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as the lack of logic behind the nationalisation of the company and financing through

its revenue the Aswan High Dam in his address to the House of Commons,

How can he [Nasser] at one and the same time both keep the Canal
going, spend the necessary money on the repairs, extensions and re-
construction, pay the compensation or service the compensation loan
to the shareholders, and also find money for the Aswan Dam? 747

When emotions run high in the Middle East, logic seemed take a back seat.

Additionally to that argument, the Suez Canal Company’s contract was due to expire

in 1968, 748 and Egypt would then obtain full control of the company without risking

possible Western retaliation. Nasser eventually sought Soviet loans for the

construction of the dam, as he had failed to use the revenue from the Canal’s

company to finance the project. 749

To Britain the Suez Canal Company and the control of the passage of ships

through the canal was vital for the maintenance of the Empire. It was feared that

with Nasser’s control of the Canal the freedom of passage through it would be

jeopardised in defiance of the treaty signed in Constantinople in 1888. 750 The Suez

Canal was Britain’s ‘jugular vein’, 751 and as Clark noted ‘Nasser could not be allowed,

in Eden’s phrase, “to have his hand on our windpipe”’. 752 The Prime Minister feared

(as he explained to Eisenhower) that if Nasser got away with it, his stock would rise

throughout the Arab World enticing other military juntas to overthrow their

governments. Such new governments would, Eden explained:

747 HC Deb 02 August 1956, vol. 557, cc1602-43, (1611-12).
748 Eveland, Ropes of Sand, 205.
749 T. Little, High Dam at Aswan, 57.
750 Nutting, No End of a Lesson, 173.
751 M. Bromberger and S. Bromberger, Secrets of Suez, 14.
752 Clark, From Three Worlds, 166.

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