Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/457

 occur at intervals of 6 or 8 miles along the route. The original projectors had anticipated a yearly traffic of six million tons; but provision must now be made for a double and even fourfold movement at no distant date. It is proposed to treble the width of the present channel, so that steamers may pass each other without slacking speed, and also to prevent the whole traffic from being blocked by the grounding of a single vessel, as so frequently happens at present.

England, which formerly opposed the opening of the canal, is the very power now most urgent in calling for its enlargement. But the results afford a ready explanation of this change of attitude. The canal has in fact become an almost exclusively British highway, and an eighth part of the whole trade of Great Britain, representing a value of over £80,000,000, passes through the Isthmus of

Suez. The British Government has also become one of the chief shareholders, and since the occupation of Egypt it practically controls this route, which it may open or close at pleasure, as was seen before the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, when all traffic was for a short time suspended, in spite of the conventions guaranteeing the neutrality of the passage between the two seas, Thus Great Britain, which feared lest the marine route to India might fall into the hands of her rivals, has succeeded in securing its possession at least for the present. At the same time, according to the terms of the international convention concluded in 1885, the canal is henceforth declared an open highway under the joint guarantee of the European powers. It is thus absolutely free to the ships of all nations, and in time of war even to those of belligerents; which, however, cannot remain in the canal for a