BRITAIN AND EGYPT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Snt,—Your article of March 10th under the above heading is, I consider, much below your usual standard of being well informed. The British Navy alone could no more keep the Suez Canal open in case of war than it could the Dar- danelles during the last War. Very well, yOu may say; then put the British Troops in Egypt (not Army of Occupationi please, this nomenclature was altered four or five years ago) in the Canal area. Just what we want, the Egyptian would say : we have got you right under our thumb. Why ?, If you travel through the Suez Canal you will notice on the African side a sluggish stream which you can almost jump across. The branches from Port Said and Suez of that stream join forces at Ismailia and proceed some hundred miles to Cairo under the name of the Fresh Water Canal, which is navigable for small sailing craft. So the Suez Canal situated in the arid Sinai Desert lives by,this umbilical cord connecting with Mother Nile at Cairo,. Cut that cord and within forty-eight hours some 170,000 residents in the Canal area will be dying of thirst or' migrating hurriedly.
The British Navy is, no doubt, an efficient policeman of the Egyptian coasts, but who can be trusted to See that the keepers of the Fresh Water. Canal locks do not forget to keep them open so that we can live ? As you say, the Suez Canal is vital to Imperial communications. You can alsO add that it is extremely vulnerable.—I am, Sir, &c., [We have written on this subject elsewhere, but we maintain that the British Navy must, in the last resort, be our chief defence of the Canal. We look forward to the time when international highways, sucli'as the Suez Canal, will be internationally guaranteed: We would welcome American co-operation in this mattet.—En'. Spectator.]
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