THE MAKER OF CANALS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 10, 6 October 1937, Page 1

THE MAKER OF CANALS.

MAN AYHO CUT THE AYORLD IN HALF. Across the bronze eyes of the immense and lovely statue of De Lesseps on the Port Said mole pass all those ships which use the canal he cut across the Suez Isthmus, says a writer in the “Daily Express.” It was opened sixty-seven years ago, two days before its creator’s birthday. . , The ancient Egyptians had attempted to join the Red Sea to the Mediterranean; and between the years of their abortive efforts and the success of De Lesseps, countless other men had dreamed that same dream. Napoleon Bonaparte was not the least of them. But in the end it was left to a discredited diplomat to marshal all his forces and to inspire with the substantial possibilities of his idea those who owned the land he wished to cut and whose purses were long enough to make the work possible. For at the time when he first came within the sight of success De Lesseps was nothing more than a discredited diplomat. He lived in an age when diplomatic position was more a matter of political jobbery