GREAT CANAL BUILDER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22356, 29 February 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

GREAT CANAL BUILDER

TRAGEDY OF DE LESSEPS REMARKABLE LIFE RECALLED DREAMER WHO PLANNED SUEZ The Suez Canal! To-day, this great aisle of water between the Mediterranean and Red Sea carries a tragio traffic, writes Mr. Alfred Dunning in the Yorkshire Weekly Post. The armada which it bore 66 years ago, on the day of its opening, was one of rejoicing. Yet even then, tragedy followed- in the Wake of the 40 vessels which made up that international fleet, and although many years were to pass before it struck, the victim was already marked down, in the canal-builder himself, Ferdinand do Lesseps. The rise and terrible fall of this celebrated figure of the 19th cuntury is one of the great "human" jtoriea of modern times. Ferdinand de I<esseps was born at Versailles in November, 1805, the year of Trafalgar. But it waa not until he was 50 that he stepped into the limelight. Until then he had devoted himself to the important but hardly world-shaking duties of a French diplomat, in a service to which hia family had long been attached. It was in this career, however, that he became interested in the project which was to make his name historic. During his service in Egypt ho read of the many previous unsuccessful attempts to cut a ship canal acrossi Sues:* His reading fired him with a desire to succeed, but at that time the Viceroj', ruling for the Sultan of Turkey, waa strongly opposed to any such operations, which he regarded as foredoomed to fail. Diet of Dreamß

So de Lesseps was forced to ft;ed hia zeal on an unsubstantial diet of dreams. . . . His great chance came, when, having retired to a farm near Pans, hia rural peace was shattered by the news of the Viceroy's death and—which waa much more important to him—'bhe" accession of a former friend and pupil, Mahomet Said. He, as de Lesseps knew, was much more sympathetic to the canal project.

So it was not long before de jLesseps was back again in Egypt, where he quickly pocketed a concession from Said and exchanged his ploughshare for a theodolite. The survey of the canal zone began, and de Lesseps' dreams crystallised into reality Year followed year. The work to be done was encrmoun. There were towns to build—starting with Port Said, named after the Via> roy. There was-a second canal to construct, from the Nile to the isthmuu, bringing fresh water for the thousands of labourers. There was the organisation of a hundred incidental but vital tasks, such as the distribution of food s;nd the care of the sick.

And all the time there was a gnawing opposition by England, whose government saw menace in the schema# Here, it was argued, was a direct line of possible attack on India. Here was a challenge to our maritime supremacy —a dislocation of our well-established shipping plans. But the work went oil, and de Lesseps never faltered. By good luck, or superlative skill in his choice of surveyors, or perhaps by both, with a spicing of that watchful Proiddence which seems to favour many who "think big." ho had few mishaps. The desert was black with toiling figures. Excavating machines—monsters for those daya —tore and gashed the sand which hai so long defied attack. Thirst iras conquered. Many Honours

And so the road crept along near<sr and nearer its goal, until the day cane when, to the booming, of cannons, the first vessel entered the canal aii Port Said, with the Empress Eugenie on board, and led a maritime procession! to the Red Sea. The canal was made—i and so, in another sense, was its creator!

Honours poured upon him. France bestowed the Cordon of the Legion of Honour, and, later, elected him an Immortal of the Academy—its highest mark of appreciation. Britain, which had scoffed, repented and enrolled him as a Freeman of London —after which, thanks to the astute Disraeli, we acquired a financial interest in the canal which is of incalculable value to-day. T -- For ten years de Lesseps lived a happy but uneventful life. If only the goddess of fortune had smiled on him as she did in Egypt! But this time the figure of Tragedy' loomed out of the cauldron and pointed to the. west. Panama! There is something unspeakably pathetic yet awe-inspiring in the pio« ture of Ferdinand de Lesseps setting out to link the Atlantic and the Paciiio —a man who had already passed his three score and ten, and had rendered the world one of the greatest servioM a man could render. Great DiQculties Unfortunately, lesser men associated with him saw matters from less worthy heights. And so once again the excav:v> tors began to tear the earth, and there were wonderings in shipping offices and on navigating bridges at sea. Buti Panama reared her head. She was largely untamed jungle, and resolved to remain so. The rainfall was ippalJing. It was 14 times that of Egypt during the wet season. There were swamps which bred mosquitoes—and it was mot known then that mosquitoes mesin malaria. So there were deaths. . . . But the toll of human life was not the only obstacle to de Lesseps* enterprise. There were earthquakes and rebellions and —the thing which finally sent the whole undertaking crashing into ruin—those lesser-minded colleagues of de Lesseps who regarded the vast sums subscribed as open cheques to be squandered on their own luxuries. While the Panama directors "fiddled" De Lesseps, left in his burning Rome —Paris —had to face the music. An attempt to float a further loan failed, and the company collapsed. De Lesseps himself stood by it nobly to the last, not only urging others to subscribe, but, still confident of success in face of disloyal colleagues, flinging into the enterprise every fnvnc he possessed, including his shares in the Suez. It was of no avail, however, and with the failure came the beginning of the end for the Grand Old Man of France A Pitiful End There is no space here to recount thJ tedious and painful inquiries which fa" lowed on the ruin of the Inter-OceanO Canal Company. The Government J* France took the matter up and after long investigations arraigned several of the directors on charges of embezJJ 0 - ment. De Lesseps was one of the io* fendants—though no one believed i' tU guilty of more than unfounded optimism, over-confidence and a reel's® disregard for. the difficulties of the undertaking. But he was spared the stress of the trial. Months before, hearing thai tl)0 e.vaminging magistrate wished to see him, he had risen from & sick bed, dressed —with the Grand Cordon of Legion of Honour to indicate his stillburning pride—and gone Jout unattended What happened ai the interview was never revealed. sßut 3 n " I 8 return he sank into a st&te of comß and exhaustion, from which be never rallied. . , , The canal was later complete® 7 Americans.