THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 53 



culty of transport prevents Turkey from sending to 

 Arabia enough troops to ensure her the preponderance 

 of power. Then we are told that the canal would create 

 a barrier between Turkey and Egypt. Anyone who 

 knows the country must be well aware that, in a 

 physical sense, a vast desert without water is a far 

 greater barrier between them than would be the mari 

 time and the sweet-water canals, around which large 

 numbers of Syrian and Egyptian cultivators would 

 gather.' 



"This language is not less remarkable for its out- 

 spoken honesty than for its striking truthfulness." 



DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 7, 1857. 

 The Isthmus of Suez Canal. 



Mr. H. Berkeley asked the First Lord of the Trea- 

 sury whether her Majesty's Government would use its 

 influence with his Highness the Sultan in support of 

 an application which had been made by the Viceroy 

 of Egypt for the sanction of the Sublime Porte to the 

 construction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, 

 for which a concession had been granted by the 

 Viceroy of Egypt to M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, and 

 which had received the approbation of the principal 

 cities, ports, and commercial towns of the United 

 Kingdom; and if any objection were entertained by 

 her Majesty's Government to the undertaking, to state 

 the grounds of such objection. 



Lord Palmerston: Her Majesty's Government cer- 



