56 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



of the canal upon commercial, technical, and political 

 grounds, making use of personalities for which I prefer 

 not to seek an appropriate designation. "With regard 

 to the first point, that relating to the commercial ad- 

 vantages of the canal, I find an answer in the unanimity 

 with which the eighteen principal commercial and 

 industrial towns of the kingdom pronounced in its 

 favour. You have been unanimous in declaring that 

 this canal, abridging by one-half the distance to India, 

 would be advantageous to British commerce. 



" With regard to the second point, I answer Lord 

 Palmerston by the mouth of the International Com- 

 mission, composed of eminent engineers and mariners 

 of all nations, England included, who, after two years 

 of minute study and careful exploring of the ground, 

 decided in the name of science that the making of the 

 canal would be not only possible but easy. I answer 

 Lord Palmerston with the sanction given to the 

 opinions of the engineers and their plans by the 

 Academic des Sciences in Paris. 



" You will decide, gentlemen, between the authority 

 which this verdict, emanating from the leaders of 

 European science, carries with it and the unknown 

 authority to which Lord Palmerston vaguely alludes. 

 Without dwelling at length upon the contradiction 

 involved in treating the project as chimerical, and at 

 the same time denouncing it as dangerous, I come to 

 the third point. The political arguments of Lord 

 Palmerston seem founded upon the imaginary dangers 



