A WELCOME SUGGESTION.

Northern Advocate, 18 February 1926, Page 2

A WELCOME SUGGESTION.

j There was little time to lose. The I Khedive, who made no division between his Privy Purse and the Egypt(ian Treasury, had to meet the coupon on the Egyptian Debt on December 1, or follow his august suzerain, Sultan Abdul Hamid, Into bankruptcy, and, apart from his Canal holdings, he had no readily realisable assets; but, fortunately, the rival groups of French financiers were doing their best to prevent each other from raising the necessary cash. Accordingly, on November 16, General Stanton, the British Agent in Cairo, was instructed to inform tho Khedive that the British Government could not view with indifference the transfer of so important an interest as his in the Suez Canal and to request His Highness to suspend negotiations with the financiers in order to give it an opportunity of making proposals. General Stanton reported that the Khedive welcomed the suggestion, and at the meeting of the Cabinet on November 17 the purchase of the shares was approved in principle. The Prime Minister immediately communicated his advice in this sense to the Queen, and on November 18 received a telegram from Her Majesty approving of the policy.

BRISK NEGOTIATION. The .story goes that as soon as the Cabinet had arrived at its decision the Birime Minister opened the door and said “Yes” to his private secretary, Mr Corry (afterwards Lord Rowton), who immediately started- for New I Court to ask Baron Lionel de Rothschild for £4,000,000 “tomorrow,” and that the banker, meditatively eating a grape, asked, “What security ” “Thfe British Government.” “You shall have it. ’ ’ Mr Buckle, in his biography of Disraeli, repeats the picturesque details, but does not % vouch for their scrupulous accuracy. Nevertheless, the money was forthcoming, the negotiations wel-e successful, in spite of what the Prime Minister called “all the gainblcrs, capitalists, financiers 'of the world organised and platooned in bands of plunderers, arrayed against us, and secret emissaries in every corner,” a7id the whole affair was kept so secret that when the fait accompli was announced on the morning of November 26, the Press and the public were alike taken, by surprise.

FINANCIAL SOUNDNESS. The acquisition of so important a holding in the Suez Canal Company by the British Government met with a mixed reception both at Home and abroad, but whatever doubts may have been expressed as to the financial soundness of the move have long been laid to rest, and the market value of the shares, which cost the Treasury about £23 4s each, is now £10r! Bs, vhile in 1924 the Government received r tax-free dividend and bonus of £3 LOs on each the 316,668 ordinary ,£10) shares into which its original nirchase has been divided, and in 1923 v bonus of £5 8s on each of the 87,136 shares formerly held which have since men redeemed and now rank only as ictions de jouissanoe. Of the political jonsequences of Mr. Disraeli’s purchase of the shares it is difficult to estimate the full extent, but it has been said, not without reasons in view of the financial history of the Suez Canal Company in its relations with- the Egyptian Government, that the only benefit Egypt has ever repeated from the construction of the Canal, which cost so" many Egyptian lives and so much Egyptian money, was due to the reforms introduced during the British occupation, to-wards which Mr. Disraeli made the first step 50 years a go.