Page:Panama-past-present-Bishop.djvu/136

 116 castle at the seashore. A company was formed in France, the Khedive of Egypt took a majority of the stock, and forced thousands of his subjects to work as laborers for virtually nothing. The Suez Canal was completed in ten years, at a cost of a million dollars a mile, and ever since its opening in 1869 it has paid its owners handsome profits. But the bankrupt successor of the Khedive sold his stock to the British government, which has a very great interest in Suez because its ships must pass through there on the way to India, and to-day the English are the real rulers both of Egypt and the Suez Canal.

De Lesseps first appeared in connection with Panama as chairman of the International Canal Congress held in Paris in May, 1879. The experienced naval officers and trained engineers who were invited from many different countries, found themselves in a helpless minority. Their advice was not asked, and their presence had been sought merely to lend dignity and a show of authority to M. de Lesseps's decision, already made, to build a sea-level canal across the Isthmus of Panama according to the plans of Lieutenant Wyse. The chairman allowed no discussion of the advantages either of a lock canal at Panama, or of any kind of a canal at Nicaragua, but forced the adoption of the type and route he favored, by the vote of a small majority of French admirers, very few of whom were practical engineers. Then, adjourning his dummy congress, de Lesseps came forward as head of the French Canal Company, which had already paid Lieutenant Wyse $2,000,000 for his worthless surveys and valuable concessions. Finally, after everything