68 Egypt
politics into very concrete considerations of strategic and
commercial problems profoundly affecting British sea-
power and British supremacy in India. Until then the
British had been content to keep the French from
dominating Cairo, as they had kept the Russians from
dominating in Constantinople. But thereafter it became
of vital interest to them to control Cairo to the exclusion
of other Powers. It was, indeed, some time before this
new imperialist point of view penetrated our policy to-
wards Egypt. And so far from there being any evidence
of a preconceived plan to encourage or exploit the
financial difficulties of Egypt so as to get control of the
Canal, there is ample proof that British Governments of
both parties were, at this time, averse from assuming any
responsibilities in Egypt. For example, the refusal of
H.M.G, to respond to the Tzar's offer of Egypt and
Crete in the famous '' sick man '} conversation with
Seymour (February 21, 1853). But the mood of public
opinion that looked on colonies as an encumbrance and
on armaments as Antichrist did not last long. Disraeli,
with his flair for the way the cat was going to jump,
only slightly anticipated and accelerated another epoch
of empire-building; and to the structure of the Victorian
Empire Egypt was thereafter indispensable.
The construction of the Suez Canal was, no doubt,
inevitable, but by an adherence to the policy of Mehemet
Ali it might have been postponed until Egypt had been
so established as a State that the foreign and financial
liabilities of the enterprise were no longer so dangerous
to its independence. The British at this period did not
want a canal, preferring, for strategic reasons, the
slower but surer Cape route. And the overland route met
sufficiently their demand for a rapid postal service to the
East* As for the French, their interest in the scheme was