he was able, to extend it. He was urged in that sense by a body of merchants and by a body of missionaries whose opinions he reported. It appears that his instructions were prohibitory of all hope upon the subject. It appears, likewise, that his own mode of thinking was opposed to that of his petitioners. I admit now having contended before Easter that there are many grounds on which a lasting occupation ought to be avoided. On this point, or rather on the question of permanently holding Egypt, the judgment of Lord Palmerston was a most decisive one. Although no one was less inclined to acquiesce in the supremacy of other Powers in that region, although no one laboured more assiduously against movements to detach it from the Ottoman Empire over a long and agitated period, which closed in 1841, Lord Palmerston, as his private correspondence has revealed to us, was thoroughly opposed to British tenure of that country. He regarded Egypt only as a moans of transit for Great Britain, and held that we had no more reason to be proprietors within it than a traveller from Edinburgh to London would have for buying 1606 the hotels which might be useful on his journey. But even if Lord Palmerston was silent, the: inconveniences of lasting occupation would not be less manifest. As the noble Lord the Ambassador at Constantinople has justly pointed out, it would be a burden to the Treasury of Egypt. It is felt as a blow to the dignity of the Ottoman Empire, and thus renders it still more averse to any counsel we may offer. It must beget in Russia endless aspiration to some dominion on the Bosphorus, of which, according to her view, the price has been surrendered when Egypt falls under Great Britain. By withdrawing so large a force it does not lessen the anxiety which Ireland habitually occasions. It prolongs the animosity of Franco which the decision to avoid the terms of M. de Lesseps must in some degree have kindled. It renders it more difficult to address to France the least remonstrance on the Tunisian Protectorate, or any other subject which arises. But there is something else to be considered. We learn, if not from the Blue Books, from many other sources, that the Vice-regal power has been a good deal undermined; that movements may spring up as grave as that which drew us into Egypt; that the actual Khedive, although irreproachable to us, has not sufficient power to defend himself against intrigues which may occur. It does not seem to be a groundless calculation that when the British garrison withdraws, the Sultan will retain a kind of balance in the country between the forces which divide it. It is now historically clear that he might have done much more to control the movement of Arabi. But we cannot possibly depend on the co-operation of the Sultan—it is in no spirit of invective I allude to such a circumstance—until the British Government has ceased to be identified with the actual First Lord of the Treasury. Whether the Sultan looks back to his language before the General Election, or to his conduct since that period, he must regard the First Lord of the Treasury as an implacable opponent. It is well known to your Lordships, and it is well known to me, that the Sultan does regard him as an implacable opponent. The conclusion is that either the garrison must stay in spite of many risks and disadvantages connected with it, or that the First Lord of the Treasury must soon withdraw from the position which 1607 he occupies. Which of these two alternatives is most to be desired would hardly be a question to enlarge upon on such a Notice as the present, since it embraces points of foreign and domestic policy which lie beyond the Correspondence upon Egypt. The Motion before the House is one Her Majesty's Government can scarcely hesitate in granting. The original concessions, in the form of a Return, have been presented to the other House of Parliament. They are essential to a just opinion on a controversy so very far from being exhausted. They may be seen in the volumes of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald; but these are not accessible to everyone. They are the only means of ascertaining how far M. de Lesseps is entitled to form a new Canal, or how far the Khedive is at liberty to do so.
Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for copies of the original concessions to M. de Lesseps with regard to the Isthmus of Suez Canal."—(The Lord Stratheden and Campbell.)
§ EARL GRANVILLEMy Lords, I have listened very attentively to the speech of the noble Lord; and although do not personally agree with him that the resignation of Mr. Gladstone would put an end to the political evils of the world at home and abroad, yet in general I do not think that I have anything to complain of in the tone or purport of his speech, in which he has gone over many of the most important subjects connected with Egypt, and has shown great study of the past and the present Papers on the subject. I did not get up immediately after the noble Lord concluded, because I wished to see whether your Lordships desired on this occasion to enter into a serious discussion on this question. The speech of my noble Friend has been rather of an academic character; and as there are several Bills of an important character awaiting your Lordships' consideration, I have merely to point out, with regard to the Motion, that the Papers which the noble Lord asks for have been already presented to your Lordships' House.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIs it the intention of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to take any opportunity of making any statement with respect to the policy of Her Majesty's Government in regard to some of the matters touched upon by the 1608 noble Lord, analogous to that which it is understood is about to be made in the other House?
§ EARL GRANVILLEIt is not my intention; but if the noble Marquess wishes to raise a discussion, I am perfectly prepared to meet him.
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL, in reply, said, that perhaps the noble Earl the Secretary of State would inform the House where the original concessions had been brought before their Lordships. [Earl GRANVILLE was understood to say No. 6.] If that was the case, he (Lord Stratheden and Campbell) would withdraw the Motion. He must remark, however, that he had by no means held out the disappearance of the First Minister from his actual post as an universal panacea. He had only pointed out that until it happened it would not be possible to take away the garrison from Egypt, while to retain it led to evils of a grave and serious description.
Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.