leges, and some other changes opposed to the principle of mixed education; but whatever may be the attitude of the Roman Catholic body, clerical or lay, or however the hierarchy may have been encouraged by the vague hints of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, it will be well for the Government to be warned that a retrograde policy with regard to this question will bring with it nothing less than vexation and disaster. The Premier's power would be "shivered like glass," and his majority in England and Scotland would melt away in a twelvemonth. Two things are incumbent on the State in view of such demands-no longer to exclude Roman Catholics from any national institution, and not to forward or in any way countenance any national institution from which Protestants are to be excluded. Justice to all parties must henceforth be our legislative watchword, and those who demand more must be resisted as firmly as those who have insisted on giving less.

In concluding this discussion upon the spirit and designs of Ultramontanism, we cannot but remark that its theory allows no place whatever to the laity, except that of the most unquestioning obedience and subjection. The laity of Ireland have certainly been hitherto no check upon Ultramontane aspirations, and even the old Anglican spirit of this country, which once waged such memorable war against Papal jurisdiction, has sunk into almost Celtic submission. We have often lamented the utter prostration of the lay element in Ireland, for that alone can bridle the clergy, the want of moral courage on the part of the Catholic gentry and the professional classes, in all their relations towards their religious teachers. There are, no doubt, hundreds of this class, independent and tolerant in their views, who will deprecate in the private intercourse of life the exclusive policy and irrational bigotry of their clergy, but they will not dare to come out boldly before the world to stigmatise and condemn them. It is a significant fact, for example, that not a single Catholic voice, with the exception of that of Sergeant Murphy, who was exposed in consequence to the virulent abuse of Romish journals, was raised against the persecution of the Madiai in Tuscany and the converts in Spain, while a general burst of indignation arose through the whole of Protestant Europe at the persecution of Catholics in Sweden. We do not, of course, forget that two Catholic graduates of Trinity College, in urging resistance to the Ultramontane demands, and expressing their opposition to the endowment of any sectarian institution, have explained that they could not

66

safely interfere at an earlier stage without prejudicing the success of the Irish Church Bill, but now they tell us to reckon on the active support of the vast majority of the lay Roman Catholics of Ireland." We should certainly be very glad to welcome such allies in the approaching struggle, even for their own sake, as we feel that it is not reasonable to give the hierarchy the means of forcing their opinions upon a reluctant laity; and we shall look forward with a pleasureable anticipation to the formation of a great lay organisation, including the Catholic lawyers, solicitors, physicians, landlords, and magistrates of the country-if we cannot count upon the masses to demand that the Government shall not accept Ultramontanism as the principle of State dealing with education in Ireland. Above all things, the State must take care that nothing be done to impair the liberal tone and completeness of the higher instruction, and consequently of the institutions by which it is communicated; for our general civilisation, of which popular improvement is only one of many consequences, is dependent upon them in a great degree not only for its progress, but for its permanence.

We can understand something of the exigencies of statesmanship. We can imagine a weak government, existing upon sufferance, purchasing casual support by unworthy concessions, and temporising with plans and doctrines which in better days would be scouted ignominiously and without a hearing. But the present Government are strong in the confidence of the nation; they have no temptation to float hither and thither over the sea of legislation, blown about by every wind of doctrine; and they will seal their own ruin if they dare to hand over a whole nation to a body of ecclesiastics, whose hearts are in the past, who dread the march of mind, who abhor all mental liberty, and the whole spirit of whose policy is avowedly and systematically reactionary. Englishmen must see that this irremediable wrong shall not be done to their Irish fellow-subjects, and they must not shut their eyes to its magnitude; for a nation may gather strength even from religious dissensions, as they stir the faculties and train men to think shrewdly in their temporal affairs; it may develop its greatness amidst bloody and expensive wars, but the despotism of priests enters the soul of a nation, puts out the eyes of its victim, and blinds it even to the very consciousness of its misery.

Egypt and the Suez Canal.

441

ART. VII.-1. Le Fellah: Souvenirs d'Egypte. Par Edmond About. Hachette, 1869.

2. Egypte et Turquie. Par F. de Lesseps. Plon, 1869. 3. Histoire de l'Isthme de Suez. Par Olivier Ritt. Hachette, 1869.

4. Inauguration du Canal de Suez. Par H. Bernard et E. Tissot. Maisonneuve et Cie, 1869.

5. L'isthme de Suez (1854 à 1869), avec carte. Par H. Silvestre. Libr. Internationale, 1869.

6. Wyld's Map of the Canal and Isthmus. London, 1869. UNDOUBTEDLY the Suez Canal is the most important engineering work of our times. Begun amidst much discouragement, it has been carried on with immense perseverance through great material difficulties. In size it matches well with the works of old Egypt; in boldness of conception it may take its place among the triumphs of modern days. It would be useless as well as invidious to try to assess the relative difficulty of this as compared with the Panama Railway, for instance, or that which crosses the centre of the North American continent; but we may safely say that there has seldom been a work which depended so wholly for its execution on the energy and versatile power of a single man.

Of course the occasion has produced a literature of its own, and, in the multitude of books, it is hard to know what to recommend. The French books certainly have the advantage, for among English writers there is generally the embarrassing feeling that M. de Lesseps has been badly treated in our newspapers; we feel that he has succeeded, and yet some of us are even now too intent on justifying their past strictures by proving that his success is incomplete. The books which we have named will give a very good idea, not only of the canal, its history and its working, but of the condition of Egypt, and of the bearing which the canal is likely to have on its condition. We specially recommend M. About's Fellah-a story full of fun and incident, yet giving, in that peculiar way which is M. About's forte, the truest picture we ever saw of Egyptian society and the best summary of Egyptian prospects. Of the story we will not attempt an analysis; the dénouement is a marriage between a model fellah who has won for himself a high position, and

a young English lady endowed with all possible virtues except consideration for "natives." This she is taught in a very amusing way; and the "fellah" is of course an admirable guide to M. About and his friends through strata of Egyptian society which escape the notice of the ordinary traveller. Of the canal itself, the itinéraire, or the longer work of M. Ritt, give an intelligible history; and a map like Mr. Wyld's enables the reader to follow "our own correspondent" along the tract which the French Empress and the Emperor of Austria have so lately "inaugurated." If what Ismail Pasha has constantly asserted is true, the idea of this particular canal is Egyptian, and not due to the energetic and persevering man to whom belongs the glory of having accomplished it. Of course canals of some sort have been thought of since Egypt was a kingdom: the First Napoleon mooted a plan very like that actually carried out; he did more, he had the ground surveyed; but the report given in to him, that there was a difference of thirty feet between the level of the two seas, was erroneous, though it was adopted by Lord Palmerston in his confident prophecy that "the thing oughtn't to succeed and couldn't succeed." Ever since the overland route was planned, a canal was, naturally enough, talked about in connection with it. In 1845 Stephenson declared in favour of the roundabout way up the Nile and then across, much the same line as that taken by the old canal of Pharaoh Necho, or by M. de Lesseps' fresh water canal which follows the same direction. But, even then, the enlightened Linantbey and others drew up a plan for a direct canal and laid it before Mehemet Ali. Possibly the difficulties connected with the opening of the Mahmoudieh, when his ship stuck fast, with the British envoy on board, and had to be pushed along by a little army of soldiers, may have deterred Mehemet from the project. Anyhow it was put aside till October, 1854, when M. de Lesseps broached the subject to Saïd Pasha as they were going across the Libyan desert. Leave was granted for the formation of a company, and at the end of the year Linant and Mougel beys made a new survey, and gave a favourable report. Then began the heart-breaking work. M. de Lesseps had to make his plans known, and to try to persuade the share-buying public to put faith in him. In England, as we all know, he had very poor success. A jaunty minister, always ready to make war on China in order to enforce an illegal and abominable traffic, set his face against the plan: it was started by a Frenchman, and it would make Egypt a French province, and, if it succeeded, would

Lord Palmerston's Incredulity.

443 turn the Red Sea into a French ditch. But there was never any intention of its succeeding, or of any serious work being done along the line so pompously planned out; the whole thing was a sham, got up by collusion between a reckless engineer and an encroaching government. That was Lord Palmerston's view-repeated ad nauseam by the Times, moralised on by the Saturday Review, and supported by the weight of Stephenson's technical knowledge. In France, a Frenchman's design was better received; but, after all, the weight of the business fell on Egypt. The Viceroy took (at the suggestion of France) a full third of the shares, besides making a present of the land, and engaging to find labourers. Then came the diplomatic difficulties: great interest was made with the Sultan, to prevent him from giving his consent as suzerain. The " Compagnie Universelle" was not fairly started till 1859, and on the 24th April, in that year, M. de Lesseps took pickaxe in hand, and solemnly set the work going. "Impudent charlatan!" cried the unbelievers, "he only wants to make a new call on his shareholders;" but though the Egyptian contingent did not come up, the great French contractor, Alphonse Hardon, brought a host of experienced navvies, and diggings were at once begun along at several points of the line. The fresh-water canal was, of course, essential to anything like work on a large scale; this was, therefore, first completed across from the Nile to Lake Timseh, which lies about midway between Suez and Port Saïd. Meanwhile, preparations had been making for carrying through a shallow temporary communication between Lake Timseh and the Mediterranean; and, while this was being done, the fresh water canal was pushed up, parallel with this temporary water-way, to Port Saïd. It was, moreover, carried down in the other direction as far as Suez, where it was much wanted, not only to ensure a plentiful water-supply (our transports were supplied from it during the Abyssinian war), but also to bring up stone from the quarries of Djebel Geneffe. All this was not the work of M. Hardon's men alone; in 1861, Saïd Pasha's promised labourers came up, and the same thing began which Egypt had been in the days when the pyramids were built, and often since-forced free-labour, a system more offensive, in some respects, than slavery, the existence of which has done more than anything else to keep Egypt back, for who will embark his capital in a country where the sovereign can, at a moment's notice call the husbandmen off the land, and send them to work for him, several hundred miles off? A great outcry was raised against the Pasha for furnishing men to work