The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-07-19
The suex CanaI-Modern Progress.

! We learn from q cable despatch that M.
Lesseps has officially announced that the
ceremony of the opening of the Suez Canal
will take place on the 18th of November next.
This grand affair will divide the attention Of
the world with the great Ecumenical Council
in Rome, the opening of which is to take
place on the Sth of the following month. Since
the last great Exposition in Paris the world
has had no such sensation as that which will
attract one class of pilgrims in November to
the banks OF the sacred Nile, and that which
will attract another class of pilgrims in Decem-
| Der to the shrine of st. Peter. Our own
Pacific Railroad was in many respects a more
| gigantic undertaking than the Suez Canal; but
great undertakings are 80 natural to us on
this side of the Atlantic that the completion of
the greatest railroad the world is ever likely to
know was marked by no unusual demonstra-
ton. In after ages the historian will be COM
PEELED to speak of 1869 as year of wonders.
The Pacific Railroad, the French Atlantic
cable, the Suez Canal, the Ecumenical Council,
are events which will give to this year of grace
undying fame.
The Suez Canal is PROFESSIONALLY the great
prospective event Of the hour. Long deemed
an impracticable scheme, pooh-poohed by the
politicians and engineers of England, and
persistently from the outset denied the assist
ance of English capitalists, it has nevertheless
been begun and carried forward to a point
which at least promises success. It is not our
belief that the Suez Canal will be an accom-
plished fact in November, or, indeed, for
many months and perhaps many years to come.
1t will indeed be great day for Egypt and for
the world when a vessel of large tonnage shall
traverse its entire length from sea to sea. That
day we fear is not near. 1t is, however, our
confident opinion that the success already
achieved points to final triumph and lends the
appearance of justice to the contemplated cere-
monial in November. 1t is impossible to
refuse to admit that to NJ. Lesseps first, and
after him to the Emperor Napoleon and Ismael,
large need of praise is due. If it should be
found that for purposes of commerce the canal
cannot be extensively useful for years to come,
it is triumph in itself to have demonstrated
that the scheme is not impracticable; that
canal connecting the waters of the Indian
Ocean with the waters of the Mediterranean is
not an impossibility There are those who think
that such canal once existed. There are
others who think that the idea, which is as old
OF perhaps older than the Pharaohs, and which
on more than one occasion already has sought
practical shape, has never yet been fully and
/
traces here and there of an old canal have
been discovered. 1t is well known that the
Pharaohs, the rulers of the days of Persian
supremacy, and later, the Ptolemies spent
much time and exhausted the resources of
Egypt, both in men and money, in attempting
to cut the isthmus and establish useful water
connection between the two seas Whatever
may have been the success of the particular
experiments referred to, it is undeniable that
the canal, if ever completed, was never last
ingly useful It is credit to the nineteenth
century, and special triumph to M. Lesseps,
that that which has SO long existed in idea
must at no distant day be an accomplished fact.
| 1t is impossible to overestimate the i'm
portance of this great work. 1t is no small
matter TO have Constantinople brought nearer
! the far East by some four thousand leagues.
| IL will surely be gain to commerce to have
the great centres of Asiatic trade brought
nearer to Marseilles by over three thousand
leagues nearer Amsterdam, Liverpool, London
and St. Petersburg nearly three thousand
leagues, and to have the distance between those
centres and the ports of the New World les
sened by some two thousand OF three thousand
leagues. The advantages which the canal
will secure for Europe generally are ncalcula-
BILE. 1t will give new life to the, Turkish
empire 1t will develop the internal resources
of Austria, and draw the strength OF that en-
pre more and more in an Eastern direction.
Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal will all
share the common benefit. The Mediterranean
win again become the great sea of commerce.
We have not mentioned Great Britain and
France; but those two Powers, who may yet
be brought into deadly conflict for the mastery
Of this same canal, must Immediately reap
from it larger benefits than all the other ma
tons put together. Of course it will be q
|
with Asia must be more immediate and more
direct. The Pacific Railroad, which is but one
Of many lines which will yet connect the At
lantic with the Pacific, has already made the
Pacific Ocean an American lake. We, too,
have our isthmus, and that isthmus viii soon
be cut. II is not conceivable that our canal
will be failure, whatever may be the fate OF
that Of Suez and European vessels, espe-
cially those Of the great Western Powers, viii
seek the ports Of China aud Japan by way oil
Darieu rather than by way Of Suez. In IA,
general development Of trade the Suez Cana
will be positive gain to the whole world bu
il cannot alter the fact that we, az a nation
occupy the central position on the great
central continent nor can it proven
( a. e