[152] The following table shows the principal distances and the saving by the canal:— ───────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬─────────────────────── │ │ │ Saving by Canal. │ │ ├───────────┬────────── Ports. │ By Cape. │ By Canal. │ │ Per Cent. │ │ │ Amount. │ of Voyage │ │ │ │ (Cape.) ───────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────── │ nautical │ nautical │ nautical │ │ miles. │ miles. │ miles. │ │ │ │ │ Bombay │ 10,667 │ 6,274 │ 4,393 │ 41·2 Madras │ 11,280 │ 7,313 │ 3,967 │ 35·2 Calcutta │ 11,900 │ 8,083 │ 3,817 │ 32·1 Singapore │ │ │ │ (_viâ_ Straits│ │ │ │ of Sunda) │ 11,740 │ 8,362 │ 3,378 │ 28·8 Hong Kong │ 13,180 │ 9,799 │ 3,381 │ 25·6 Shanghai │ 14,050 │ 10,669 │ 3,381 │ 24·1 Adelaide │ 11,780 │ 11,100 │ 680 │ 5·8 Melbourne │ 12,140 │ 11,585 │ 555 │ 4·6 Sydney │ 12,690 │ 12,145 │ 545 │ 4·3 Wellington, │ │ │ │ New Zealand │ 13,610 │ 13,055 │ 555 │ 4·1 ───────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴────────── [153] This amount was made up as follows:— £ Construction of canal 11,653,218 Transit, estate, and other services 533,552 Management charges (11 years) 567,296 Interest on shares (11 years) 2,673,864 Interest and repayment of debentures 585,118 Banking charges, stamps, loss in bonds, &c. 618,905 ─────────── £16,631,953 ═══════════ [154] “The Statistical Story of the Suez Canal,” in the ‘Journal’ of the Royal Statistical Society for 1887. [155] ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January 1856, p. 245. [156] It was assumed that the canal could not take vessels like the _Himalaya_ and the _Persia_, or indeed any vessel over 350 feet in length. [157] The preference of Stephenson for a railway is not difficult to understand. He had “won his spurs” in railroad construction, and was familiar with every phase of their working and capabilities, but he had had comparatively little knowledge experimentally of canals. He was, indeed, the apostle of the new era—the railway against the canal.