The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-07 00:00:00

TIIE DARIEN SHIP CANAL.

A new England paper publishes the following letter :
" Peelings of regret have shewn in England that, with all
the engineering skill she commands, and with her boasted
national success in great and foreign movements, she has
allowed France the honour of constructing the great Suez
Canal. The traffic through this cut off betweeu Europe
and the East is immense, and so rapidly increasing as to
have already effected a reduction in the shipping fleet of
England, and increased the necessity for steam vessels.
That England does not fear a falling off of her trade with
the East, though she does not hold the gates to the Red
Sea, is evident from the fact that she contemplates a rail-
road from the Mediterranean by the Euphrates Valley and
the arid plains of Persia to the Indus. This will be
a very much shorter route to India than the one by the
Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Even with this road
completed England would envy the French their posses-
sion of the Suez Canal. For large quantities of freight
are sure to be transported by water in preference to rail
between the distant nations of Europe and Asia ; and the
government that controlled both lines of traffic would
enjoy a monopoly. From France to the Suez Canal it is
about 1,600 miles. At such a distance must France defend
her right to this enviable canal, with so many powerful
nations nearer or as near to it as she is. From New
Orleans to Aspinwall it is about 1,500 miles. If the
United States come into the pozsession of Cuba, and it
seems that they soon will, the distance from Havana to
-Aspinwall will be about 1,000 miles. That the United
States should shrink from constructing the Darien Canal
because there might be some difficulty in holding
it in time of war, is a notion too weak and absurd
for this great nation to be concerned about. With
such resources as the United States commands, she
can maintain her rights in more critical positions than
this is ever likely to place her. And would not the other
great nations be put to a greater expense and risk than the
United States if they should attempt any infringement of
our rights in a position so much nearer our Government
than it is to theirs. An increase in the. English trade
through this canal would not hurt us. :What are Jamaica
and some other little islands in the West Indies ?. If we
own Cuba our management of that island will soon raise
it to a position of greater importance and influence than
all the rest of the West Indies together. That there is a
necessity for a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific can
no longer be doubted. There is a pressing need for it.
Now, suppose we neglect the present opportunity, and
England or France make and, control this canal, our
regrets will then be as useless as England's are to-day
over the Suez Canal. It is preposterous to suppose that
if the United States built the Darien Canal she would
reap the sole benefit from it. And it is very unbusiness,
like to maintain that if we do not get all the benefit-
that is good ground for our not constructing the canal at
all. Just what proportion of the advantage would fall to
each nation is hard to tell now. But when we see that
the ports on the western coast of South America will all
be nearer the United States than any other great mari-
time nation, and that our great traffic by the isthmus to
the West will undoubtedly be increased when this canal is
made, we may feel very confident that our share of the I
benefits attending the completion of this enterprise willbe
large enough to warrant every reasonable effort to secure
its accomplishment. The cost of this enterprise will not'
be great, compared at least with that of the Suez Canal.
And' I presume the privilege' that foreign nations must
annually pay to pass through the Darien Canal would
largely contribute towards defraying the expense of its
construction. When the time, the great danger, and the
expense of rounding Cape Horn are done away with by
the Darien Canal, the nation that has made it may con-
gratulate the world. " DARIEN.

Sir Stafford Northcote is expected to arrive in Eng-
land on Wednesday, the Bth inst.

The Rappel states that the journeymen iron-
founder's of Paris now on strike, have sent two delegates
to London to negotiate a loan with the English societies,
and that they have received a favourable answer.
Mr. Joseph Eldred, winr has been director of the
Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool, has left that theatre
and will shortly accompany his old confrere, Mr. J. L.
Toole, on a tour in the provinces. Mr. Harry Paulton,
one of the best of Liverpool comedians, is also about to
leave the Prince of Wales' Theatre for Miss Swanborough's
house in the Strand. -
A CURIOUS ECCLESIASTICAL DIFFICULTY.— A
memorial has been sent to the Prime Minister. praying
for inquiry into a singular ecclesiastical difficulty. It
appears that in 1854 Lord John Russell, who was then
Prime Minister, appointed the Rt.v. G. H. Johnson, of
Queen's College, Oxford, who had been secretary of some
ecclesiastical commissions, to the deanery of Wells. In
1856 the vicarage of St. Cuthbert's, Wells, in the gift of
the dean and chapter, became vacant, and the dean took
it, although it was stated at the time that it was worth
more than the £5OO a year provided by the statute. In
consequence of some recent parochial disputes the ques-
tion has been revived, and the opinion of counsel has been
taken as to the validity of the dean's appointment to the
vicarage. The opinion given by the legal gentlemen is
that the moment the dean accepted the appointment of
vicar of St. Cuthbert's the office of dean became ipso
facto vacant. The memorialists pray that the Prime
Minister will take whatever steps may be necessary in
the matter.