Tall Tolls

The 100-mile, 60-yard-wide, sea-level Suez Canal is managed by an Egyptian company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez). Its neutrality, even in war, is technically guaranteed by an international agreement. But since Britain's life line is drawn out hair-thin as it threads this needle's eye, 10,000 British troops, 400 British airmen guard it. Since most of the stockholders are French, 19 of the 32 directors are Frenchmen (ten are British, two Egyptian, one Dutch). Italians have long clamored for lower Canal tolls and representation on the Board of Directors, chiefly because Italy spends big money on Suez tolls to maintain communication with Italian East Africa. Lately Italy has been trying to lend weight to its demands with the somewhat irrelevant assertion that not only Ferdinand de Lesseps, but three obscure Italian engineers planned and dug the ditch. Their names: Negrelli, Torelli and Paleocapa.

To Suez directors gathered for their annual meeting in Paris last week, President of the Board, smooth, aristocratic Marquis de Voguee,* paid his respects to the sentimental Italian claims just long enough to deny them: Italian claims are based either on "bad faith" or "extreme ignorance." Of the three alleged Italian builders of Suez he said: 1) Negrelli was not an Italian but an Austrian. He never worked on the Canal. The reason: a year before Canal digging started, Negrelli died. 2) Paleocapa refused a job at Suez. The reason: he had gone blind. 3) Torelli did not become interested in Suez until the Canal was almost finished. Flatly the Suez directors turned Italy down.

Italy's annual tonnage through Suez (16.07% m 1937) is second only to Britain's 47.28%. Though 13 reductions in rates have been made since the World War, Italians still find Canal tolls ($1.38 per ton loaded, 71-c- in ballast) excessive. In addition, there is a charge of $1.38 for every adult passenger, 71-c- for every child between 3 and 12 years, using the Canal. Canadian Pacific's Empress of Britain has paid as high as $50,000 one way. Ships in ballast find it cheaper to return to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope. Worried Englishmen, who see the bulk of Canal tolls going into French pockets, while cutting down British profits of the Asiatic and East African trade, suggest tolls based not on tonnage but on draught, abolition of the tax on passengers, 50% rebate for ships in ballast. But they are not worried enough to sponsor the Italian demands for an international commission to run the Canal. They want no Axial partner sitting over the life line, even in a director's chair.

* Regent of the Bank of France until Leon Blum ousted the "200 families."

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