THE NEMESIS OF DENSHAWAI

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 45, 22 February 1910, Page 4

THE NEMESIS OF DENSHAWAI

The murder of the Egyptian Premier by a Nationalist fanatic shows only too plainly that the seditious agitation started by Mustapha Kamel years ago is still seething below the surface of everyday life in Egypt. But the mention of Denshawai in our cable message revives memories of a deplorable incident which to the Oriental mind no doubt affords full justification for practically any crime the Nationalists choose to commit in their crusade against English authority. When the Denshawai affair wa 3 first reported, it appeared that several British officers, while out shooting, had been 6ct upon and severely injured, and one had been "killed, by a number of Egyptian fellahin. and =. the severe punishment exacted I seemed .on this statement of the case necessary to uphold the dignity of the British flag. But subsequent disclosures have put a very different complexion on the whole story, and in fact, a petition, signed by a large number of British politicians, churchmen and literary men, has been presented to the PoreJgn Office, praying for the remission of all the sentences imposed by the court which tried the Denshawai villagers.

-leaders of that eloquent pamphlet "Atrocities of British Rule in Egypt" are no doubt already satisfied that a shameful miscarriage of justice took place at Denshawai. However, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt is by no means an impartial critic of British rule, and the champion of Arabi Pasha tons not grown less vindictive against his fellow countrymen during the last twenty-five years. But stripped of rhetorical ornaments the facts appear to run as follows: Denshawai is an Egyptian village .where the people keep largo numbers of pigeons, much as our own settlers keep fowls. A party of British officers went out to shoot the pigeons for sport, and tho villagers, who toad already remonstrated against -this destruction of their property without getting redress, proceeded to interfere. They seized the gun of one of the officers; it exploded and wounded tho wife of one of the villagers.. The man exas.pgttj.t<._., calledi upon his f.rismdis far v«.ti» geaaco. and to soldiers were attacked,

with sticks and stones. They foolishly tried to bribe the crowd to let them off, and the villagers, like all Orientals, ■were encouraged to f_rt_.er violence. Two of the officers at last ran for their lives, and one smitten with sunstroke, died after reaching the next village. The other three were rescued from the mob by t_e elders and watchmen of the village, but tbey hod sustained one or two fractures and other injuries in the scuffle. Then a patrol arrived, and carried them off to camp; and tho villagers were tried without a jury before a military court for a murderous assault upon British soldiers. To expiate their I offence, four men were hanged, two got ' penal servitude for life, three got imprisonment for twelve months with hard j labour and fifty lashes, and five more got fifty lashes. The severity of the sentence was strongly commented upon j in the House of Commons; but in the Upper House Lord Cromer defended the , action of the court as " just and neces- 1 sary." However, it was certainly not understood at the time in England that these officers were destroying the villag- 1 ers' private • property -without their permission, and in spite of a direct prohibition is.sued by their own commander; nor was it -realised that the officer who died was killed, not by the villagers, but by the heat of the Egyptian sun. Re- 1 membering that one of the village women was shot, and apparently killed by the discharge of an officer's gun, and that tho injuries suffered by the survivors were in no case serious, we may well doubt if any British sportsmen who, raided an English or an Irish village in ; this fashion would have fared much better; and assuming that the facts are a. stated by Mr. G. B. Shaw, Mr. Wells, Dr. j Clifford, Mr. Cunninghame Graham, Mr. Frederic Harrison, and other reputable people who have investigated them, it certainly seems as if it were the duty of the British Government to acknowledge that a grievous- miscarriage of justice has taken place, and to remedy it without delay.