's history of the Tripartite
Treaty?'
'I do,' he answered. 'I do not think that at the time when it was made we
liked it. It suited you, who wish to preserve the _statu quo_ in Europe,
which keeps us your inferiors, or, at least, not your superiors. _You_
have nothing to gain by a change. We have. The _statu quo_ does not suit
us. The Tripartite Treaty is a sort of chain--not a heavy one, or a
strong one--but one which we should not have put on if we could have
avoided it.'
'Do you agree,' I asked Tocqueville, 'with Lafosse, Cousin, and H. as to
the effect in Paris of our opposition to the Suez Canal?'
'I agree,' he answered, 'in every word that they have said. There is
nothing that has done you so much mischief in France, and indeed in
Europe.
'I am no engineer; I should be sorry to pronounce a decided opinion as to
the feasibility or the utility of the canal; but your opposition makes us
believe that it is practicable.'
'Those among us,' I answered, 'who fear it, sometimes found their fear on
grounds unconnected with its practicability. They say that it is a
political, not a commercial, scheme. That the object is to give to French
engineers and French shareholders a strip of land separating Egypt from
Syria, and increasing the French interest in Egypt.
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