CHAPTER Y. 



A QUESTION OF THE DAY. 



IT will, I think, not be out of place if I supple- 

 ment this chapter with " a question of the 

 day" (actualite), in the shape of a letter which I 

 addressed to Lord Stratford deRedcliffe in 1855, with 

 reference to an eventual seizure of Egypt, either by 

 France or by England. 



" CONSTANTINOPLE, February 28, 1S55. 



" There are questions which it is necessary to face 

 openly, in order to solve them aright, just as there are 

 wounds that must be probed before they can be 

 healed. The straightforward way in which you met 

 my preliminary observations with reference to an 

 affair, to the gravity of which I am fully alive, em- 

 boldens me to submit to your consideration one point 

 which, as it seems to me, it is desirable to keep iu 

 view with reference to the Isthmus of Suez. Owing 

 to the great influence which your character and your 

 long experience enable you rightly to exercise in the 

 decisions of your government in all Eastern ques- 

 tions, I am specially anxious to omit nothing which 



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