Canal, or no canal: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The wrath of shipowners who’d mend their fortune, Or take upon us more Egyptian troubles, And by “investing” vex them? To spend; to spout; No more; and by a “vote” to say we’ll end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That greed is heir to. Is this a consummation Devoutly to be wished? To vote, to lend; Perchance to lose eight millions; there’s the rub; For in this loan of ours what loss may come Ere we would shuffle off responsibility, There’s time to pause: there’s the respect, That makes “annexing” fruitful of long strife; For who would bear the whips and scorns of foes, The oppressor’s wrong, the victor’s contumely, The pangs of despised race, their rights’ delay, The insolence of conquest, and the spurns, The patient fellah (fellow) of the unkindly takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bayonet? Should we burdens bear, To pay stockjobbers and their risks to share, But that the hope of something afterwards, The undiscovered but expected boon, The speculator’s rich return, pleases the will And makes us rash to dare this foreign venture, And buy up “shares” we have no warrant of. Thus Mammon does make victims of us all; And thus our native, honest resolution Is weakened e’er by greedy thought of gain, And enterprises of more pith and moment We disregard, their currents turn awry, And thus we lose the means of nobler action. F. BEAUMONT COTTIER. ――――――――