Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-06-11

many rich tolls to the Egyptians.
The time came when Said Pasha
ruled in Cairo. To him came Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps. Years before, while
a clerk in the French consulate gem
eral in Cairo, De Lesseps dreamed the
dream of the great canal. He was not
an engineer, but he was master
diplomatist. He unfolded his plans to
Said, who loved France and all French
men, and met with encouragement 1t
was a magnificent scheme. The canal
was not to cost Egypt one. cent, but
was to pay 10 per cent of its receipts to
the Egyptian government, and at the
expiration of ninety-nine years was to
become the absolute property of Egypt.
On such terms the concession was given
to De Lesseps in 1856.
Then De Lesseps went forth to get
the money. France had just come out
of the Crimean war and could not adj
vance money for ventures. England
was opposed to the canal that would
let anybody have a chance at India,
and the English government did every
thing possible to keep the Frenchman
from securing funds. He failed in Eu-
rope, for he could not get enough even
for a survey of the canal. Nothing
daunted, he went back to Egypt and
borrowed money enough from Said to
survey the canal and to exploit IL
through Europe. Then came much
planning and more concessions, and
much stock jobbing, but by 1850 the
French company was again without
money. Again the appeal was made TO
Said and not without avail for he sub
seribed for more than one-third or the
total capital stock and promised to adj
vance money for the construction work
and all for a project that was not to
cost Egypt anything. That was the
beginning of Egypts bondage to the
money lenders of Europe, for Said had
to borrow the money he gave to the
canal.
In 1863 the magnificently extravagant
Ismail Pasha came to the throne or
Mehemet Ali. He burned with ambi-
ton to make himself the greatest ruler
in the world, and the canal was
darling of his heart. He was the ready
and willing victim of the loan sharks OF
Europe, and he would sign anything In
the way of an obligation if there was
little yellow gold in sight.
Meanwhile the canal was progress
ing slowly. Ismail ordered the Egyp-
tian peasants to do the work, under
the ancient corvee system. Every three
months $4,000 drafted fellaheen went
to the big ditch to dig. Every three
months a miserable remnant of the
preceding $4,000 left the dead bodies of
their comrades beneath the dump heaps.
The Suez canal was dug, for the most
part, by those poor creatures who
scooped up the sand and dirt with
their bare hands and carried it up the
steep banks to the dumps in palm leaf
baskets of their own making. Task
masters with cruel whips of hippota-
mus hide punished the sick and the
fainting, as we'll as the lazy. There
were no sanitary precautions, and the
men died by the thousands.
This horrible condition of affairs
aroused the indignation of John Bull,
who protested to the sultan. The sui
tan ordered the employment of fella-
heen labor to be stopped. Then De Les
seps and the canal ring descended upon
'Ismail and held him responsible for
damages. The case was left to the
arbitration of Napoleon III, who decid-
ed for the canal ring, and Ismail was
forced to pay a fine of nearly ten mil
lion dollars because his titular SOW
ereign lord had ordered that Ismail's
subjects should not be murdered in the
canal ditch. Each month a new OBJ
legation was fastened upon suffering
Egypt. Finally, when the canal was
completed, Ismail gave a great fete
to celebrate its opening. Few festi-
walls have been so magnificent, none so
extravagant. The celebration cost
$21, 100000 Verdi wrote the opera
Aida" in order that Ismail might give
a box party one evening, and an opera
house was built especially for that pur-
pose.
But Ismail had signed too many notes
of hand. The day of reckoning came.
Ismail sold his canal shares to the
English government, and by their pur-
chase Benjamin Disraeli gave the
British empire dominion over the traf-
fic between the east and the west. 1t
was a bold stroke, and it brought to
an end the commercial aspirations OF
the French of the second empire. The
canal company still has it's chief offices
in Paris, it's clerks speak French, ana
its tolls are charged in francs; but
otherwise it is English.
Ismail was dethroned and died in ex-
lie, his magnificence forgotten. DeLes-
seps ventured on another canal project,
was plunged into disgrace and died
mental wreck. Egypt, which once levied
toll on all the commerce passing be-
tween orient and occident, now watches
the tradeships pass by. The digging
of the canal was the greatest blow ever
given to Egyptian commerce. But the
losses of Ismail and De Lesseps and
Egypt make up the gain of the civil
lied world.
Opened just forty years ago, its i'm
portance has increased with every year
and it's revenues are expanding each
month. 1t cost 500, 100000 half OF
which was spent in brib and excess
sive discounts. With modern machin-
cry, such as is being used at Panama,
it could have been built for one-fourth
as much. AS an engineering problem,
it is to the Panama canal as a boys
toy block house to forty story sky
scraper. How 1t will compare to Pana-
ma as an avenue of commerce is a
question to which Americans anxiously
await the answer.
Copyright, 1909 by Frederic ]. Haskin.)
TomOrrow-Twentieth Century Egypt.
XIII-His Highness, the Khedive.