DEFENCE OF SUEZ CANAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 12

DEFENCE OF SUEZ CANAL

One of Egypt's obligations under the treaty with Britain is to construct barracks for British troops in the zone of the Suez Canal. Evidently the undertaking includes the provision of underground storage for fuel and ammunition and the construction of a huge aerodrome, these works being included in the preliminary estimate of £12,000,000. Other costs to Egypt will go into strategic roads between the canal and Alexandria and Cairo, and the improvement of the canal railway system, but there will be a contra from Britain in respect of canal barrack accommodation already in existence, and of some barracks built in Cairo before the war. The site selected for the canal establishment is in the cultivated area on the shores of the Great Bitter Lake some 80 miles from Cairo and 150 miles from Alexandria. The reason for the maintenance of the Canal force is twofold: there is the obligation to protect Egypt and the need to safeguard the waterway that is an essential means of communication between different parts of the British Empire. In time of peace, when no emergency exists, this force is to be limited to 10,000 soldiers and 400 Royal Air Force pilots with the necessary ancillary personnel. In time of war, menace of war, or apprehending international emergency, the British Government is at liberty to increase these numbers. All defensive measures will be taken in collaboration with tho Egyptian Government, to whom the responsibility will be handed when its forces are capable of undertaking the task. But that day is far distant. Certainly it will never come so long as there is the slightest risk of aggression. That menace was seen not long ago. The extensive preparations for the defence of- the canal speak the only language which certain countries can at present understand, and they are another proof of the determination of Britain and her Egyptian ally to see to their own safety.