The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-04-18
Suez Is Still "Open" To Axis Vessels
 If They Don't Mind Those British WarShipS!
By NEA Service

By NEA Service
 New York, April ls.-Picture the Panama Canal in enemy hands and you'll have a pretty good idea of what 1t would mean to Britain if the German drive on the Suez Canal should succeed.
 In both cases an alternate sea route, thousands of miles longer, is available to freighters and war ships. But speed is success in blitz- krieg warfare. And the Suez Canal cuts almost 5000 miles of precious time for supply-laden fregihters hurrying from Britain's arsenals in hte East to their besieged mother country.
 Small wonder tha tthis 100-mile ribbon of blue, only lo7 feet from desert bank to desert bank at Its narrowest point and but 37 feet to Its shallowest bottom, has so often been called Britain's "lifeline" of empire.
 Tn the light of present-day de- velopments, it seems hard to believe that when, in the middle l850's, the great French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseups tried to interest British capital in a canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, Britain not only bought no stock but tried to discourage the whole proj- ect.
 De Lesseps had obtained per- mission from the Egyptian govern- ment to form @ private company (Comparie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) to build canal in 1854. It was to be built withuot cost to Egypt and to become Egyp- tian property after 99 years. (Un- less some new agreement is arrived at, the canal will revert to Egypt in 1968.)
 Actual construction on the Suez Canal was begun on April 25, 1859. It took ten long years and $80,000,- 900 (Panama Canals cost: 5375,- 00OO00) before, in November, 1869, the French Empress, on her yacht, L'Aigle, led a flag-bedecked fleet of 68 ships through the long, narrow waterway that was to become the worlds busiest maritime canal. (Panama has sometimes run Suez a. very close second.)
 It was not until six years later that the British government, in the person of the legendary, farsighted Dirael, obtained an interest in the Suez Canal Company. Tn that year Britain's prime minister, knowing that the Khedive of Egypt was in need of cash, paid 10000, 900 for the Khedives 176602 shares of canal stock-44 per cent of the total stock.
 Since that time, although France has 19 of the company's 32 directors to Britain's ten (two are Egyptian, one Dutch), the Suez Canal has been primarily & British ditch. In 1888, 6-l71 ships, 3020 of them fly ing the union jack, carried over 50,- 100000 gross tons between Port Said and Port Tewflk. They brought Br1tain's petroleum imports); tin and rubber from Mahya; jute, VILdiSdlepSb GASSb VSu "AaA S~VV~AA from India.
 By the Suez Canala Convention of 1888, the waterway was "always to be free and open in time of war as in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war ."
 AS in the days of the first World War, Suez is open in theory today. But the presence of powerful Brit ish naval squadrons at either end effectively discourages Axis shipping from taking advantage of the terms of the Canal Convention. Since the fall of France, the British have talk en over the collection of all canal tolls and have sent the money to London for distribution after the war.