QUESTION. (Hansard, 26 March 1858)

§ MR. GRIFFITH

said, he wished to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in consideration of the possible facilities of communication with our possessions in the East, and also of the desire manifested for the execution of that scheme by many continental nations, it be expedient in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, to offer opposition to the project of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez? In proposing this question, he might perhaps relieve the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he stated at once that he had no idea of asking for the slightest pecuniary resistance from the Government on behalf 848 of this project; the only assistance that he asked was of a negative character— that it should be exempted from opposition on account of merely political speculations. It was not his intention to defend the practicability of the undertaking on engineering or commercial grounds; and he should be sorry to guarantee to any capitalist a return upon the capital which he might choose to invest, seeing that he did not think it probable that the work would be executed for anything like the estimate which had been put forward. The only point which he wished to press upon the consideration of the Government was, whether such a scheme as a canal in any part of the world was to be objected to on account of recondite political speculations of so finely drawn a character, as to be not at all obvious to the comprehension of ordinary mortals? The project was intended to facilitate our communication with India, and although the scheme might not, in ordinary parlance, be very practicable, yet he contended that if it were capable of being carried out, instead of being prejudicial to British interests, it would tend materially to assist in the government of our Eastern possessions. We should get to India in less than half the time that it required at present, and it appeared to him that that was an object which was worthy of the utmost attention. The noble Lord the right hon. Member for Tiverton had spoken of the scheme as tending to the separation of Turkey from Egypt; but he was at a loss to see how it could have any such effect at all upon the relations of Turkey and Egypt. There were only two eases in which this canal could operate against the imperial submission, the Pacha owed to the Porte, under the stipulations of the hatti-scheriff of 1841. The one would be, if fortifications were erected along the course of the canal; and the other, if the principles of humanity were violated—that was, of the arrangements as to the labour required in its construction. Upon this political part of the question, it appeared that a valuable means of communication was to be interrupted out of jealousy towards a neighbouring country, and that on that ground a project for uniting two seas—bringing the two hemispheres into direct communication, and saving 4,000 miles of the sea voyage between Europe and India—was to fall through. The question he had to put was, whether it was to be understood that, in the dealings of the British Government with other countries, important and valuable 849 commercial projects, as canals, railways, and other enterprises, were to be opposed on account of any political considerations whatever?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

replied, that the question was one relating to a subject of considerable importance, and presented, in the form in which it had been put, two aspects—a political and a scientific aspect. With regard to the scientific part of the question, he regretted that his hon. Friend the Member for Whitby (Mr. Stephenson), who was much more competent than he was to deal with it, was not in the House; but his own opinion was, that the project for executing a canal across the Isthmus of Suez was a most futile idea—totally impossible to be carried out. It would be attended with a lavish expenditure of money, for which there would be no return; and that even if successfully carried out in the first instance, the operation of nature would in a short time defeat the ingenuity of man. That being his opinion, so far as the scientific question was concerned, he certainly should not act in furtherance of such a scheme, without the advice of men like the hon. Member for Whitby, and other scientific authorities. Then, as to the political aspect of the question, whether the Government intended to interfere with commercial operations in which political motives might be involved? As a general rule, he hoped never on that ground to have to oppose works in any part of the world that might tend to facilitate commercial intercourse. But as regarded the political considerations that might be involved in this particular case, that was an inquiry of so grave a character that he could not at present give an answer to it. He did not know that the political interests of this country were opposed to the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Suez. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, when he was at the head of the Government, had given an opinion on that part of the subject; but the present Government had no evidence before them to justify them in opposing that, or any similar project on that ground. When he had placed before him evidence that this attempt to cut a canal across the Isthmus of Suez was practicable, which convinced him that it was a practicable object, and that on commercial considerations it was desirable to carry it out, he should then be prepared to consider the political part of the question; but as at present advised, believing it to be an 850 operation that could only end in failure, he had not arrived at the consideration of that ultimate and ulterior point to which his hon. Friend referred, namely, the political bearing of the question.